Help! Killer pigeons!

Sturgis85

Hatching
5 Years
May 20, 2014
4
0
7
We bought a house featuring three pigeon coops and have been raising mostly white homers. The main coop is about 8'x20', with shelves and a few open breeding boxes, where pigeons are fed and allowed to fly free. A center coop has six individual compartments (A, B, and C on the front side), and again pigeons are allowed to fly at will. A third is an aviary for some homers we purchased (these birds cannot leave).

We've had six nests this year. Of the first three, two were in the main coop, and the other in a compartment (B). One set of birds in the main coop were stillborn - we guessed that the mother was two young. The other birds survived and are active members of the flock.

Both pairs of parents started new nests: the ones with the stillborn in the main coop, and the pair in B started a new nest in C. The four eggs hatched and all were doing well. The pair in the main coop is approximately four weeks old and starting to eat seed; the the chicks in C are approximately three weeks old. The father in C has been preparing B for a new round.

The father - a gorgeous and conscientious bird - disappeared a couple weeks ago (hawked?), but the mother has been carrying on (she looks tired tho'). The chicks were beautiful and doing well - one seeming to be the big brother to the other, protecting her. But a few days ago, the male from the other nest in the main coop (no chicks on it now) came over and pecked the big brother to death and scalped the other before we noticed and stopped him. (This was a devastating loss for us.)

I took the scalped survivor and his mother into an individual coop (A). The mother sprang the cage and left while a male from B coop broke in and immediately started pecking at the baby. I got the male out, put up a wood divider between cages A and B, recaptured the mother and put her back in A, this time more securely. I think they (the mother and the scalped chick) are doing ok now. But what would have caused two male birds to all of a sudden go after these chicks, in two separate cages?

And then... while the father from B/C was out flying, another (third) male, one of friendliest/favorite birds, young and unmated, and who had been living in the main coop, decided to check out coop B, and started dancing around. After a while, though, he jumped into coop C with the chicks and killed one of the babies, hurt the other. The survivor is now locked up with his mother...

We've never had anything close to this before: three different males, all previously non-violent, all seemingly determined to eliminate the chicks. (They still stand at the doors, trying to get in.)

Any advice?

* Could this have to do with a nutritional issue? (We feed Nutrigreen/gold and ProGrains for Pigeons.)

* Or territory? When we moved the family from the main coop to A, where he was immediately attacked, the attacker had staked out compartments B and C and used them for a year, without competition...

* Do they sense something wrong with the babies? (They seem strong and healthy to me.)

* Should we lock the birds in the coops during breeding season (to avoid hawks and this kind of stuff)?

Help!
(And thanks for any advice!)
 
Sturgis85 -- pigeons are ALL territorial. What you are experiencing is not new, but it certainly isn't something you want to go through again. Seems that the cocks are trying to evict the youngsters from the nest so they can take over the nest. In the instance with the hen and her chick, it might be the same. Did these cock birds have access to any of these sections/nests before that you are aware of? If so that explains the severity of the attacks. If you don't know, make sure there is NO WAY any of these cocks gain entrance to any other sections, period.

Once had a small, ACTIVE young male--an expensive import from Belgium--that terrorized an entire breeding section with 11 other pairs in it. He went from nest to nest, attacked the occupants, and attempted to evict them. Didn't work because my other cocks were quite a bit larger than "ole nest wrecker." He did succeed in breaking eggs and throwing squabs out of the nest bowls, however. Needless to say, an import or not, he was "evicted" from my loft permanently.

Hmmm, "doves of peace"? Hardly! Highly territorial and quite deadly when they do "go rogue." Could be a family/strain trait. Or do the birds have adequate room to nest in ALL of the sections? When I was in Amsterdam, Holland, for the Olympiade in 1979, I learned a valuable lesson at Greenfield Stud (owned by the Eijerkamp family). They had a spacious building (former horse training facility) with several sections. All were about 12' x 12'. I saw no more than 8-10 birds in ANY of the sections--that's four to five pairs. In America we tend to want to cram 25 pairs (or more) into that size space.

