Pigeons with bantam chickens...

[QuoVadis]

So I think I'm going to add a couple roller pigeons to my bantam coop. The bantams in it (d'Uccles, d'Anvers, Dutch, Pyncheon, EEs) are only 9 weeks old they are currently significantly smaller than pigeons, so it seems like it would be good to add the pigeons soon. Im planing on adding some seperate higher pigeon perches, but I have a couple questions about what else I would need to do. Can pigeons use a nipple style waterer? Its just a 5g bucket with nipples in the bottom, hung up 6in off the ground. Can they be trained to use this? I wouldnt mind in the summer offering other water, but I have to use a heater 5 months of the year, and I don't really want to get another heater waterer. Also, will pigeons return to roost in the coop at night on thier own? The run is covered with netting, so they'd be able to fly around in there without escaping.

Anything I'm missing, that I need to know? Any other tips?

 

[Curtiejlee]

They would probably do great with the chickens! They can't, however, use a nipple watered as they drink by sucking up water like a horse rather than cupping it in their beak and tipping their head back like chickens. I use two milk jugs with a round hole cut about 3.5 inches high in the side for water. One stays in the loft and, because its usually frozen, is switched out with the other one in the morning. I put the frozen one in the utility sink of our garage and its thawed by the morning. All I have to do then is fill it up in the morning with warm water and switch it with the one in the loft. Unless you get adult homers, you can let them out of the coop after about a month to free fly. If you get old homers, you'll have to clip their wings. They will be homed to your property by then.

 

[QuoVadis]

Yeah, I know pigeons drink water differently than most birds, but I have heard differing opions as to whether they can/cannot use a nipple waterer. I found several posts saying they couldn't and several saying they used only nipple waterers. Anyone have firsthand exsperience? Also, do I need to make a seperate pigeon door up high or will they go in and out the little chicken door at the bottom?

 

[Curtiejlee]

They'll use the lower chicken door.

 

[jak2002003]

Don't mix them if you want to breed your pigeons.

The chickens will eat the baby pigeons when they hatch.

I keep pigeons and Japanese Bantams together no problems when they are not breeding.

I once let some pairs of pigeons lay eggs and when the squabs hatched out.. after 2 or 3 days.. the chickens flew up into the pigeons nest boxes and ate the chicks.

Also when older squabs fly out of the nest for the first time they will get attacked and pecks badly by the chickens.... causing serious injury to their heads. They don't have the ability to fly well at first to escape the aggressive birds.

But adult chickens, and adult pigeons will live together fine.

A good tip is to clip the chickens wings.. and give them a ladder to lower roost and their own nest boxes.

Then they won't be able to fly up to the higher roosts and the nest boxes for the pigeons.

When you want to breed you pigeons cage them in their own coop / aviary or large cage... putting them back in with the chickens when they are finished and their own chicks are independent.