Pigeon Talk

[Amer]

I took that picture last week Wednesday.
Look at the size now!

 

[Amer]

The hen is very insistent on setting after laying one egg but it must be said that singletons grow very fast.
Pigeons multiply like crazy!

 

[Amer]

The chunky baldhead Show Rollers do not appear to have the same "drive" as my little Arabian Trumpeters though.
So far, not an egg from the hen, though one of my young Arabian hens laid an egg recently (on a shelf.)
Honestly, Arabian Trumpeters are one of the easiest breeds to keep, though they aren't sweet pets.
They can fly well but don't really like to. They show off like pouters (using their voice instead more than a display) but are good parents. The only problem is, they have too much energy and they are quite aggressive. They like to fight with all other pigeons. Even though they are much smaller than the baldheads they seem to eat as much.
The baldheads are lazy. All they do is stand there.

 

[Qwerty3159]

My loft maxes out around 10-12 birds so I am typically only adding 1-2 young birds each year to the flock to offset any losses to predators. There’s definitely different schools of thought as far as flying these birds goes, having separate lofts for old and young birds, etc. I’ve been doing alright so far with raising up one or two young birds each season and letting the old birds do most of the training for me. You have to get more serious if you want to race, but this technique works well for my loft flying. The first picture is a young bird born in fall of 2024 that I hung onto. I think adding new young birds to the flock periodically helps motivate the old birds to stay active - the youngest is always the first out the door.

And then I have two new babies currently. I will probably just give them away to a local fancier.

I did lose one of my 2016 cocks over the winter to a goshawk. Unfortunately my entire loft is now filled with widowed hens. One is my homer in retirement (19 years old), I have two younger widowed homers (~4 or younger), and my giant runt/tumbler mix hen is also widowed. Out of my flock of 9 I only have two pairs at the moment. I like having a peaceful loft with only 2 mature cocks, but I don’t want any of my hens to get lonely and split on me either.

 

[Amer]

My loft maxes out around 10-12 birds so I am typically only adding 1-2 young birds each year to the flock to offset any losses to predators. There’s definitely different schools of thought as far as flying these birds goes, having separate lofts for old and young birds, etc. I’ve been doing alright so far with raising up one or two young birds each season and letting the old birds do most of the training for me. You have to get more serious if you want to race, but this technique works well for my loft flying. The first picture is a young bird born in fall of 2024 that I hung onto. I think adding new young birds to the flock periodically helps motivate the old birds to stay active - the youngest is always the first out the door.

And then I have two new babies currently. I will probably just give them away to a local fancier.

I did lose one of my 2016 cocks over the winter to a goshawk. Unfortunately my entire loft is now filled with widowed hens. One is my homer in retirement (19 years old), I have two younger widowed homers (~4 or younger), and my giant runt/tumbler mix hen is also widowed. Out of my flock of 9 I only have two pairs at the moment. I like having a peaceful loft with only 2 mature cocks, but I don’t want any of my hens to get lonely and split on me either.

19 is pretty old.
Too many hens is a better problem then too many cocks but that is a lot of hens!

 

[avjudge]

Unfortunately my entire loft is now filled with widowed hens.

That's funny, mine goes the other way: I would have 5 males and 1 female if another female that was released nearby hadn't decided to move in rather than fly home. (That was in the post I made last fall about the falconer I spotted in the field across the road from my house.)

I've figured out why I mostly lose females to hawks: the paired males are on the nests during the day when I open the doors to let them fly. I'm not sure why the mothers and not the unpaired sons are the ones I lose, though. And as I've griped here, so far my batting average is perfect with only males hatched.

I'm trying again, though. I left one egg with a pair last month but it looks like they just gave up on it. Hoping for better luck next month! And hoping for a female.

And I'm keeping them in until our broad-winged hawks return and reclaim their territory. So far I've only ever lost pigeons when they are not here.

 

[Qwerty3159]

19 is pretty old.
Too many hens is a better problem then too many cocks but that is a lot of hens!

Typo on my end, but still 17 is pretty old. I am still on the hunt for a similarly elderly male pigeon that I can try to pair her up with. Her old mate was just a random young bird that unfortunately got taken by a hawk and she has been a widow since.

I've figured out why I mostly lose females to hawks: the paired males are on the nests during the day when I open the doors to let them fly. I'm not sure why the mothers and not the unpaired sons are the ones I lose, though. And as I've griped here, so far my batting average is perfect with only males hatched.

That’s interesting! I have lost more males and it typically is when the males are strutting around outside the loft, trying to fight outside, or otherwise not paying attention and then they get struck by the patient hawk. The aggression bred itself out of my flock pretty fast when all the aggressive males kept getting eaten.
The last hen I lost was just bad luck and a passing falcon snatched her on a loft fly. I seem to have the odd falcon attack now and then where the falcon can take one of the pigeons in the air, but otherwise the only time I lost pigeons is within spitting distance of the loft when they get ambushed by accipiter hawks.

 

[Amer]

Moved them to their outdoor pen. I moved the baldheads and younger birds in a day ahead to time to give them an advantage over Biff

They enjoy the bath I gave them down there. It's been a long while since they've gotten to do that.
The Arabian Trumpeter on the ramp is the one that hatched only 4 weeks ago. Hard to believe it already looks like a regular pigeon. They knocked the grit cup over already... I forgot it doesn't fit on that wall...

I guess they can eat it off the ground

 

[Qwerty3159]

I haven’t had so much as a mouse get into this loft since it was built...

I guess he went in through the trap door yesterday and I didn’t notice and locked him in all night, poor guy. At least he was a really polite cat and there’s not a feather out of place. It could’ve been a total massacre.

I’m wondering if the pigeons even knew he was in there. It took me a few minutes to notice him hiding under there, when it first caught my eye I thought maybe one of the birds was deceased on the floor. Gave him some water and then he ran off, pretty fat and a with a collar, so I’m not worried.

 

[CCsGarden]

Can anyone here help give me some advice? Benedict needs some help!