# Feeding my Outside Pigeons Other Things?



## darlashay (Sep 2, 2017)

I read the post on feeding, and have seen info here and there but I have questions about my two pigeons living on my roof. I have been putting out a "wild bird seed" mix containing milo, white proso millet, black oil sunflower seed, calcium carbonate. I also put out fresh water daily. I never see them do anything other than roost under the eaves all day, fly a few laps around the house in the morning and late afternoon, and come down to the food I leave by the spa. So if they are sourcing any other kind of food, I don't know when or where. There is a patch of grass just below them, but I have never seen them on it or near it. Should I be adding some kind of grit, as I have seen mentioned, and if so, what do you recommend? Also, do they need to have greens added? I buy little containers of wheat grass, is that something they can eat or do they need to have something chopped up fine? I saw someone mentioned broccoli in a mix but that seemed to be a wet mix (meal) so might have been powdered - can they eat little pieces of broccoli? I don't want to confuse them or make them sick. I had thawed out some frozen blueberries with the idea of putting those out, but then thought I had better check first, in case it upsets their system, or maybe it is bad to have berries out of season. Or worse, they love them so much they won't eat anything else and if I am not always here, they won't find blueberries anywhere on their own. We do have to think about how what we do affects their impressions, right? I would like to think they can find some kind of food on their own if something happened that we can't put food out for them. I don't know how to help them without making them dependent. I don't want them to go into someone else's yard looking for food as they would not be welcome. But I guess in the short term, I want to make sure they are getting all the nutrients they need. It seems people are feeding their pigeons a lot more than just "wild bird seed" mix. Any advice is appreciated, especially about grit and greens, thank you.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

They already are dependent on you, as they aren't feral birds who grew up finding their own food. They probably don't know where to find food on their own. They shouldn't really be living free as they are. They didn't grow up learning how to survive free. A good pigeon/dove mix would be good to add to their feed, or even split peas and lentils, a small amount of safflower seed. They would be getting a healthier mix if you added to it. A good pigeon grit would be great. I use Kaytee Bay-mor hi-cal red pigeon grit. 

Ingredients: Calcium Carbonate, Granite Grit, Oyster Shell, Salt, Charcoal, Anise Oil, Zinc Oxide, Manganese Oxide, Ferrous Carbonate, Copper Oxide, Iron Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Cobalt Carbonate. 
It gives them things they need and don't get from a seed diet. Also, leaving out chopped kale or romaine lettuce chopped to bite size, and minced carrots, they may eat it. Mine love it. Some broccoli would be okay. They may pick at some fruits, but probably not so much. If they have never even had veggies, they may just not even see them as food. So it's trial and error. The grit though is important for both the nutrients they need, and it helps them grind up the seeds for digestion.
Do you leave the food where it won't get wet if it rains. The grit would have to be kept from getting wet, and be changed often, as it will grow mold when it gets damp. And it gets damp even in the hot humid weather of summer. So putting out just a bit at a time would work. But it should be available all the time. Just leave out about 1/4 cup, and put more out when they either have taken it all, or it has gotten moist or wet. There are different kinds of grit out there, but that is the one I use.


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## FredaH (Apr 5, 2016)

Lucky little pair they are and so spoiled, lol but they deserve to be eh? I feed mine on Versele Laga pigeon mixes and they are superb, currently I'm feeding the 'black label' feed with black maize and they love it. I buy 25kgs sacks though but you can get 5kgs sacks of some mixes too. If you google pigeon food you're sure to find a good mix. I also use Versele Laga grit with redstone and they love that too. Little porkers.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

They sell different brands in different places, so hard to know what they carry in your area. Checking with feed supply places would give you a better idea. The reason I suggested a pigeon/dove mix is because you can't usually buy the name brand pigeon mixes in small amounts, and shipping to me would not be worth it. They must sell something good that the pigeon keepers in your area use. You can look up those places online. But just adding things to a wild mix, you can make a pretty good mix for them.


