Pigeon Family Values

Since I started fostering pigeons, I usually have from four to twelve at a time and they pair up in unpredictable ways. I've had a few that stayed single for months (Rocky, Louie, Willow) and others that hooked up in a love-at-first-sight kind of way (Big Man & Amber, Jesse & Hollywood) and everything in between. Once a pair does begin courting, they spend all their time together.

They eat together, feed each other, preen together, preen each other, nap together and spend a lot of time looking for good nest real estate. The cock auditions various corners, nooks and crannies for his hen, cooing, moaning & groaning over each one to persuade her that it's a good nest site.

They love straw and will place a piece at each potential nest spot. The cocks are very creative which makes me laugh when I clean up because I find straw in all kinds of improbable locations. Once they claim a nest site, the hen usually lays the first egg within a couple of days and a second egg one to two days later. The eggs are incredibly beautiful- a pearly, glowing pink and one or the other of the birds is sitting on them at all times.

They take shifts that last for hours and while one sits on the eggs, the other eats, bathes and lounges. Sometimes the off bird will feed the on bird but mostly the sitting bird fasts through their shift. The sitting birds really impress me because they will sit tight on their nest even in the terrifying face of repeated attacks from first the roaring shop vac and then the stealthy mop.

They don't poop while they're on the nest either and that ability to hold it means they could be potty trained, same as parrots can be. Tank, who loves to eat, impressed me the other day when, after being outside in the fresh air and sunshine for a couple of hours (without food), he went straight back to the nest to relieve his mate Country rather than stop at the food dish the way Tony Baby did when he got back.

Pigeon eggs normally hatch after about 18 days but since there are more king pigeons than there are adopters, I swap out the real eggs soon after they are laid with wooden 'dummy' eggs as pigeon birth control. Even though the dummy eggs are designed to replicate the real ones, they aren't near as fine.

You warm the fake eggs in your hands before swapping them but they're a poor substitute and I always feel terrible about the switch. The real eggs, amazingly warm when taken from under the sitting bird, are like eggs you'd eat at breakfast- all yolk and egg white without a developed embryo, provided they were pulled soon enough after being laid. They are way too beautiful to throw out so I set them out on the fence where ravens find and eat them. I'm sure the pigeons notice that the eggs are different but they continue warming and guarding them as if they were real. They try really hard to hatch those wooden eggs. Finally, after between 21 and 28 days, they give up on the fake eggs and abandon their nest-sitting in exchange for a week or so of honeymooning where the couple again spends all their time together. After the short break, they start over with a nest and lay new eggs. They are very family oriented and often (but not always) mate for life.