Holy frozen poop balls! . . . And the industrious, genius pigeons.

[jak2002003]

Eeek. If you are allowing the poop to build up over 3 weeks with no cleaning.. till they get the size of BASEBALLS... I think you need to step up on the cleaning out of your birds. Sorry.

 

[Kusanar]

Eeek. If you are allowing the poop to build up over 3 weeks with no cleaning.. till they get the size of BASEBALLS... I think you need to step up on the cleaning out of your birds. Sorry.

I would say the same, but as he stated, it was below 10 degrees for that entire time, freezing is 32 degrees, at 10 degrees poop freezes solid on contact and you would likely break something when trying to clean it off with everything that solid.
I just checked the average temperatures of Thailand (where your location says you are) and it says the coldest temperatures you experience are in December when it gets down to 79 degrees, so you have likely never experienced a winter where everything freezes down, water pipes burst from the water in them freezing, if you get a drop of water on your glove and then touch something, your glove is now STUCK to whatever you touched... it's not fun...

 

[biophiliac]

I would say the same, but as he stated, it was below 10 degrees for that entire time, freezing is 32 degrees, at 10 degrees poop freezes solid on contact and you would likely break something when trying to clean it off with everything that solid.
I just checked the average temperatures of Thailand (where your location says you are) and it says the coldest temperatures you experience are in December when it gets down to 79 degrees, so you have likely never experienced a winter where everything freezes down, water pipes burst from the water in them freezing, if you get a drop of water on your glove and then touch something, your glove is now STUCK to whatever you touched... it's not fun...

You said what I was thinking, but better! I try to clean daily, but won't risk breaking something when it's that cold. I figure if it's that frozen it presents little health risk.

 

[jak2002003]

I would say the same, but as he stated, it was below 10 degrees for that entire time, freezing is 32 degrees, at 10 degrees poop freezes solid on contact and you would likely break something when trying to clean it off with everything that solid.
I just checked the average temperatures of Thailand (where your location says you are) and it says the coldest temperatures you experience are in December when it gets down to 79 degrees, so you have likely never experienced a winter where everything freezes down, water pipes burst from the water in them freezing, if you get a drop of water on your glove and then touch something, your glove is now STUCK to whatever you touched... it's not fun...

I lived half my life in Scotland UK. I know what winters can be like. But I still went and feed, watered and cleaned my animals.

If I was to allow my birds, horses and other animals poop to build up to huge sizes and not clean them out in over 3 months I would be arrested and prosecuted for animal cruelty... and rightly so.

If the OP can manage to get out to the coop to feed, water the birds then he can scrape a few small poops off the perch. Only when they get caked in poop to such an extent will he risk breaking the wood or boxes... which should have never been allowed to get to that level.

 

[jak2002003]

I would say the same, but as he stated, it was below 10 degrees for that entire time, freezing is 32 degrees, at 10 degrees poop freezes solid on contact and you would likely break something when trying to clean it off with everything that solid.
I just checked the average temperatures of Thailand (where your location says you are) and it says the coldest temperatures you experience are in December when it gets down to 79 degrees, so you have likely never experienced a winter where everything freezes down, water pipes burst from the water in them freezing, if you get a drop of water on your glove and then touch something, your glove is now STUCK to whatever you touched... it's not fun...

I lived half my life in Scotland UK. I know what winters can be like. But I still went and feed, watered and cleaned my animals.

If I was to allow my birds, horses and other animals poop to build up to huge sizes and not clean them out in over 3 months I would be arrested and prosecuted for animal cruelty... and rightly so.

If the OP can manage to get out to the coop to feed, water the birds then he can scrape a few small poops off the perch. Only when they get caked in poop to such an extent will he risk breaking the wood or boxes... which should have never been allowed to get to that level.

 

[jak2002003]

I would say the same, but as he stated, it was below 10 degrees for that entire time, freezing is 32 degrees, at 10 degrees poop freezes solid on contact and you would likely break something when trying to clean it off with everything that solid.
I just checked the average temperatures of Thailand (where your location says you are) and it says the coldest temperatures you experience are in December when it gets down to 79 degrees, so you have likely never experienced a winter where everything freezes down, water pipes burst from the water in them freezing, if you get a drop of water on your glove and then touch something, your glove is now STUCK to whatever you touched... it's not fun...

I lived half my life in Scotland UK. I know what winters can be like. But I still went and feed, watered and cleaned my animals.

If I was to allow my birds, horses and other animals poop to build up to huge sizes and not clean them out in over 3 weeks I would be arrested and prosecuted for animal cruelty... and rightly so.

