# question about breeding



## clhbubba (Jan 11, 2008)

Feb of last year I found two partially feathered babies under an overpass around midnight on my way home from work(don't know how I saw them). I picked them up and managed to hand raise them. In April I converted a 6 x 6 x 10 dog run into a pigeon coop with roof, perches, sleeping box,etc. I now have 7 pigeons and she is setting on more eggs(in winter). Now the offspring are trying to nest. I'm sure all of the inbreeding is not good and wonder how to stop them. Do I remove everything but perches to give them no where to sleep/nest, or do I just start removing eggs when layed? I don't want to be cruel, but I don't want deformed birds either. Cannot safely release them as I live in the country and they would quickly become hawk food. Along those lines, I'm sure they would like free flight time but I know it would be a death sentence. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

clhbubba said:


> Feb of last year I found two partially feathered babies under an overpass around midnight on my way home from work(don't know how I saw them). I picked them up and managed to hand raise them. In April I converted a 6 x 6 x 10 dog run into a pigeon coop with roof, perches, sleeping box,etc. I now have 7 pigeons and she is setting on more eggs(in winter). Now the offspring are trying to nest. I'm sure all of the inbreeding is not good and wonder how to stop them. Do I remove everything but perches to give them no where to sleep/nest, or do I just start removing eggs when layed? I don't want to be cruel, but I don't want deformed birds either. Cannot safely release them as I live in the country and they would quickly become hawk food. Along those lines, I'm sure they would like free flight time but I know it would be a death sentence. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks


Hi and welcome to Pigeon Talk. The best thing you can do in your situation is to replace the eggs with plastic or wooden eggs. These can be purchased at any of the pigeon supply companies and I believe you can buy some sort of wooden eggs at hobby stores. Just taking the eggs isn't a good idea. If you do that, the hen will just immediately lay more and that isn't good for her and cause numerous health problems that you don't want. By replacing the eggs with dummy eggs, she'll continue to sit on them for about 19 to 21 days and then once she realizes that they aren't going to hatch, will just walk away from them and THEN start the process all over again. But laying once a month is much better than laying every 10 days and that's what will happen if you simply throw the eggs out. 
Hope this helps some.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

You might try taking out the boxes and have only perches, but I don't think that will help. My birds just lay their eggs in the floor if there's no where else to lay them..........


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## clhbubba (Jan 11, 2008)

*thanks*

They've been on this clutch for 2 weeks, yesterday one was rolled out of the nest. So, next clutch I'll start using dummy eggs. Thanks a bunch.


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## Matt D. (May 12, 2007)

the only thing I have to say would be that inbreeding is a very common system in the pigeon world. some not this intense and some more intense... (Line breeding)


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