# I've got in a mess with my males and females again!!!!



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I take in sick birds as I find them, mainly pigeons, and I allow them to go once they are healed if they want to. I open the doors regularly so if they want to leave they can see the other birds outside and join them.

I once had a problem with males and no females, but now I have the opposite problem. One of the males that had paired up, *****, decided he wanted to go and chase the females outside. As his feet are well on the way to healing, and he is otherwise ok, I have no reason to stop him. The thing is he had already started a nest with one young female(I think she was too young for him and he was after more mature females) and she and two other females are now all competing for the attention of Baby, who is paired and having chicks with Blondie, but mates with the other females until he is exhausted and turns down direct offers of mating. He is a very handsome male, he has never been outside and has not had the troubles of an outside male, so he has all his toes and eyes lol.

The thing is, I have never had such a problem with the females. They fight with each other(except Blondie who is too busy with the baby's to care) and today I saw the female who has been left behind by ***** attack Baby when he was trying to feed his baby's. I don't know if the females are a danger to the baby's? should I mover them to a safer place? Also I don't know if this rivalry will settle as the winter kicks in, can anyone tell me? Maybe I should not use this full spectrum bulb because it is making them think it is summer and mating time?

Any helpful suggestions to stop the fighting appreciated,
Brian.


----------



## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

Pigeons mate most of the year in the wild and I have rescued babies in the bitter cold of winter months. The full spectrum bulb has anything to do with your situation.

Pigeons will fight if they don't have enough room and are over crowded. A good solution would be to not let any more babies hatch by opting to replace the eggs with fake ones.


----------



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

Believe it or not I actually have less pigeons at the moment, as I have had some leave recently because they wanted to return to the wild and were no longer wounded. This problem is definitely to do with females competing over the only strong male. I am with the birds all day so I can watch their behavior, many of the boxes are empty at the moment there is no shortage of room.
I just have to hope the next wounded pigeon I find is a male and not another female. I am a little concerned about the safety of the chicks, I have never seen a female attack another pigeon when they are feeding their babies before. I don't know if I need to move the chicks somewhere safer?


----------



## tjc1 (Aug 22, 2012)

Do you have fronts on the nesting box? wondering if blocking another female from getting into the nesting box may help you.


----------



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I've been watching the mum and dad and they do not seem unduly alarmed, they are both away from the nest at the moment and one of them goes back about every couple of hours to feed the babies. The babies are under a computer table with a low bottom shelf, so they are out of sight, I will keep an eye on the situation and see if the stray female is trying to sneak under the table to get at the babies. She seems to have lost interest now.


----------



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

There is the young male who is fooling around with his sister, but the females only seem interested in Baby. Perhaps a white/grey mix is not as attractive as feral colours, or perhaps they consider him to young. I wish he would grow up quick though because he could help me out a lot. There has been more fighting between the females tonight.


----------



## Dima (Jan 15, 2011)

My first Male rescue was also the only male in the pigeons i had in 2011. Out of 4 female he chose my favorite one as partner and he mated with all others. I use fake egg for all. When they are not laying on eggs after 20 -23 days, if they are all 2 or 3 free, they all "fight" for him, but it's not a real fight: just chasing each other. The real fights are for his favorite nest he choses for the future; and they fight when he is not there ( he is taking his turn on his mate's eggs). I found one of them bleeding from the neck one morning. Rebella takes his favourite spot and Marina goes after her to kick her out. I closed the box. But it didn't work. In the day time he chose to rest , after fooling around with his females, on the top of the box. While in the nest sitting on eggs, Rebella was going on the top of the box and Marina would come off her eggs to fights her. Then i realized that Marina's nest was beside his favorite place. It came in my mind to put a box, open box, away from her, 4 feet and at a higher level. It worked. He chose that box..Marina couldn't see what's going on...
This is a matter of location of boxes. It's just luck that there's always one female free for him ( except his mate - when he is with mate, none of other females dare to fight for him or bother him). Or it may not be luck; he is always timing them when to mate so that he can have one free only for himself while his mate and the others lay on eggs.

I would pay attention on where they are fighting and why. Changing the settings a little bit, it will settle them down and they need time to figure out what happened and get used with the new layout.
As for the females attacking the babies, it's not good. As Charis said, put fake eggs in the future..there's plenty babies out in the wild that need your help. 

I know that you probably wanted these babies.


----------



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I only meant for them to have one set of babies, as I thought it fair to let them have one set each(Gerty, Gayser and Baby,Blondie). After I replaced their last set of eggs with dummy's, they made a nest under the computer table. I kept checking what I thought was the nest for eggs, but they had sneakily built a nest off to one side where it was hidden. By the time I found the eggs it was a bit late, they were almost ready to hatch when I shined a torch on them.

Anyway, I have had some luck, both ***** and Niggles(who also decided to go) both flew back in when I went outside to put the seed in the hidden place so the neighbors cannot see me feeding the pigeons. ***** and his female got back together straight away. He is limping a little and I don't think the night in the cold was good to his leg. I am glad he came back anyway because he might have left a little to soon. I was thinking about whether I had done the right thing letting him go all night. Niggles looks a bit roughed up as well, he is a much smaller pigeon and I think he would have found it hard to stay warm in the freezing night air.

One difference between my females and yours, the other females he mates with never seem to lay eggs. One of them has started taking a box and maybe she will lay, but usually the other females do not lay eggs?

Thanks for the info on solutions you use, I think for now things have calmed down a bit.
Brian.


----------



## Woodnative (Jul 4, 2010)

Sometimes multiple females will work with one male (like in Dima's case) but often they do not. Pigeons normally live in "pairs". Although extra unmated males are usually worst than hens, extra mature birds of either can be a problem as you have seen in your group. I wonder if you kept two of the extra hens isolated but with each other they would end up pairing up (hen pair)??


----------



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I have heard about hens pairing up before, even males can pair up apparently. It would be hard to separate them, I am just hoping that they get the message soon that Baby is with Blondie and give up on this fighting. Its funny, his actual mate Blondie does not get involved in the fighting, she seems to stay separate from it all. ***** is not helping much as he flew out again today. I think poor tiny Niggles found the cold weather much tougher and he showed no interest in going out today.
I am a little concerned about *****'s leg because he had stopped limping when he was in here in the warm, but after a night in the cold he was limping again. I do not want to hold any of them prisoner though unless it was necessarily.


----------