If the OP can manage to get out to the coop to feed, water the birds then he can scrape a few small poops off the perch. Only when they get caked in poop to such an extent will he risk breaking the wood or boxes... which should have never been allowed to get to that level.

 

[jak2002003]

I would say the same, but as he stated, it was below 10 degrees for that entire time, freezing is 32 degrees, at 10 degrees poop freezes solid on contact and you would likely break something when trying to clean it off with everything that solid.
I just checked the average temperatures of Thailand (where your location says you are) and it says the coldest temperatures you experience are in December when it gets down to 79 degrees, so you have likely never experienced a winter where everything freezes down, water pipes burst from the water in them freezing, if you get a drop of water on your glove and then touch something, your glove is now STUCK to whatever you touched... it's not fun...

I was born and lived half my life in Scotland UK so I know what winters can be like. But I still went and fed, watered and cleaned my animals.

If I was to allow my birds, horses and other animals poop to build up to huge sizes and not clean them out in over 3 weeks I would be arrested and prosecuted for animal cruelty... and rightly so. Just imagine the size for the horse poop in 3 weeks!!!

If the OP can manage to get out to the coop to feed, water the birds then he can scrape a few small poops off the perch. Only when they get caked in poop to such an extent will he risk breaking the wood or boxes... which should have never been allowed to get to that level.

Once the temperature get above freezing all that pigeon poop is going to thaw out and the birds and coop will get into a filthy unsanitary mess.

 

[Kusanar]

I lived half my life in Scotland UK. I know what winters can be like. But I still went and feed, watered and cleaned my animals.

If I was to allow my birds, horses and other animals poop to build up to huge sizes and not clean them out in over 3 months I would be arrested and prosecuted for animal cruelty... and rightly so.

If the OP can manage to get out to the coop to feed, water the birds then he can scrape a few small poops off the perch. Only when they get caked in poop to such an extent will he risk breaking the wood or boxes... which should have never been allowed to get to that level.

I have never been to Scotland, but Google says that the average winter low is 32 degrees, right at freezing... That's still nowhere near the temperature that he is talking about. I can WATCH ice form at about 20 degrees.
You would actually need a chisel to remove a semi liquid from a surface at those temperatures unless you were there within seconds of it hitting the roost.
Now, if it had warmed up and he STILL didn't clean, then yes, that is bad animal management, but when it is COLD for weeks on end, there really isn't much you can do. Honestly, I'm surprised he manages to keep liquid water out for them at that temperature. My horses get watered once a day when it's that cold, the water is available at all times, but once it gets a 3 inch crust of ice on it, then they have to wait for me to come out with my big hammer and break the ice up and remove it so that they can get a drink.
That said, animal cruelty laws are quite a bit different in the US than they are in Europe. No one in the US (government) cares about pigeons, they are considered a pest and they are freely shot and poisoned legally year round. Falconers also make good money taking their raptors into the cities to kill and frighten as many pigeons as possible.

 

[LamarshFish]

Eeek. If you are allowing the poop to build up over 3 weeks with no cleaning.. till they get the size of BASEBALLS... I think you need to step up on the cleaning out of your birds. Sorry.

I think you might have misunderstood the situation. I clean my loft every day. When this frozen poop ball situation happened, it was when it was like 5 degrees F outside (-15 Celsius), where I live it gets very cold in the winter, I live in the very far north of the United States, by Canada. The poop was frozen stuck to the wood perches and nest boxes, so I couldn't remove it at all, and it would build up and freeze to itself. I tried to chisel it off but it was so frozen it wouldn't budge. I waited until the moment the temperature rose to thaw the poop to clean it out, and when I went to do that, my birds had already started cleaning the loft out themselves.

at 10 degrees poop freezes solid on contact and you would likely break something when trying to clean it off with everything that solid.

This was my exact problem. I clean my loft every day, so at first I was trying to chisle the poop off and broke one of my perches. It was so cold out the poop was literally completely frozen to the wood. I could chip pieces of poop off of other poop, but that was about it.

I lived half my life in Scotland UK. I know what winters can be like.

There is no comparing winter in Scotland to winter in Michigan. Sometimes it gets so cold here you cannot even breath through your nose or mouth without your saliva or snot instantly freezing. It sometimes gets -25C where I live. Most of the time, however, even when it is below 32F (0 degress celcius), let's say around 20F, which is about average for winter, although the poop does freeze, it is not so frozen so I can't scrape it off. So most of the time during winter I am able to scrape the poop off, thankfully. It's just those super cold blasts we get that makes it very tough to do.