Pigeon Aviary

[czechsonofagun]

My youngest got four pigeons from a friend, we kept them in a cage for six weeks and opened up. Two of them took off and the other two started family and eventually we had like 16 birds circling our property. It was great to watch them, racing pigeons if you don't race them are pretty much useless but they make me happy.

Eventually birds of prey realized there is a food source and we were loosing bird after bird. Hawks would go into a barn stable to get at them and even kill them in the cage we tried to use to protect them.

I built a solid pigeon loft, safe and roomy enough but that did not work. They would sit on eggs alright, but after squabs hatched, they would let them die of starvation.

Finally, we figured a solution. I found connectors for baseball/golf cages and used 1" EMT conduit to attach an aviary to the barn. The woven 1" netting is stretched over it and stitched together with hog rings. (BTW hog ring pliers are amazing invention, just saying )

I also put chicken fencing around the bottom to keep squirrels out.

Now the birds are safe and they actually reproduce.

 

[BackRoad]

Interesting timing on this thread. Just read about a racing pigeon being sold for like $1.7 million. Asian buyer if I recall, bought from somebody in Europe.

Is there a market for racing pigeons...(or even non-racing pigeons)...in the US?

Do you train your birds?

How prolific are they... How often do they lay?

Hesitate to ask...but are they edible, like chickens?

 

[czechsonofagun]

Yeah, I saw that too, she looked like one of our pigeons

Local craigslist and farm auctions sell pigeons, on the list it is usually people from Middle East who keep pigeons, at least in our area.

I do not train them, I just don't need another hobby, too busy already.

They lay often, I mean two babies just started to fly and the mother is already sitting.

On Czech farms and throughout the Central and Eastern Europe, squabs were another source of food, but meat pigeons are bigger than racing pigeons.

 

[czechsonofagun]

When I put my game camera under the barn, this is the fella I got picture of.

 

[BackRoad]

Awesome...(but likely not so much for you)!

We have eagles and hawks flying around near daily...pigeons would not last long around here

 

[MossRoad]

When I put my game camera under the barn, this is the fella I got picture of.

View attachment 676968

Looks like a Cooper's hawk.

 

[EddieWalker]

When I put my game camera under the barn, this is the fella I got picture of.

View attachment 676968

That bird has been there before!!!

 

[riptides]

When I put my game camera under the barn, this is the fella I got picture of.

View attachment 676968

You cannot out compete Mother Nature. He or she knows where the meal ticket is. LOL.

 

[Briar Hill Brittanys]

Had a raccoon take out 14 pigeons out of a pen, a week ago. Chewed through the chicken wire, proceeded to behead, kill, and eat all the birds in the coop. Then left a nice "deposit" that I could ID the culprit. A Z trap brand caught the culprit within an hour of setting. We use pigeons for training bird dogs. Pups will point a planted pigeon just like a quail or pheasant. The pigeons are very hardy, and fly back to the pen, or used to when they were still alive. I'd beef up your pen if you have any coons locally.

 

[czechsonofagun]

Had a raccoon take out 14 pigeons out of a pen, a week ago. Chewed through the chicken wire, proceeded to behead, kill, and eat all the birds in the coop. Then left a nice "deposit" that I could ID the culprit. A Z trap brand caught the culprit within an hour of setting. We use pigeons for training bird dogs. Pups will point a planted pigeon just like a quail or pheasant. The pigeons are very hardy, and fly back to the pen, or used to when they were still alive. I'd beef up your pen if you have any coons locally.

That's awful! Sorry for your loss. I caught a raccoon in our barn not that long ago, before the aviary was build up. I might add some electrical fencing on the outside BTW - using pigeons to train dogs is neat, first time I heard of it.

Are you getting new pigeons?