Good News!

[Hokum Coco]

WOW! GOOD NEWS!
I have one pair of birds building a nest with one egg freshly laid today ♂ 616. That should hatch on the 16 of March. In a perfect world.Two squabs broke out of their eggs Feb 24 ♂ 624, . I notices a pair of my pigeons are incubating 2 from a few days ago. They should hatch around the 12 ♂ 594 of March.
Now I just hope I have some luck with these eggs.

 

[sourland]

And this is how the flock grows.

 

[laughingdog]

Congrats backyard buddy!
I'm not having luck with six pairs of roller breeders down to, as only one , my fifty foot pair, are still incubating fertile eggs last I candled.

 

[Hokum Coco]

Congrats backyard buddy!
I'm not having luck with six pairs of roller breeders down to, as only one , my fifty foot pair, are still incubating fertile eggs last I candled. That is odd for you. Your birds usually do quite well as a rule. Still plenty of breeding season to come on the up side. Something tells me you will get things to turn in your favour soon.
I am trying to get my birds up to 25 pairs or there about. I seem to have my predator problem solve (Knock on wood). As long as I remember to shut up the the main door now I should be ok.

 

[jak2002003]

That's great news.. and you will have some beautiful birds soon.

I have one pair of fancy pigeons that I am trying to get to breed.. with no luck.

They are paired up nicely.. get on well and I have seen them mating several times. but its over 2 months now and still no eggs off them. I know they are male and female as I can tell them apart and have seen the female have eggs with another mate.

My other pigeons are all breeding like crazy.. I have to swap their eggs for fake ones or my bantam chicken eggs.

The one pair I really want to breed as they are a rare colour I will not be able to get any more that colour in the future where I live.

Any ideas why the female is not laying eggs? Anything I can do to encourage her?

She is not moulting and is in good health. Thanks.

 

[Hokum Coco]

Any ideas why the female is not laying eggs? Anything I can do to encourage her?

She is not moulting and is in good health.

What works for me is I have a feeder of hen laying pellets, a separate feeder of whole corn, clean fresh water every day, and crushed oyster shells 24/7 (the crushed oyster shells are probably not necessary as they are included in the laying pellets in a perfect world I also believe in overkill when it comes to the squab egg shells.) My routine was to feed my birds twice a day for 15 minutes but I have 66 trips around the sun now and bouncing out to the loft twice a day in the winter with arctic and blizzard conditions is not as easy for me as it once was.

Supplementing your loft with 12 hours of light may hurry things along as well. A lot of the pigeon fanciers do this to get as mature of a bird as possible for the start of the racing season ( I do not race or have tried this method personally.) As ♀ pigeons age it is natural for egg production to slow down a bit
Oh I also hand feed only my pigeons shelled unsalted peanuts. It is like cocaine it makes them tame and except you better in the loft.

 

[Hokum Coco]

Besides all the good news I already posted above I have two more birds that are beginning to pair up and build a nest. I will now have 4 breeding pairs out of my flock of 13 birds hopefully. I did not select the breeding pairs I just let them choose their mates by natural selection.

 

[laughingdog]

My pairs take all nesting material out of bowls, then abandon eggs or hatchlings when I introduce bedding so young don't get spraddle legged n stomach sores.. Extremely frustrating and a new problem only this and last year, but then been using line shavings they seem to throw out too. I think I'll bag up and use twigs, pine needles, crushed dried leaves, and hay, again.

 

[Hokum Coco]

. I think I'll bag up and use twigs, pine needles, crushed dried leaves, and hay, again.

I have been using twigs, and pine needles throwing them on the floor letting the fetch their own and build their own nest. Seems to be working for me back yard pigeon buddy.

I have nest bowls in all of their lined compartment (lined with nylon mesh feed bags) and every pair have failed to use the bowls. They have been building their nest nest to the bowls on the feed bags. I know better than try and force my will on the birds. If it is not broken I will not try to fix it. They can do what ever suits them I have learned the hard way.

Now my last flock loved the nest bowls.

 

[laughingdog]

I had two three tier rabbit rack cages, all wire with metal drop pan, put out on my back porch,when first moved to where am now, and with my back hadn't been able to move them.. So nowhere else to move those to, and haven't made my pallet etc coops yet, I'm using these six cages for twelve pair of rollers kept to breed. Wire under them, n all around, not working out too good, box coops, open only on fronts, worked much much better all around.