# Mystery of NEW EGG in MALE's cage



## Silvarrior (Oct 23, 2016)

ok. my pigeons have gone completely weird. either they have been scamming me for an year while i thought the male was a female or the male just became a transgender. Once Again, i had a pigeon couple which i got about 6 months ago. i kept them in a wooden cage large enough for them to spread their wings easily in.
http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=44137&stc=1&d=1477221024
the couple laid eggs several time and hatched babies. the first batch of babies flew away when about 2 months old. they laid again and hatched only one egg. the mother pigeon flew away when the baby was about 20 days old. or so i thought. the dad(white-necked one) was left and he slowly took up both parents' role. the baby was still living in the nest. i saw the nest today and it had only the baby in it. then in the evening, i went to the pigeons and they had an egg in the nest. alongside the baby. and the father(now mother) was standing outside eating. not sitting on the egg. i was absolutely sure about the gender of the parent couple. the bigger one and rather more brave was the white pigeon. the dark-necked pigeon was smaller and less brave. also, i had seen the timings of when the male and female sit on the egg in tuns. and the timings matched the white pigeon sitting on egg(previous batch) at the male's time. now what to do about the egg, what if its fertile (the mother/father flew away only a few days ago) but could they have mated in less than 20 days after hatching their first baby.


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

Suspect that you just had the genders wrong. They fooled me...we have two oops adults from two birds i thought were both females. Sometimes they lay eggs again right away too. Would get fake eggs uf you dont want more pigeons.


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## Silvarrior (Oct 23, 2016)

but she's not even sitting on the egg. she's just standing on her perch while the baby sits in the nest alongside the egg. What should i do with the egg? take it out? or take the baby out and give him another similar nest and let the adult sit on the egg?


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Why not just wait and see what happens? You don't need more eggs hatched anyway with only the Mom to care for it.


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## alby68 (Mar 18, 2013)

sounds like another pair layed the egg in the young birds box possibly. parents usually don't sit on the first egg till the second egg is layed. and yes the parents could have mated 20 days after hatching the first eggs, that is very common.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

alby68 said:


> sounds like another pair layed the egg in the young birds box possibly. parents usually don't sit on the first egg till the second egg is layed. and yes the parents could have mated 20 days after hatching the first eggs, that is very common.


Alby, they don't have other birds. Just this hen that he thought was a male.


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## alby68 (Mar 18, 2013)

OH! OH! OKAY

I get it. then the female dresses like the man, in that pair? they sure have surprised me in the Past....LOL.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

A hawk chased the mate away and left the other parent and the baby. The poster thought this parent was the male. Then he laid an egg. LOL.


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## alby68 (Mar 18, 2013)

she is probably one of those cross dressers then. LOL!!!


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## Victor (Dec 18, 2004)

I once recently had a very "handsome" brown pigeon named Matt. A year after "he" matured, "he" laid couple of eggs. I re-named the pigeon, Matilda.It happens .


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## Silvarrior (Oct 23, 2016)

thanks for the replies, ill wait and see if she lays again and gets serious about hatching. in the meantime, ill return the new female my mom bought for her. she was being quarantined like you suggested and she was beautiful but unless they are both gay (anything's possible after this incident ) ill return her and wait for the eggs and see later if she needs a new mate then get her one. also, should i move the baby out of the nest and let the mother sit on it? i can provide the baby with a similar place to sit on all day but im worried that once the eggs are laid, the mother will stop feeding the baby. has that ever happened before. any tips would be very helpful.


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## YaSin11 (Jul 23, 2009)

I would not move out the baby if other eggs were laid.

Mother usually does not stop feeding the baby even if other eggs are laid, or at-least from my personal experiance.

Good Luck.


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

You can keep the second female if you want...we have two females, Lucy and Tracy, who are quite happy together. They lay and sit on sterile eggs together cheerfully. They seem to love each others company and are inseparable. A nice plus, not having to swap out for fake eggs.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

cwebster said:


> You can keep the second female if you want...we have two females, Lucy and Tracy, who are quite happy together. They lay and sit on sterile eggs together cheerfully. They seem to love each others company and are inseparable. A nice plus, not having to swap out for fake eggs.


I was going to say this^
So unless you are trying to breed and get more birds, this usually works. Of course if you will be wanting more babies, then you want a male.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

YaSin11 said:


> I would not move out the baby if other eggs were laid.
> 
> Mother usually does not stop feeding the baby even if other eggs are laid, or at-least from my personal experiance.
> 
> Good Luck.


Normally once they start another nest and the hen is sitting on the eggs, the male takes over the feeding. Also often a parent bird left alone has been known to give up and stop raising the babies alone. If she stops feeding the baby, then you will have to hand feed him, so be prepared for that.


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