Butters

Butters, a baby king pigeon, was found as a stray 2/12/10 on the Embarcadero in SF at the very tender age of three weeks old. She fared amazingly well in the shelter for two weeks and then was brought into MickaCoo foster care on 2/25 with two other youngsters who were ill (Ariel & Soho).

Butters was almost certainly bred to be served as meat (squab). Eating squab is like eating a puppy. The baby pigeons are butchered at four weeks of age and they are, at that age, just starting to come out of the nest. They are babies. They peep like babies and act like babies. They are as cute and helpless as puppies and sweet as they are, life will not be kind to the vast majority. Most will be butchered. A few will be released into city parks where they will stumble around hungry, scared, lost with no home to go to and no skills with which to get there if they had one. Most of those will be killed by dogs, hawks, cats, gulls, cars and mean people. A very few of them will survive long enough to make it to an animal shelter where they will most likely either get sick and be euthanized or euthanized for lack of an adopter. Buying the baby pigeons just encourages this sad cycle.

Butters spent two weeks gaining strength with me (and Ariel and Soho) and has done great, putting on weight and getting more feathers. I think she's a she but time will tell. She's a cute bird with a great appetite and the incredibly wonderful trait that pigeons tend to have- she blooms where planted.




Butters is in the foster care of a MickaCoo volunteer with her old friends Soho and Ariel and soon will be making new friends with Little Jazzy & Spirit. Butters is available for adoption. Please contact me at AdoptKings@gmail.com.