Hi guys,

I'm wondering if anyon can help me on figuring out this mystery. Let me start by saying that I am new to world of racing pigeons. I've recently obtained some birds and have built a loft. This was about 2 weeks ago. I went out to check on my birds this morning and found one of my birds on the ground with his eyes pecked out. It was really disturbing and I don't know how it happened. I checked around the loft and didn't find any traces of anything that might have gotten in to attack the bird. Then i thought maybe one of the other birds did it?...I don't know. if anyone can give me any insight on this matter I would greatly appreciate it. I would hate for this to happen to again.

Henry

g0ldenb0y55 wrote:Hi guys,

I'm wondering if anyon can help me on figuring out this mystery. Let me start by saying that I am new to world of racing pigeons. I've recently obtained some birds and have built a loft. This was about 2 weeks ago. I went out to check on my birds this morning and found one of my birds on the ground with his eyes pecked out. It was really disturbing and I don't know how it happened. I checked around the loft and didn't find any traces of anything that might have gotten in to attack the bird. Then i thought maybe one of the other birds did it?...I don't know. if anyone can give me any insight on this matter I would greatly appreciate it. I would hate for this to happen to again.

Henry

WOW........was the bird on the "floor" in the loft or on the ground out side? Were the eyes the only injury? That doesn't sound right to me. How old are these birds?

This bird is about 3-4 months old and It was inside of the loft not outside. And yes, the eyes were the only injuries that I found.

how many birds do you have in the loft?
Ive seen my cock birds peck at the hens eyes.
Might have gotten beaten up by one of the other birds.

StoN3d wrote:how many birds do you have in the loft?
Ive seen my cock birds peck at the hens eyes.
Might have gotten beaten up by one of the other birds.

I've got a breeding pair and 4 others, so 6 total. The dead bird was part of the 4. Of the 4 I believe there are 2 older cocks and 2 young birds about 2-3 months old.

are you able to notice if one of the cocks is being a bully to the others?
you would have to sit and watch them for awhile in a spot they cant see you so they act normal.
I sit on the outside of the loft and look in through the aviary to watch them sometimes.
But most of the time I just watch them on the cameras I have setup in the loft.
Its a great way to see whos acting up and separate them if needed.
you can tune into my live pigeon feeds anytime you want
one is a website where you would have to install the needed video codecs
I would recommend Internet Explorer for that and install the active X plugin it asks you to install
http://ston3d.no-ip.org:8888/indem.html
or you can stream the video using either Winamp or VLC player
just choose play URL with either player and paste this URL
http://ston3d.no-ip.org:8000;stream.nsv
OR... lol
you can just visit this website and it will hopefully use winamp to play the playlist you will download when you click Listen tab up top
http://ston3d.no-ip.org:8000
you might have to choose to play that file it downloads with Winamp
if it doesnt automaticly open the file with it

Thanks for your input. I'll have to spend some time watching the loft. From what i know the bird that was attacked was bullying the other young bird. Maybe he got into it with one of the older cocks and what happened happened.

And man! You have a live webcam in your loft?! That is freakin awesome! I will definitely check that out.

I love your avator!!!
Bruce Lee!!!

Sorry to ask so many questions, but I'm just trying to understand what might have happened. I've had bully birds before and although they can raise hell with the other birds, I've never seen one peck another bird to death. Now, if the bird being picked on just sat there and LET the bully peck it, than I guess that would happen, but, short of being a baby and not able to fly or get away, I can't see any pigeon just sitting and letting another bird peck it that severly. I'm wondering if the dead bird died from some other reason and was just "there" and another bird pecked at it just to be doing something. How long have you have your birds? Do they all seem to be healthy? No sitting fluffed up, wet, loose droppings............

StoN3d wrote:I love your avator!!!
Bruce Lee!!!

Lol...thanks! I found it in the stock gallery in the profile section. I plan to have custome one with a picture of my favorite bird.

Lovebirds wrote:Sorry to ask so many questions, but I'm just trying to understand what might have happened. I've had bully birds before and although they can raise hell with the other birds, I've never seen one peck another bird to death. Now, if the bird being picked on just sat there and LET the bully peck it, than I guess that would happen, but, short of being a baby and not able to fly or get away, I can't see any pigeon just sitting and letting another bird peck it that severly. I'm wondering if the dead bird died from some other reason and was just "there" and another bird pecked at it just to be doing something. How long have you have your birds? Do they all seem to be healthy? No sitting fluffed up, wet, loose droppings............

I've had the birds for about 2 weeks now. The bird that died was as healthy and alive as the others the night before and I'm sure of it. All the birds look healthy to me going by appearnce. They eat on schedule and seem really happy. By watching them on a daily basis I did notice that older cocks were agressive towards each other but never the to the 2 younger birds. The younger birds would fly away if the older cocks got anywhere close to them. So i don't know...I will just assume that one of the older cocks got to him during the night and leave it at that. There is no possible way a hwak, crow or even a cat could have done it.

Thanks for all the support and great information!

I would keep an eye on the other birds and make sure they are not ill.
Renee is right
I dont see a healthy pigeon just sitting there getting pecked to death.
I mean Ive had a Hen get pretty beat up but when I did find her she was WAY up high in a spot I couldnt even believe she got to and was sitting tight kinda using her wings to hold her up

StoN3d wrote:I would keep an eye on the other birds and make sure they are not ill.
Renee is right
I dont see a healthy pigeon just sitting there getting pecked to death.
I mean Ive had a Hen get pretty beat up but when I did find her she was WAY up high in a spot I couldnt even believe she got to and was sitting tight kinda using her wings to hold her up

Yeah, I am definitely keeping an eye on the other birds. Especially after this occurrence. I wouldn't know what to do if this happened again and worse if it happens to one of my stock birds!

