# How much food is enough?



## jimc2000 (Jul 20, 2009)

I've ended up being the de facto caretaker of a flock of feral pigeons in downtown Tucson Arizona. When feeding time comes around, I usually end up with about 70 or more pigeons in the chow line (when I started there were only 25 or 30). Sometimes as many as 100 or more show up. I've been buying 20 pound bags of generic wild bird seed and I usually go through a bag in 5 or 6 days. Is that enough food for that many birds? Or is it too much? Any other advice on the care and feeding of such a large flock would be welcome. Also, am I getting myself into trouble here, where I'm going to have 100 birds this year, 1,000 next year, 10,000 the year after that etc...


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## plumvalley (Nov 12, 2009)

Nice of you to feed them. What you're feeding them is good, remember they are wild and will find more food if they need it. No law against feeding the pigeons in town? We can't feed them downtown but my daughter said when she leaves the YMCA she buys a bag of popcorn and accidently drops it on the sidewalk. ha ha 
Wait till they all follow you home......lol


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

jimc2000 said:


> I've ended up being the de facto caretaker of a flock of feral pigeons in downtown Tucson Arizona. When feeding time comes around, I usually end up with about 70 or more pigeons in the chow line (when I started there were only 25 or 30). Sometimes as many as 100 or more show up. I've been buying 20 pound bags of generic wild bird seed and I usually go through a bag in 5 or 6 days. Is that enough food for that many birds? Or is it too much? Any other advice on the care and feeding of such a large flock would be welcome. Also, am I getting myself into trouble here, where I'm going to have 100 birds this year, 1,000 next year, 10,000 the year after that etc...


yes think of it as just supplimenting their natural diet, your not solely responsible for 100 pigeons, do what you can afford. Just an idea, purina pigeon checkers, is a pellet feed, for 50 lbs it cost 13 bucks. so perhaps you can add that in with your seed to save money, also it has the added benifit of vitamins/minerals and calcium which is important as most seed blends lack that.


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## jimc2000 (Jul 20, 2009)

plumvalley said:


> Wait till they all follow you home......lol


I feed them when I get into work shortly after dawn. A couple of weeks ago, I was running late and figured I'd take care of a couple of things at work first, and then go back out and feed them. When I went out to my car about an hour later, there were 40 or 50 pigeons sitting on and around my car! Then, when I took out the food bag and walked around to the back alley where I traditionally feed them, I had this trail of 30 or so pigeons waddling along behind me, with the rest of the crew providing close air support...


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## altgirl35 (Sep 5, 2008)

lol, i would love to see that! maybe a co worker can get a pic of pied piper pigeon conga line next time


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## StanelyPidge09 (May 22, 2009)

Haha that is a hilarious image!! That would be a priceless picture if you could get someone to take it!


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## FloridaLuv (Dec 19, 2008)

Ha ha! that's it ... Im trucking into Tucson to see that sometime JIM! LOL... that would make a hilarious Video! ...


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## kbk1942 (Dec 27, 2009)

Hi Loving People,
I have the same thing at my house, sometimes 50 plus birds flying around as I take pots full of Hen Scratch plus Black Oil Sun Flower seed mix out. I am currently caring for an injured Hawk attack Pigeon. Her chest is open just to the left of her breast bone. I clean it twice daily (since Friday) with an anti microbal tincture, saline wipes and then Neosporin ointment. Does she need stitches, is the thing. I love these birds and Quail etc. Thank You..Love, Kathleen Bertrand


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

kbk1942 said:


> Hi Loving People,
> I have the same thing at my house, sometimes 50 plus birds flying around as I take pots full of Hen Scratch plus Black Oil Sun Flower seed mix out. I am currently caring for an injured Hawk attack Pigeon. Her chest is open just to the left of her breast bone. I clean it twice daily (since Friday) with an anti microbal tincture, saline wipes and then Neosporin ointment. Does she need stitches, is the thing. I love these birds and Quail etc. Thank You..Love, Kathleen Bertrand



Kathleen...A thread has been started just for your rescue.
Here's a link...


http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f6/pigeon-with-open-chest-wound-santa-cruz-ca-42005.html


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

I agree that you need to consider your feeding as supplemental and not life sustaining for these birds. If you consider that most pigeon fanciers feed between 1 and 2 ounces of pigeon mix per day per bird (which is more nutritious than wild bird seed mix by about twice) .. then a daily feeding of about 6.5 pounds of wild bird seed mix for 100 ferals would be a very good supplemental feeding. That would be about 1 ounce per feral.

While you may see some increase in the flock size, I don't think you are looking at exponential increases. The size of the feral flock at the local duck pond in my city stays at about 80-100 for years now. There is ample food and fresh water there, and still the flock size stays about the same. I will say that when the pigeons first started showing up there years ago, it DID grow from just a few to the current size over the span of perhaps 8 months. It's stayed at the 80-100 mark for years now, and there are days when there are no pigeons in the park at all .. don't know why.

Terry


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