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## darlashay (Sep 2, 2017)

Thanks Freda and Jay for your replies. Freda, your brand doesn't sell in the US (from what I could find on their website) but I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of local feed shops that carry the Kaytee brand. I found the red grit you mentioned, Jay, and Kaytee also has a feed that says "doves and pigeons". The specific pigeon mixes are all high protein, for racing pigeons I guess. Not sure if that would be too much for these two. I will call these places tomorrow and see if they have the seed mix and the grit in stock. So far we are still in the 80s and 90s here but I will find a covered place for their food for when we get our few rainy days. (But when it does rain, it pours...) I wish I had a bigger space, I might try to set up some kind of coop for them, but I think they are safer on the roof than on the ground as we do have wildlife such as raccoons that occasionally come into the yard for a drink (they can climb over the fence). I haven't located the local pigeon keeper yet but it seems that is my only other option, for him to try to capture them, or to just do my best for them and let them be. I appreciate your replies, I can at least get them a better food for now.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Pigeons are creatures of habit. If you move where you put the feed, it will probably take them a bit to get used to going to a different spot to eat. Maybe put a feeder for them that has a cover or roof over it in the same place. I remember several years ago moving the feeding area for the ferals I feed in my backyard. Same backyard, but they kept going to the old place. Took them a while to go over to the new feeding area. It was weird, as they could see me putting the feed down from the roof where they would wait. Don't know how high the protein in the mix is, but probably fine. You can also mix it in with a bit of the wild bird seed. I'm glad you found the grit.


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## darlashay (Sep 2, 2017)

*Red Red Robins*

I have some other birds coming around for the seed I leave for my pigeon friends. They are robins, which is kind of thrilling as I have never seen any really identifiable small birds other than sparrows. But it seems my pigeons are not coming for their food. Are they afraid of the smaller birds? I have food on the other side of the yard for the small birds, to try to lure them all over there. But of course some of them want to get into the pigeon food, even though it is larger seed. I even went and bought a small-bird mix that seems a bit nicer than the "wild bird seed" to try to lure themaway. I tried shooing the small birds away when the pigeons are looking, but that is kind of futile. This morning it is all quiet, the robins are elsewhere, I can see "my" pigeons on the roof where they can see their food, but they still don't come. Will small birds pick on them?


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Robins don't eat bird seed. If they are coming to the feed then maybe it has some kind of fruit or meal worms in it? Or they are just coming to forage. Hawks are migrating now. Maybe you are getting a lot of hawks around so they are avoiding them.


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## FredaH (Apr 5, 2016)

I put mealworm suet pellets out for robins, blackbirds, starlings and magpies - sparrows eat those too but the sparrows also forage among the pigeon feed. My collard doves and wood pigeons don't mind the smaller birds at all and eat alongside them. You may have had a predator in your garden, a rat or a cat etc, that would make them wary of landing for a while.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

In the fall when many of the songbirds leave for warmer climates, the hawks are around our lofts and feeders a lot more. They are hungry and don't have as many birds all over the place like they do in the summer months. So they go to where people feed them or keep them. We start getting hawk strikes more at this time, and the ferals that come to feed here are afraid to come. Sometimes we will see them up on the roof, but too nervous to come down to eat. We put the feed out every day anyway, just in case they are really hungry and chance it. I'm afraid many starve during the winter months. It's sad. Come spring they will come back, but the flock is always much smaller. Starvation, sickness and predators take their toll.


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## darlashay (Sep 2, 2017)

If robins don't eat birdseed, maybe that is why they like the "pigeon and dove" mix, it has millet and other ingredients along with a handful of black sunflower seeds I add in. That could explain why my attempts to lure them away with the bird seed haven't worked. So much for the more expensive "parakeet and small bird" mix.

You know, for years we have had many cats, and we were the cat family. Now our last precious inside/outside cat has passed away (old age), and now we seem to be the bird family! Obviously we never had birds in the yard before this, so it is all new to me. We even seem to have a family of birds nesting in a bush in our back yard. That would never have happened during Sebastian's reign of daily yard patrols. And these pigeons that have chosen our roof have now become my daily joy and concern. I so love to see them fly, when they take their morning and late afternoon spin. But I am so concerned for their well-being. My husband and I discussed trying to build them a loft, but we just don't have the right kind of space. Almost our entire yard is taken up by a pool and decking. I could wedge it between the side of the house and the side fence, but then they are in the shade all day and I would have to have Fort Knox there to keep raccoons away. The kindest thing seems to be to let them alone in the space they have chosen and just try to provide for them as best we can. One thing we are doing today is putting up a lattice screen in front of where they roost on the roof, so that stark white Lovey won't stand out so much. Reggie blends into the shadows but Lovey definitely does not. We had another pigeon visitor for one day, my husband said it was sitting on the roof with Reggie and Lovey, but by the time I came around it was gone and have not seen it again.

