- Feb 23, 2016 A lonely woman who ignored a council order to stop feeding the pigeons in her garden must pay a £640 fine and £1,729 court costs.
- Dec 12, 2009 Pigeon Feeding - Feeding to Win During the racing season, the main function of food is to provide the fuel for flying. Our common aim is to provide the racing pigeon with the best fuel for race day. To do this consistently we must have a good understanding of the food itself. The following paragraphs.
May 02, 2012 Wild Pigeons in a Crazy Feeding Frenzy Part #1 Update: There is no longer a sitting area on the corner of South Water & Michigan Ave. There was ounce a Bennigan's restaurant here on this corner of.
Keeping Pigeons:
People keep pigeons for many different reasons such as racing/homing, breeding for shape and colors, fancy flying, pets or meat, so there are now hundreds of pigeon breeds bred for different uses and entertainment.
Food:
Everyone feeds their pigeons differently, so there is really no set diet but a mix of about 16% protein poultry pellets and some seeds and grains makes a good balanced diet. I feed my pigeons a variety of seeds and grains as well as poultry grower pellets (they don't need such high protein but I keep my quails with them and the quails need the extra protein in the grower pellets) and fresh greens and veggies. Some of their favorite foods are dry peas, such as maple peas and Canadian field peas, popcorn and whole dry corn, hulled barley, wheat and sunflower seeds. For veggies they will peck at - but not always eat as they can be picky about eating their vegetables - frozen defrosted peas, chopped up or shredded kale, lettuce, unsprayed dandelion greens and spinach. Sometimes I will sprout some seeds for them which they usually love, although a few take a little bit to get used to new foods. To sprout the seeds I let them soak in a jar with a screen on top overnight, then drain and leave upside-down rinsing every day until the sprouts are about the length of the seed. My pigeons prefer the sprouts to be less than a half inch at the most. Pigeons always need a source of grit and during breeding season a bowl of crushed oyster shell should be available at all times for the females.
Extra corn should be fed in the winter in cold climates because it helps them generate heat.
Water:Pigeons always need access to clean drinking water and also love to bathe at least a couple times a week. The drinking water bowl should always be at least 1 inch deep because pigeons need to dip their whole beak in it to drink. The bath container should be at least a foot in diameter to fit one pigeon. They prefer to have a couple inches of water with a slightly grippy bottom so their feet don't slip and it should be cleaned after a day of bathing. They will all take turns bathing if the bath bowl only fits one or two pigeons at a time, and then sit with their wings spread out in the sun to dry.
Pigeons and doves produce a feather dust that keeps their feathers water-resistant and healthy but when they take a bath it leaves a white powdery layer on the surface of the water.
Housing:
My current pigeon cage started out as one 5' x 8' coop that I added on to as I got more pigeons. The middle section is only wire and they will sit in the sun after a bath to dry off. Also when it rains they love sitting outside in the rain 'taking a shower' The cage is now about 8' x 13'.
Having the small cage in front is very useful for quarantining new birds or separating injured or fighting birds. I love building cages (that's why mine have so many sections added on afterwards) however cages do not need to be like this, an old garden shed or rabbit hutch will work fine for housing pigeons. Although not super important, they really love having a fully fenced-in outside area especially since I don't let mine free fly because of all the hawks in my area.
Nesting:
The picture on the right is of one of my hand-raised pigeons named Cranberry defending his nest from my hand. He and his mate usually prefer to nest on the ground so I let them incubate some quail eggs for me and removed them as soon as they hatched because the pigeons were freaking out about the little fuzzy quail chicks running around everywhere. Those quail were however the healthiest baby quail I have ever had so I think I'll let the pigeons hatch some more next spring.
Most pigeons prefer to use nesting boxes instead of just nesting on the ground although having the boxes this close together does not work very well for me because one pair will try to take control of all of the boxes. They should be at least a foot away from each-other.Candling a pigeon egg after about 4 days of incubation shows the veins and embryo development.
The male will bring sticks to the nest and the female does the decorating.
Just-hatched baby pigeon under the mom. Pigeons feed their babies 'crop milk' which is partially digested seeds and is high in protein and fat with lots of digestive enzymes that the babies need for the first few days of life. Once they are about 5 days old the parents start feeding them seeds mixed in with the crop milk, slowly increasing the amount of seeds/whole food until they are being fed only that. Once they are fully feathered and have left the nest they start eating on their own, but the male will usually still feed them for a couple more weeks until they are fully eating on their own. The female usually takes a break during this time or goes back to sitting on a new clutch of eggs.
