Pigeon friends for a disabled chicken?

[Cheekychook12]

I thought I would come back and provide an update to the whole situation, in case anyone is ever in a similar situation.

After MUCH research and discussion with some folks that have ample pigeon experience, we moved forward with adopting 4 young pet pigeons that had been surrendered when their owner passed away:

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They were quarantined for 6 weeks away from my chickens (3x the time the rescue suggested to me) to be VERY sure that they were not dealing with any disease. If anyone is interested in adding pigeons to their flock, I think it is absolutely vital to read up and be prepared for the kinds of diseases that can be shared between birds. I feel VERY prepared to handle anything that comes my way, and have approched ALL of it cautiously.

After that 6 weeks, we started testing out some integration, and I have to say - it could not have gone more smoothly. When I say my chickens did not care even one tiny bit about these pigeons, I feel like I am not stressing enough. My chickens DID NOT CARE that these birds were there. I never saw ANY chasing, even when there were treats involved.

We added lots of high perches (like in the picture) in our chicken yard, and came up with some off-the-ground places to house their feed, so the chickens cant get to it.

After about a week of supervised interaction without any issue, I left the door to the chicken yard open, and they have been living fully integrated ever since without even so much as a side-eye from my hens. The pigeons surprisingly spend a LOT of time walking around on the ground, mingling with the chickens, they occasionally peck at their feed, but prefer their own seed, so that hasn't been an issue.

I don't know how to explain what I witnessed when I blended these birds. It almost feels like, my chickens knew these were pigeons, and they were not a threat in any way. I have no idea how, as none of my chickens have been exposed to pigeons before?? The pigeons also, do not seem phased/bothered/stressed/or even remotely worried about the chickens.

Although the pigeons have access daily to the chicken yard, they do have their own separate run/nesting area, and that area is the one they share with my disabled chicken. It took her a bit to get used to them flapping in and out, but she seems genuinely happy to have something to look at every day now, and like I said, they do spend a surprising amount of time on the ground, collecting sticks for their nests, etc.... She has a covered space to get under if they are bothering her with their flapping.

All in all, it has worked out BETTER than I could have imagined, and these birds are SO fun to observe and get to know. They are really like little puppies, and I love that everyone is getting along, and thriving together...

If anyone has questions, let me know... I am still learning, but trying to do the best I can for all of my birds!

That’s very sweet
My free ranging bantams are sometimes joined by wild crested pigeons and they seem to get along fine unless the pigeons come after their wheat seeds

 

[Zenmonkey]

Homing pigeons - if I remember correctly - and it has been many years.
Are taught by - the young go out with some older birds from the same flock - who they follow home.

That's interesting. I enjoyed racing pigeons, but I was never terribly successful. The older gentlemen I flew with said to toss old birds and young birds separately. Their logic was that the young birds took too long to group up. The older birds would fly off without them. And so effectively you'd be tossing small numbers of older birds and still have a group of young birds together.

But it was also common in my club to wean the young birds early and keep them separate. Maybe if they stayed with the old birds longer there would have been more of a bond and it would have worked better?

 

[Finchbreeder]

I am going on a very old memory - from when my dad used to train and race pigeons.

 

[cavemanrich]

I have been reading and following this thread,, and the topic sometimes takes turns, so let me chime in.
It is still not totally known how pigeons find their way home. Theories are,,,,, using earths' magnetic field . As well a visual memory of certain terrain features. But when you consider a 600 mile race. no way can a pigeon have visual memory of terrain it never flew over before.
This is to releasing racing pigeons for races, and training. In my area. Chicago Ill. all releases were always due west. Fanciers that I knew, also trained their pigeons using releases from WEST.

Other area clubs in different parts of the US, released their races to fly different directions.

So here is one observation I have often read about. A lost pigeon that normally should have flew to his home in Michigan,,, ends up in Wisconsin.
Those pigeons were released somewhere in Southern Indiana,, and most made it home,,,,,, But some,, that may have gotten wind blown west,, ended on the wrong side of Lake Michigan.
Releasing a lost pigeon as such,, after recovery, and feeding,,, was feudal. Pigeon would never find his home,, because they will not fly over bodies of water. Lake Michigan is equivalent of a sea.
Many of the found pigeons, the owners were contacted. They usually declined to come pick them up, and offered them to be kept by the finding party.
2 reasons here.
Long journey to retrieve pigeon.
They didn't want pigeons that easily got lost.

Zenmonkey​

You are located in Wester PA. Which direction were your racing birds take to??

 

[Zenmonkey]

Zenmonkey​

You are located in Wester PA. Which direction were your racing birds take to??

To the best of my recollection, the birds were always taken west for an easterly travel home. The "Big" race was released from St Louis, which most of us was about 600 miles. There may have been an short, early race that wasn't from the west, but if so, it eludes my memory.

For us it wasn't getting birds to cross bodies of water, but rather they wanted to follow the mountain ridges. They didn't like to change altitude.

Your assessment regarding racers not wanting their birds back is spot on.

 

[sals_chicks]

The conversation is really interesting either way! Thank you @Zenmonkey @RoostersAreAwesome @Finchbreeder @cavemanrich for all of the information.

