Pigeon Talk

[cavemanrich]

Glad you said leave it because I was about to remove it.
But if it explodes, I’m hunting you down, mister.

Just so you don't have to resort to a criminal lifestyle, your option is to replace dud, with a plastic one. Removing totally may, but I'm not sure, induce pigeon to lay another replacement.
A offset hatching,,,,, definitely not a favorable situation.
I also never had an exploding pigeon egg. Maybe it takes a longer duration of time to ferment inside and pop, VS a chicken egg.

 

[memphis]

We're having a pigeon population explosion here! I'm having a hard time keeping up with it. Love the bug eyed baby pictures.

 

[Pyxis]

My two are displaying possible breeding behavior - the cock is doing some wooing and cooing at the hen, so we'll see if I end up with an egg here soon.

 

[backyard pigeons]

We're having a pigeon population explosion here! I'm having a hard time keeping up with it. Love the bug eyed baby pictures.

Ah hem... when are you gonna get some to join in on the fun? What breed do your want? I might know a Portuguese tumblers breeder in memphis...

 

[memphis]

Well BC...was going to wait till this spring/summer. I have no idea on breed. There are way too many choices. I'm going to look up the Portuguese tumblers....never heard of them. And in the meantime...I'm still learning tons. Which is a good thing!

 

[backyard pigeons]

Well BC...was going to wait till this spring/summer. I have no idea on breed. There are way too many choices. I'm going to look up the Portuguese tumblers....never heard of them. And in the meantime...I'm still learning tons. Which is a good thing!

Portuguese tumblers, ports for short, are so much fun. They are about 1\2 the size of a racer. They have short beaks, but not to short to feed young. They are decent flyers from what I have heard, but rarely tumble. They are a good show bird, if you like showing. They are very colorful. I got them on the spot at the show because they are small, colorful, friendly, good flyers and good show birds. here are some of mine:

 

[backyard pigeons]

Here's one that I raised before his first molt:

After first molt: yes, it's the same bird.

 

[Qwerty3159]

thanks. How are your birds? How many do you plan on breeding this year?

Oops! Thought I replied to this. They're all doing well. It was snowing pretty hard on and off during the last few days which prompted me to decide to finally get them comfortable coming back into the aviary if they escape. They were all pretty out of shape and no one did any actual flying but that was fine as I didn't even have to scoop them up when they flew to the old loft.
I've had lots of Cooper's in the area still but luckily none were out hunting when it was snowing. Today is unusually warm and they enjoyed a nice bath earlier.
I don't really intend on breeding any more because I don't want to have to keep more flying birds cooped up all the time with the hawk pressure. I would like to get some fancy breeds in the future, maybe satinettes, but I don't see myself doing much flying in the future.

 

[memphis]

BP....I looked up the Ports. I noticed they were some of the smaller birds. Huge color range. Rather dapper looking! I like them.

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

I’m behind on the thread, page 919, but I have two things to share with you all. One sad and one not so sad.

I’ll start with the sad.. The thought to be male parent bird was killed by something. I am going to take the blame for this one as I hadn’t even thought about rodents when just setting the cage on the counter in the garage. Not to mention the 1”x1” squares would let just about any small rodent in I found it this morning before work, I hadn’t been out there the evening before to do a night check though so I can’t be sure when it happened..

I’m not thinking it’s likely that it was a field mouse (we have lots of those in the garage) as they would normally go for the seeds before the bird wouldn’t they? I’ve had mouse infested pigeon lofts before and never saw it happen.. We did catch a pretty large rat in the summer so maybe it was one of those.. I’m mainly worried it’s a mink/weasel as we have a flowing creek right behind our property and I know they like access to those when choosing a place to live. I am about to go rig up the trap with 1/4”x1/4” hardware cloth to help seal any rodent inside when it shuts and then bait it with the carcass and maybe some wet cat food for interest.

On a lighter note, I now know for sure that I have a male/female sibling pair..

That’s the younger bird on the two eggs, most definitely a female

I don’t want them to hatch the eggs so I’m hoping to get some ideas on what I could do instead? I know there’s the fake eggs people always talk about, will the female just constantly sit on those eggs trying to hatch them? Will it be like a broody chicken sitting on fake eggs?

I had only put the bowl of hay in there because they were restless always moving a stick around on the sand when trying to pick a good nesting area that wouldn’t let the stick blow away when they flew to the perches. Also to give me an idea on gender because the female was acting and looking so much like the other I thought I had two males. She was getting pretty possessive of the food and the good perch leading up to the eggs so I thought it was a male territory thing.. guess not so that’s good to know for the future!

I’ll probably remember something I forgot to mention later but for now I’m hitting post as I need to go collect my chicken eggs for the day. Hope everyone is doing well!!