# Mating



## rusafaa (Dec 30, 2011)

*1)*How long does it take for a pigeon (fantail) to become fully adults ready to mate and breed? (i heard its approx 6 months)

*2)* Plus i want to mate one gray and one white fantail,how are the offspring's supposed to look like ? good/bad ? suggestions please....


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

Pigeons become sexually mature anywhere between 5 months and 1 year. Females usually take longer than males to mature (at least in my experience).

As to your second question - I cannot really answer the question because I don't know what your grey pigeon looks like, nor what your white pigeon looks like. Pictures usually help us decide what you have.

What I will say with some degree of certainty is that the young will definitely have patches of white.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Where they can breed at 5 or 6 months, they often don't make good parents at that young age. Better to wait until they are closer to a year.


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

Jay3 said:


> Where they can breed at 5 or 6 months, they often don't make good parents at that young age. Better to wait until they are closer to a year.


I agree, two first time parents ar sometimes a gamble. Especially young males. I usually mate together older hens with young males, and younger hens with old males.

A couple of days before the eggs hatch, the male starts producing crop milk to feed the hatchlings. The hen only starts producng this on the day of hatching or later. This means that the father is often responsible for the feedings for the first day or two. A more experienced hen usually gets by ok when her young male partner doesn't quite know what he is doing.

Pigeons have natural instincts but they do also learn from each other. The younger partners often learn from the experienced breeding birds they are mated to.

I agree that if you have two young birds, it is probably a good idea to let them sit on fake eggs their first time. But on the other hand, what's the point. If they aren't the best of parents, just hand-rear the babies. It is actually quite a good learning experience - nothing teaches you about the growth of a young pigeon quite as much as hand rearing. _*AND*_ you end up having some super tame birds as a bonus.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

rudolph.est said:


> I agree, two first time parents ar sometimes a gamble. Especially young males. I usually mate together older hens with young males, and younger hens with old males.
> 
> A couple of days before the eggs hatch, the male starts producing crop milk to feed the hatchlings. The hen only starts producng this on the day of hatching or later. This means that the father is often responsible for the feedings for the first day or two. A more experienced hen usually gets by ok when her young male partner doesn't quite know what he is doing.
> 
> ...


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Unfortunately, not everyone is very good at hand feeding, nor do many want to spend that kind of time doing that.


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## rudolph.est (May 14, 2009)

Jay3 said:


> Unfortunately, not everyone is very good at hand feeding, nor do many want to spend that kind of time doing that.


That's also true. I was just trying to describe the options. I find hand-rearing to be worth the extra effort, but obviously onle when absolutely necessary.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

rudolph.est said:


> That's also true. I was just trying to describe the options. I find hand-rearing to be worth the extra effort, but obviously onle when absolutely necessary.



I agree that hand rearing is worth the effort, but for many, I think it's a better idea to give the birds a bit more time to grow up.


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