Choosing Pigeons:
When purchasing pigeons you should choose ones that are alert and not too light or heavy, with clean eyes, nostrils, mouth/beak and feathers. New birds should always be quarantined for about 2-4 weeks before being introduced to any current birds to minimize risk of disease.
Feeding the pigeons can be a pleasant experience for them and for us...apart, of course, from the harassment by those who have been led to believe that pigeons spread disease.
Pigeons don't do themselves any favours by congregating in town centres , although it is natural for them to do so: city centre buildings resemble the clifs and ledges that were their original natural habitat and the lofts that were built when they were domesticated and kept in towns as a source of food in the event of a siege.
The number of feral pigeons in this country is quite small, 100,000 breeding pairs compared to over 4,000,000 pairs of blackbirds. If they spread themselves out over the country they would be rare and probably treasured. When they congregate in large numbers in any one location they make themselves visible to pigeon haters and put themselves at risk.
We pigeon lovers really don't help the pigeons when we put down large amounts of food in the same place for the them to eat every day, an act of kindness that inevitably causes what is called an 'aggregation' of pigeons and will attract complaints from the intolerant.
I once saw a very scruffy young pigeon in a street near my office. As I had a bag of mixed corn with me I gave it a little handful and walked on. The next day there were two pigeons there, so I left two handfuls of food...and so it went on, the pigeons and the food increasing day by day until 60 pigeons waited for me each evening.
Soon after my 'aggregation' had occurred a particularly unpleasant man who lived close to my feeding spot threatened to shoot the pigeons and throw them in my garden. I reported his threat to the police and the officer that attended was actually prepared to issue a harassment warning to him but I felt that the pigeons would be safer if I stopped feeding them there. Fortunately it was summer and plenty of other places where people fed them and I was still able to supplement their food.
Pigeons are extremely appealing birds and some will stand in front of you and look you straight in the eye, hoping that you are a kind person that will feed them. This is something that I can't resist, so whenever I am likely to come across feral pigeons I take a little food with me ..after all, I will need it if I need to catch a pigeon in distress, such as one with its feet tangled in thread! But I avoid feeding as a routine and in any great quantity unless there is severe weather such as ice and snow, which means they would need more food than normal but find less.
I have discussed this with several pigeon feeders and we agree the problem is that when you start feeding pigeons regularly they get to recognise you very quickly and you also start to recognise and become attached to individual birds: some because of their colouring, some because of deformities, some because they will hop on your hand or hover in front of you when you arrive...you begin to feel responsible for the flock and to fear that something dreadful will happen if they turn up and you don't. And so you become a compulsive pigeon feeder.
I once asked someone whose father was a fancier how much I should feed a feral pigeon and her answer was 'just enough to prevent it from starving'. I think that was perhaps a sensible answer. A pigeon will need to eat on average 10% of its body weight a day , usually adult feral pigeons weigh between 300 and 350 gms, so their total daily requirement is 30-35 gms each, about a handful...you will need to give them much less than that if they are not to become reliant on you as their only source of food!
My advice to others would be, if you enjoy the company of feral pigeons and want to feed them make certain that you feed only a little at a time, in different locations, at different times and only every three days and never trespass on private land to feed them.
Keep them healthy, prevent them from starving but don't let them become a nuisance to those who would kill them for being there or dependent on you for all their food.
If pigeons have to forage for food two days out of three they won't have the time of the inclination to raise as many young as they would probably otherwise do.
In A Feeding Frenzy The Pigeons For Sale
Although I accept that I need to control my compulsion to feed the flocks every day it was difficult reaching that point. I believe that there is a strong element of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in the need to feed the pigeons regularly because of the anxiety that being late or unable to feed the pigeons causes and it is distressing to read of people issued with ASBOS for feeding too much or too often. One day the authorities will have to look at the cause rather than focus on the punishment
So, if we feed what is the best food? When I started feeding feral pigeons I read that mixed corn was a good choice of food, but later read that birds raised on mixed corn alone suffer from nutritional deficiencies so I buy seed mixes that are produced specifically for pigeons, although a wild bird mix would probably be OK. As the price of wheat has rocketed the price difference is small.
My choice of food is Bamfords Super Moulting Mix as it has such a variety of ingredients in it: Wheat, Barley, Maples, White Peas, Plate Maize, Small Roundberry Maize, Blue Peas, Tares, Red Dari, White Dari, Safflower, Popcorn Maize, Linseed, Naked Oats, Paddy Rice and Small Safflower . At the moment (April 2011) it costs around £10.20 for 20 kilos.That works out at around 52p per kilo which is cheaper than bread.