# How can you tell how old a pigeon is?



## cotdt

Is there any way to tell how many years old a pigeon is?


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## re lee

If not banded with a proper band showing the year of birth You really can not be sure. Unless you wrote it down and have a very good memory. In the wild after young are grown, you would never know


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## links

The bigger and crustier the waddle, and the ring around the eye, the older the pigeon is. Every three years the waddle double in size, at least in my pigeons they do.


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## altgirl35

I've seen the same in the older pigeons that have some my way, sometimes their feet get more scaly looking too


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## george simon

links said:


> the bigger and crustier the waddle, and the ring around the eye. the older the pigeon is. every three years the waddle double in size. at least in my pigeons they do.


*Hi LINKS,

There are different breeds of pigeons that do not get larger wattles. My Italian owls have a very fine wattle and that is what is called for in the show standard. With racing homers if one breeds a family around a hen, the cock birds in that family will over a period of time get what is called a heney look*

GEORGE


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## ND Cooper

For me, it really wouldn't matter much.
A healthy pigeon is what would make the difference. 
You could always ask them though!


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## YaSin11

Cotdt,
Good Q! I don't have an answer, sorry, but thanks for bringing it up. Some fanciers here in Bangladesh 'count feathers'....I'm not sure how it works. Does anyone here know about 'counting feathers' to tell the age?...Thanks in advance, YaSin


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## links

thanks george. thats what i meant, wattle in my homing pigeons double in size every three years. and my loft revolves around one hen. i speak only of homers.


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## sreeshs

YaSin11 said:


> Cotdt,
> Good Q! I dont have an answer, sorry, but thanks for bringing it up. Some fanciers here in Bangladesh 'count feathers'....I'm not sure how it works. Does anyone here know about 'counting feathers' to tell the age?...Thanks in advance, YaSin


That I think would be counting the primary feathers while in the moulting stage for the weining youngs, that woun't help in grown up pigeons.


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## Nazmul

So what is the conclusion ?? It is not possible to tell the exact or approx age of a pigeon ???


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## John_D

If you put two adult pigeons side by side then you _may_ be able to tell which is the older, but you cannot tell what age an adult pigeon is. 

I have a 9 year old hen who looks no different to when she was a 1 year old hen.


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## blacksheep

*Interesting.*

Here I thought the size of the waddle had to do with the bird and weather or not they carried the gene for a larger waddle. 

I really like the look of a bird with a larger waddle. Someone on here must have picture proof of this?

If so please share. Pic of yb and size of waddle and a later pic of the old bird and the increase in size of the waddle.

Sorry, off topic.


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## John_D

Not at all off topic, Blacksheep, because one view is that the size of the wattle is (in homers, anyway) a guide to age, whilst others may not think it relevant.

Another strange thing is, looking at our rescue birds, coloration on red bars. I've noticed that with our male red bars, as they age so they develop black 'flecks' in their feathering. It's just a few at first, but one who is now over 10 years old has dozens of them. Doesn't seem to happen with our hens. Still doesn't tell us just how old they actually are, but it's an indication (or coincidence?).


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## Nalin

Young birds drop their 10th primary feather at 6th week old and then drop the following feather in every 1-2 weeks time, depending on their flying.

https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2175-91462016000100007


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