Want to raise pigeons help?

[mandelke86]

Hi all! a little bit ago I got 7 chickens and 6 ducks but while at the auction I saw pigeons and personally thought they were awesome. Since im 15 i have no Idea how to raise them. What do they eat? Can I keep a breeding pair in a rabbit hutch? If not can they go with the chickens? How do you breed them? Whats a common good breed that a beginner can handle? Finally i have hawks do i have to let them fly? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[pigeonE15]

hi check your messages i messaged you on some questions!!!

 

[laughingdog]

Homers, flying flights, tipplers, high fliers, and tumblers, are probly the toughest hardiest cheapest and easiest pigeons i can think of to get. they are all performing breeds, and good choices to start and keep with. they all can be kept pretty simply in rabbit hutch to chicken coop type pen.

 

[laughingdog]

homers can require more room, and not be able to be flown if obtained as anything but maybe squeakers (if have set homing instinct, unless settle by allowing to nest and raise at least season of young). the rest just need week maybe to settle to your home, and six to twenty make great flock/kit in cheap shed even. feed can be budgie feed with caged bird grit, cheap layer pellets, maybe mixed with cheap scratch feed and wild bird seed. a seven grain scratch would provide all needed with calcium grit. also some apple cider vinegar dashed into each gallon of drinking water is benefitial.

 

[laughingdog]

I use a large cheap paint scraper to clean my coops and trays under breeding cages. There should be space in cage for two perches per bird, preferably one per bird on each end of coop/loft/hutch/shed. rollers are really easy to keep as well, but if you fly them they may attract hawks and get attacked a lot more than any of the others as many frustrated fanciers will tell. parlors are also great, and they lose the ability to fly at all at maturity. Parlor tumblers just jump/fly up up to two feet then land back on their feet, in or close as possible for compitition, backflipping once twice or three times. parlor rollers that competitively just keep rolling around on soft ground for one to three football fields in straight line, or until they hit something..

 

[laughingdog]

Breeding is easy just take two large dog bowls preferably with drainage hole/s drilled in, and put on each end of some on side box type with empty space size of third in between them, for each nesting hen you want. then just feed layer pellets to birds conditioning for breeding through until squeakers are weened. two nests illiminates fighting for more nests and any problems that I've heard of from adults attacking babies

 

[laughingdog]

Even adults abandoning and attacking own young, As adults will mate and want to lay again at and after about when each previous pair of squeakers are two weeks old. a breeding box has been used size 24" x 24" x 16", but i prefer 40" x 40" x 40" (no higher than twenty inch for parlors or they won't do too good). These breeding cage/locked up breder box sizes i use have proved optimal health starting and continuing for my birds, worlds better and no troubles heard about from most others who use and when i used standard 24" x 24" x 16" breeding enclosure sizes, maintained health and constant ability to continue to raise two nests full of up to four fosters per their nests ( or two of theirs and two fosters per nest), with no burn out.

 

[laughingdog]

Show and meat birds like king pigeons, are supposed to be great cage pets if you don't want or cannot fly them and have limited space, supposedly ( I've never worked with).