neighbor just brought me two pigeons - I want to raise squab

[ericcc]

I've been thinking and talking about raising pigeons for years. I read up on it a few years ago but I've forgotten most of what I read then. Today a neighbor just dropped off two pigeons at my house that someone else gave him. I'm pretty sure they're wild type pigeons, which I figure might be about as good a choice as any for squab. Even though they'll be a lot smaller at butchering weight, I can start with free birds, so if they succumb to predators or otherwise don't work out I won't have lost much, and I figure they might be more efficient foragers and better at evading predators than the larger breeds. I have raised free range chickens for 10 years, and I've learned how to keep losses to hawks to a manageable level, mainly by keeping them locked up when my numbers start dropping, on average for about 1-1/2 months per year, often around October. When hawks really get after my chickens I can lose 1-2 per day every day, but I've also had plenty of 6+ month stretches without a single loss, and I've been able to raise more than enough biddies to replace my losses, so all in all I'm happy with that system. I hope I can do something similar with the pigeons.

So here are my questions. I currently have two pigeons in two cardboard boxes. What do I do short term? Where do I put them? I'm mainly wondering about housing. And then what am I going to want for longer term housing? I just want to test the waters (air) with these pigeons before I try to scale up, and if these pigeons work out I can build something larger next year, but I'd like to build something suitable for these pigeons to raise some squab this year. I figure that may be too complicated to accomplish right away, though, so I figure I may need to do something else for a short term solution, but I want my short term solution to make for the easiest transition to the medium term solution. For example, if I intend to let them free fly as soon as practical, do I want to keep them where they can see out or do I want to keep them enclosed with solid walls on all sides for now?

Any book recommendations for raising free flying pigeons for meat? I imagine any such books would be really old, hopefully even off copyright and available for free online.

Anyone else raise free flying pigeons for meat? I love the idea of poultry that will forage for all their own feed most months of the year and bring back manure for me that I can use in the garden, too.

 

[Quacking Pigeon]

You would want to keep them locked up for 4 weeks then start letting them out to fly.

 

[Quacking Pigeon]

Do you have a photo of them?

 

[Hokum Coco]

You would want to keep them locked up for 4 weeks

In some cases 4 weeks is not enough (depending on age and blood line) some pigeons never bond to a new location. In older birds especially I found that 3 rounds of squabs was more successful in my loft. Even then I had pigeons that returned home to their original loft.

 

[purslanegarden]

for quick temporary housing, you can put them into cages that would fit them. Then as you have time, build them a kind of coop that is similar to chicken coop. though some people prefer the actual pigeon housing, that will just depend on what you can do with the time since you haven't fully committed to having more pigeons yet, in case something happens to these pigeons.