StoN3d wrote:I would keep an eye on the other birds and make sure they are not ill.
Renee is right
I dont see a healthy pigeon just sitting there getting pecked to death.
I mean Ive had a Hen get pretty beat up but when I did find her she was WAY up high in a spot I couldnt even believe she got to and was sitting tight kinda using her wings to hold her up

What hen was that? What happened?

the two birds I got on loan from John from my race club.
Those two pigeon were wussies compaired to the ones I got from you.
They just sat there and let 8162 beat them up so they are on the YB side breeding
The hen was beat up when I got her
The cock had been beating on her in the box he had given them to me in.
When I took her out her eyes were a little bloody from getting pecked but her eyes are fine now.
If you remember this is the Hen that had a bleeding wing and I freaked out.
Shes fine now since they have been separated.
Idk if I will ever be able to introduce another pair on the Breeding Side.
I do have plans on building another addon to my shed
A 8'X4' idk if I will make that the new breeding section or make it a OB section idk lol
I need more land!! LOL

Hi Henry,

I find this very strange myself, not normal at all for another pigeon to actually kill another healthy bird. Pigeons have been known to attack members of their flock that are very sick or weak and could kill them at this time. However, it would have to be a sick pigeon that was attacked and you said the bird was healthy. Also, you said that the eyes were the only injury you could see. If pigeons had attacked this bird, there would be other injuries around the beak, cere, head and feathers pulled out etc.

I'm wondering if it was just a coincidence. Birds can appear healthy and totally fine one moment and then dead the next for various unknown reasons. Perhaps a jay did manage to get into your loft and ate the eyes. Members of the crow family, which jays are, eat the eyes of dead animals. It's one of the first things they do eat.

Are you sure there is no way an animal could get into your loft? Can you post a picture of the setup? Do you have traps that go into the loft?

Very strange situation for sure. Sad too. Hopefully your experiences will be better from now on.

g0ldenb0y55 wrote:Hi guys,

I'm wondering if anyon can help me on figuring out this mystery. Let me start by saying that I am new to world of racing pigeons. I've recently obtained some birds and have built a loft. This was about 2 weeks ago. I went out to check on my birds this morning and found one of my birds on the ground with his eyes pecked out. It was really disturbing and I don't know how it happened. I checked around the loft and didn't find any traces of anything that might have gotten in to attack the bird. Then i thought maybe one of the other birds did it?...I don't know. if anyone can give me any insight on this matter I would greatly appreciate it. I would hate for this to happen to again.

Henry

Hi Henry,



If a Bird dies in a low humidity situation, it's eyes dessicate and shrink deeply in, over hours or a day, or a ouple days, depending...to where the Eye 'Balls' can appear to be missing...the eye sockets can appear roughly-relatively empty.


Could this be what you saw?




Phil
l v

Brad wrote:Hi Henry,

I find this very strange myself, not normal at all for another pigeon to actually kill another healthy bird. Pigeons have been known to attack members of their flock that are very sick or weak and could kill them at this time. However, it would have to be a sick pigeon that was attacked and you said the bird was healthy. Also, you said that the eyes were the only injury you could see. If pigeons had attacked this bird, there would be other injuries around the beak, cere, head and feathers pulled out etc.

I'm wondering if it was just a coincidence. Birds can appear healthy and totally fine one moment and then dead the next for various unknown reasons. Perhaps a jay did manage to get into your loft and ate the eyes. Members of the crow family, which jays are, eat the eyes of dead animals. It's one of the first things they do eat.

Are you sure there is no way an animal could get into your loft? Can you post a picture of the setup? Do you have traps that go into the loft?

Very strange situation for sure. Sad too. Hopefully your experiences will be better from now on.

Yeah, it's very hard to tell exactly what happened. But I'll post some pictures up so you guys can see my setup.

pdpbison wrote:

g0ldenb0y55 wrote:Hi guys,

I'm wondering if anyon can help me on figuring out this mystery. Let me start by saying that I am new to world of racing pigeons. I've recently obtained some birds and have built a loft. This was about 2 weeks ago. I went out to check on my birds this morning and found one of my birds on the ground with his eyes pecked out. It was really disturbing and I don't know how it happened. I checked around the loft and didn't find any traces of anything that might have gotten in to attack the bird. Then i thought maybe one of the other birds did it?...I don't know. if anyone can give me any insight on this matter I would greatly appreciate it. I would hate for this to happen to again.

Henry

Hi Henry,



If a Bird dies in a low humidity situation, it's eyes dessicate and shrink deeply in, over hours or a day, or a ouple days, depending...to where the Eye 'Balls' can appear to be missing...the eye sockets can appear roughly-relatively empty.


Could this be what you saw?




Phil
l v

The humidity is actually low in our area but I'm pretty sure that that wasn't the case. There was blood all over the eye sockets like they were pecked out.

Thanks for the input Phil!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh...I did not know there was 'blood'...I missed that part, sorry.


Yeeeeeeeeesh, wow.


Now, one eye, sometimes, can get injured if Pigeon's are fighting with eachother.


Or one eye injured and around it, injured pecked skin, bloody-pulp-skin, if a bully Pigeon corners another and is really pecking him or her.


Handiapped Pigeons - if they make an enemy of a larger non-handicapped Pigeon, or if a larger non handicapped Pigeon for whatever reason deccides to be hostile, if rare, the vulnerable Pigeon can get seriously pecked-on or even killed uif cornered, but one healthy Pigeon killing another healthy Pigeon is about unheard of I think.


Maybe there was a running feud, and the one was maybe getting ill or weak, was not flying, and the other did him in?


Can happen...rare, but can happen...



Phil
l v