DynaBMan on Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:46 pmI currently have a rough draft of a new blog article that I intend to publish on my blog about the care of homing pigeons. It will actually apply to all pigeons as far as the feed, water, loft space, and other requirements. I thought I would post the draft here, which is not nearly finished, and get suggestions about the wording and about any other content I might need to add. Please let me know what you think and give me any suggestions you may have.
EDIT: UPDATED TO THE LATEST VERSION OF THE ROUGH DRAFT.
EDIT: UPDATED TO THE LATEST VERSION OF THE ROUGH DRAFT.
Most of my regular readers will know that I have a loft full of homing pigeons in my back yard. You can read here for the story of how I got interested in these wonderful creatures. In the two years I have been keeping pigeons, I have made a lot of mistakes and I have learned a lot of information. Some of that information was gleaned from the pigeon sites you see in my sidebar and some of it was learning from my mistakes. I thought I would share a little of that in this article.
When I brought my first four pigeons home, two things were foremost in my mind. The first was where to keep them and I had that pretty much covered, for the time being. I don't have pictures of the first loft, if you could call it that, but as ugly and as primitive as it was, it was secure and it served it's purpose. The second thing was what in the world to feed the pigeons. I really didn't know at all where to start with that problem. I first purchased some bird seed and although they did eat it, they weren't too fond of it. I finally found some racing mix at a local feed store and they really went to town on it. There are a lot of feeds that a pigeon will eat. Some people feed them a pigeon pellet and I have tried them. The birds seemed to do okay on them, but the droppings seemed to be looser and there was a lot more of them. My birds also acted as if they were starving all the time. I now feed the racing mix and have a chicken scratch grain that I mix with it. Some pigeon fanciers also mix chicken laying pellets into their feed. Pigeons are very versatile in what they eat, but it does have to be a grain. They do not eat bugs and insects.
Even after finding what they should eat, I still wasn't sure how much to feed them. The first several times I fed them, I know I gave them entirely too much feed. They had a tendancy to jump into the open feeder and start throwing the feed around with their beaks, which then found it's way to the floor of the loft or outside on the ground.. I figured out pretty quick that wasn't going to work. As with any animal, they need enough to eat, but feeding them too much is not good. In the case of homing pigeons, it can really mess things up. An overweight pigeon has a bad habit of sitting, instead of flying like the good Lord intended. Instead of coming back into the loft when it's time to eat, they may sit on a roof and thereby become an easy target for a predator. Through a lot of reading and getting advice online, I found out that it is best to feed a pigeon about one ounce per day; maybe an ounce and a half per day, if the birds are flying every day and are very active. I do feed maybe a bit more during the winter, if the temperatures get cold and stay that way for a long period of time. This is to make sure they have plenty of fuel to help keep their bodies warm.
One thing a pigeon has to have plenty of is water and it needs to be fresh. One of the biggest causes of disease in a pigeon loft is dirty water. It allows all sorts of bacteria to grow and it can affect the entire loft. It needs to be changed every day and the waterer needs to be cleaned and disinfected often.
Last edited by DynaBMan on Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:15 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Added content)
