# Can anyone help with a male pigeon that cannot perform his duties?



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I have spoken to many of you before about 'Gayser' and his mate 'Gerty'. Gayser and Gerty are now the pigeons I have had with me the longest. I found Gayser outside my garden door one day after watching him trying to eat the seed and being unable to pick it up. I encouraged him to come in and he has been with me a long time. He recovered from the majority of his PMV symptoms, although he never learnt to fly properly again. He can fly a little if he has too, he often gets in positions where he has to come down a long way and he will use his wings to try and control the decent.
The problem is that the PMV symptoms that remain stop him from being able to mount Gerty properly, and they must be on their 5th or 6th batch of eggs that have not hatched because Gayser is unable to ferterlize Gerty. I am concerned that Gerty will have enough of this failure and head of with someone else, although they do make a good pair and are of a similar age.
When Gayser tries to mate with Gerty, they do the usual female beak inside male mouth thing, and Gayser gets all worked up. Gery lowers herself for Gayser to mount her, but he ends up walking around her over and over, as if he cannot see her properly. He tries to jump on her back, but does not use his wings to support his weight, and usually ends up rubbing himself against the floor with Gerty looking on perplexed lol. I do not know what I can do to try to improve this situation. Maybe I could try some form of artificial insemination, as I feel Gerty would be happy if one of her eggs hatched, that is all she is really interested in. On the other side, I think Gayser gets very frustrated at his inability to mount Gerty properly, and he takes out his bad temper on the other birds which can be a real pain when I have a young couple trying to find a place to set up home and Gayser chases them out of any box they try to inhabit. I feel he would not be such a grump if I could sort this problem out.
Is there some exercise I could encourage him to do to improve his ability to mount Gerty successfully? If I thought it would work I would walk over to him and lift him onto her back, but I do not think he would appreciate this move.

Any helpful ideas about how to deal with this situation would be much appreciated. Even if I cannot help him mate properly, if I could some how inseminate Gerty so her eggs hatch, I'm sure they would both be happier and there would be less fights.

Please help if you can, as this ongoing situation is making the life of some of my other birds a misery until they are healed enough to fight their own corner.

Thank you,
Brian.


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## markp1969 (Nov 23, 2010)

what you can do if you have another pair and they lay their eggs around the same time. You can swap the fertile set of eggs and let them raise a pair, but than again wouldn't the stress on raising the young bring out the pmv symptoms and possibly make him sick and weak?


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## Bella_F (Nov 29, 2008)

Thats a good idea, mark. I have successfully swapped eggs from one pair to another (accidently, during giving fake eggs). And another time I gave a hatchling from one pair to another to raise because the original father was sick. These situations all worked out.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

Hmm it might be possible.... ill look at the eggs of the other pair. may just swap one.


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