So . . . former ownership of a nest (pigeons don't forget too easily), inbred trait for aggression, or overcrowding could be part of the answer. You will have to isolate the "bad boys" and see what transpires. That might be just enough cause for more "bad boys" to show their true colors. Be careful of putting the "bad boys" in a small pen with their hens. Sometimes cocks of this ilk turn on their own mates because they have no way to vent their aggression.

Shan
 
You need to make sure there are more nest boxes than pairs of birds to reduce fighting for nesting spaces.

Chicks are not still born... they must have been alive to hatch from the egg and died afterwards.

As the other posters have said.. your male birds are killing the squabs to try to take over the nest for themselves.

Its not due to a nutritional deficiency.

I would just breed from you best pairs in the coop that is attacked to the flight. Then you can keep these locked in the coop and flight area.. when they have squabs.

The other pairs you can put fake eggs in the nests, or separate the males and females into their own sections.

Never move nests or pigeons with young to other sections as the bird in them will attack the new birds.

good luck and hope the scalped baby recovers.
 
Great advice - thank you!
I can see now that the dad in the main coop believed the main coop is his, and attacked the fledglings.
And I can see that moving the baby to the middle coop, near the compartments that had been occupied by one pair of birds forever, might have been a bad move. Or that another male, checking out the middle coop, might have decided he'd want it and have to eliminate the occupants. Why can't we all just get along?

Sigh

Three last questionsL.
Should we keep all birds locked in the main loft - with more than enough boxes for each -- during breeding season, and forget free flight?

Do most people keep the lofts locked until the babies are on their own?
(We love watching the birds fly free, but keep losing them to hawks..).

If I do pluck feathers from the aggressive males... does it hurt? which feathers do you pluck? this means they can't fly?
(Not sure I'm up to that!)
 
Sounds like you "reasoned" through that dilemma. Well done! It's probably easier to shut up unused nest boxes in each pen and to keep pairs locked in their own section, letting them free fly one section at a time, either on the same day or every other day. No need to clip any wings.

I found it best to separate the sexes at the end of the breeding season (whatever that means in your loft), and to keep the cocks OUT of the pens with nest boxes during the off season. Then allow them ALL into a pen with the boxes at the start of the next breeding season. There will be fights and cocks will retake their old nest boxes, BUT at least they are all on fairly equal footing IF you manage the process. Put each cock into a nest box and LOCK him in if you have nest fronts. That's WHY nest fronts are so crucial to managing a breeding loft. Then let each cock out by himself into the pen for 10 to 20 minutes a day. It will take time. Your patience will reward you, however. After a 7 to 10 days they should be settling into their own "territory." Time to mate them with a new hen (or give them their old hen). Use the same process. One pair out at a time until the hen knows where her nest box is--or until she lays the first egg. Now there will be attempts by a "rogue" cock to take the next nest over. Watch for that, but usually when they have eggs in the nest they will settle in. Of course, the BEST method is individual pens for each pair. But that's another story.

There are endless variations to this. Letting the old breeding cocks keep their nest during the off season; add new cocks to empty nest the next breeding season (while shutting up the cocks as noted above). That works too. Some fanciers even remove the nest fronts after a pair is on their eggs, which allows any intruders a quick exit IF they enter the wrong nest. I prefer to keep the fronts ON the nests as that ensures the squeakers don't fall out before it's time to wean them--in my loft it was always at 21-23 days old. They were moved to a weaning pen between the breeding section and the two YB pens. This allowed the squeakers to reach through wood lathe and get fed by their father for a few days. They had open water dishes so they could see the water and a feed tray covered with Maple peas. For others the squeakers were weaned IN the loft and then moved.

So . . . good luck in getting your loft settled. It's worth the headache and time.

Shan
 
Wow. Thank you all so much - spectacular advice!
And so much thought / time put into the responses!
This gives me so many avenues to try... :)
 

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