# Birdie Birth Control and Other Personal Pigeon Questions



## ClaireinTX (Sep 1, 2009)

Hi All, 
Well, Adrian has finally fully accepted Rocky. Huzzah! She even sits on the nest at night. Poor Rocky, he spent weeks first trying to chase her into it and finally just sitting in it and groaning and quivering for hours on end.

So to the questions:
1. I have fake eggs and Rocky spent many happy hours tending them over the last two years. I took them away when we got Adrian. Now I'm guessing she'll produce eggs any minute and I want to know if there is a special technique or a certain timing one uses to make the switch. I'm guessing it will be important to warm them up? Do I wait until she lays two eggs before doing it or go ahead and switch them as they come? How long do I leave them?

2. I'm also wondering if, once she lays, they'll be unhappy to go outside for their daily sunshine time. Would it stress them to take them away from their nest like that?

3. Fantail-specific questions: fairly regularly Adrian breaks off the occasional foot feather. (Who thought it was a good idea to breed for feathered feet anyway? It makes her walk like a longshoreman and she looks like she's wearing fluffy slippers.) Now that she's allowing Rocky to have "conjugal visits", she has several broken tail feathers as well. (Actually, it seems to me that big tail would be its own form of barrier birth control.) The tail feathers don't seem to have bled, but the foot feathers sometimes do when they first get pulled out. Is there anything I should do to help her out. I have put Neosporin on the bloody foot feathers before, but I didn't know if it actually helps.

Thank you again, everybody, for all the help!


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## Hareloft (Jun 26, 2011)

Anytime after she lays both you can switch to the fakes and they can go away from the eggs it doesn"t stress them when I train my race birds they somtime go hours away and come back and set. On race days they can be gone for 2 or 3 days and come right back to the nest. I don't use neosporin on my birds they seem to heal better naturally. I've had to stitch birds up when a hawk hit them or they hit wires and they heal fine with no triple antibiotic or neasporin.


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## ClaireinTX (Sep 1, 2009)

Thank you so much for the advice. 
So it sounds like they are really not too picky about their eggs. 
This is great to know. (All I had to go on before was how viciously Rocky used to guard his fakes when he was a bachelor.)


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## Hareloft (Jun 26, 2011)

If the eggs are plastic I would add some sand to them so they have a little weight to them. I use wood eggs myself.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

They really aren't picky at all. Any color, plastic, wood. I've even had them sit on small light bulbs. But instead of all of that I just let mine hatch out my chicken eggs


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## ClaireinTX (Sep 1, 2009)

Your pigeons hatch your chicks!? That's amazing. And really, really NOT picky. =)
Does the hen later take over their care?


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

you remove the real eggs when she has laid the second..within a few days is good. they will give up on the fake ones when they are ready. offering a bath pan midday can get both parents off the nest for a bit to stretch and bath.. the hen gets her break normally about midday when the cock takes over.


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## MaryOfExeter (Sep 30, 2007)

ClaireinTX said:


> Your pigeons hatch your chicks!? That's amazing. And really, really NOT picky. =)
> Does the hen later take over their care?


Yep  Then they go in the brooder just like any other chick would if hatched out in an incubator. Or under a momma chicken if they hatched out around the same time her eggs did.


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