I have no intentions for racing these pigeons at all - so the homing aspect is not likely to be something I pursue training them to do. I think it might be useful if they did it on their own just so I would not have to worry in the event that they were accidentally let out of their space. But I guess I'll only really cross that bridge when/if I am forced to.

The total area they have to putz around in, including, coop, covered run, and open air chicken yard is about 1200 square feet total. Certainly not a "free flying" space, but definitely enough space to loop around in a couple times, and now that they have gotten used to the bird net, they do fly around quite a bit. I am honestly really surprised by how much they seem to enjoy just toodling around on their feet though. I wonder if their previous home was a much smaller space?

Anyway, they are really fun! I've read a lot about pigeon racing, as it appears that a lot of the rescues out there were previously racing pigeons. It feels like it can be a really inhumane sport for them, and made me kind of sad to learn about... No judgement to anyone, I just want others to know about that if they are reading this.

 

[Qwerty3159]

I've read a lot about pigeon racing, as it appears that a lot of the rescues out there were previously racing pigeons. It feels like it can be a really inhumane sport for them, and made me kind of sad to learn about...

You’re definitely correct. I think a lot of small-time racers have their pigeons’ best interests at heart but when you get in the big leagues and big sums of money for the winner become involved, there is always unethical behavior. The same can be said about practically all animal racing, sadly. Particularly cruel pigeon races that come to mind are the ones where the pigeons are dumped off a boat in the South China Sea, or when they’re made to fly the English Channel. Pigeons don’t like to fly over water and I think it’s unimaginably cruel to dump them out to fly in the sea. There’s definitely upsetting aspects about pigeon racing. On the flip side, local pigeon racers were all I had for advice when I was starting out before I joined this forum. I still consider my local racers good friends, but personally I’ll never be into racing.

Free flying pigeons really does seem like a "flock" thing to do. Even training racing pigeons, a sport where it is common to have birds coming home one at a time, training is best done with 8-10 birds or more, if possible.

Eventually they can have a very strong homing instinct / skill / behavior. But initially? Birds first tossed as singles, doubles, and trios seemed to disappear much more commonly.

This was my experience starting out. I had terrible luck starting out when training about 3-5 birds but things got way better when I increased the flock size to just 10. OP since you only have four pigeons, I think you’re better off keeping them in the nice setup you have.

Homing pigeons - if I remember correctly - and it has been many years.
Are taught by - the young go out with some older birds from the same flock - who they follow home.

That’s how I’ve always trained mine. I don’t race but all my pigeons lift fly at least once a day. The hardest pigeons to train are the first ones you let out. After that, it’s really no effort at all. They learn very well from example. I don’t even bother using a settling cage or trying to trap-train the youngsters anymore. So far they all figure it out on their first attempt by watching the other pigeons.

 

[Zenmonkey]

I agree completely. @sals_chicks (OP) seems to have an ideal set up for a handful of ornamental type pigeons. And while I wouldn't have guessed there would be that level of positive interaction with a disabled chicken, I'm thrilled to hear that it works.

There's broadly speaking three categories of domestic pigeon. Performance pigeons (racers, homers, tumblers, rollers, high flyers, surely assisting I've forgotten), meat pigeons (kings, pioneers, hubbles, I'm sure others), and an amazing host of show pigeons.

It's not hard to argue that raising a bird that can barely fly slowly to be slaughtered for meat isn't terribly kind. We do it to turkeys, chickens, and ton of other animals. We're omnivores, I'm not going to try to start a flame war about the ethics of meat animals. I'm just pointing out that it is a frequently raised point.

Show animals have been accused of being a source of cruelty as well. The more extreme firms of Serama bantams, the largest and tiniest of dogs, horses, goats, etc etc have health issues. Pouter pigeons can have crop issues, some lines of fantail pigeons have spinal issues similar to certain Serama lineages, grunts, Valencia figuritas, short billed pigeons like Barbs and Modern/ Oriental frills that can't feed their own young. This class isn't immune to accusations if cruelly.

And yes, the performance pigeons make up the biggest portion of rescues. They also likely provide a continuing stream of genetics into the feral population. Racers in particular are likely to end up separated from home. I recall trying to assist with the 911 pigeon boards back in the day, and the entire thing became overwhelmed during the start of young birds season.

There is some curating by the animals themselves. People who neglected their animals found a higher rate of animals who decided home wasn't all that, and they could do better. The old men who spent all day every day in the loft had tighter bonds with their birds, knew better which birds were in the wrong stage of molt (supposedly when the flight feathers at the elbow were growing in, forcing the joint was uncomfortable, and the birds would prefer not to fly for several days), etc.

So those who best cares for their birds does the best, and had the fewest losses. I admit that I wasn't great at this. I had young children, and not a lot of free time. The birds convinced me not to continue to race!

But the performance birds are bred to fly. So I continued to loft fly until raccoons and weasels ended my birds keeping.

All of this is intended to say that racing can be cruel, if it is done poorly. But I think that is true of quite a bit of animal husbandry. We humans need to draw the line and start on the right side of it. I think the best way to do that is for each individual person to pay attention to their animals, and also to the people around us.

All the best, and thank you for a fascinating conversation, @sals_chicks !