I am hoping they will adjust to having the other birds around, and get back to their schedule. Thank you for the moral support and advice.


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## darlashay (Sep 2, 2017)

Jay, could you put the food up on the roof?


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

darlashay said:


> If robins don't eat birdseed, maybe that is why they like the "pigeon and dove" mix, it has millet and other ingredients along with a handful of black sunflower seeds I add in. That could explain why my attempts to lure them away with the bird seed haven't worked. So much for the more expensive "parakeet and small bird" mix.
> 
> No. You aren't understanding. Robins don't eat seed. They aren't eating the pigeon mix. If they are there then they are looking for bugs or something else. Or they aren
> t robins. Maybe something else.
> ...


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## darlashay (Sep 2, 2017)

*Red Red Finches*

Since you said these cannot be robins, I learned something new - not all red birds are robins, lol. Probably seems obvious to bird people but I am just discovering the bird population here. I always assumed all the small brown birds were sparrows, since that what everyone calls them. But comparing what I see with my binoculars hopping around my birdseed dishes outside to the internet, I found that these red birds are house finches. I also have house sparrows - I have always thought sparrows are adorable - and a similar bird I saw this morning with a yellow breast. It's exciting to see some colorful birds in my own back yard. As for Lovey and Reggie, they had a friend visit a couple of times, another black and white pigeon. My husband saw the three of them sitting on the roof, but when I checked later, the visitor was gone. Then just a couple of days ago, I caught Lovey and Reggie taking their morning flight, and the third pigeon was flying with them! I am inordinately thrilled when I see them flying. They did a few circles, they go out of my sight when they go around above the houses. When I saw they had landed on the neighbor's house, the third pigeon was not with them and I haven't seen it again. I wonder if it escaped from the same place they did -which I did look for but couldn't find - and has found a home on someone else's roof here. I was happy for it, because if it is alone, it will be happier with others, but concerned whether my couple would be happy with a third wheel. Anyway they seemed to avoid the food that day as well as their nesting area on my roof, I wondered - projecting my human evaluation on them - if they did not want that third pigeon to know where they eat and roost, maybe they didn't want him moving in. Or her. At any rate, I just keep an eye on them and sometimes they sit on the neighbor's house but they seem fine now with coming to the food when the finches are about, the finches just fly away when they come. I am certainly enjoying all of these birds. I know my posts are not important in the face of all the people who need help with sick or injured birds but I just thought I would share anyway in case anybody is interested. Thanks Jay for setting me straight on the robins.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

It's fine that you post on other things. Nice break actually. 
Yes, the finches, and even more so the house sparrows will squabble a lot. House sparrows aren't really sparrows. They are part of the finch family, and not native here, but were brought in from Europe decades ago, and have kind of taken over.

Are you sure the new black and white pigeon isn't their baby? They have been nesting there over 2 months now, so I would suspect that they would have laid eggs and hatched them by now. Maybe you missed something.....................


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## darlashay (Sep 2, 2017)

I don't think the other pigeon is their baby only because it doesn't come back to nest or eat with them. Lovey and Reggie aren't hanging out at my house all day anymore, because after the time change, the sun is at a different angle and it is not in shade as much. After their morning flight, they sit on the peak of one of the neighbors' houses, I always check in the morning to make sure I see them somewhere. During the day, I go out and look around, and I don't see them usually, they are tucked in somewhere. But in the later afternoon they have their flight, and then come to my yard for the evening snack, and up to our roof for the night. I'm just thankful they are still sleeping here. 

But at any rate, we have only seen that third pigeon with them twice and they don't bring him back here. Surely I would have at least seen him eating here. I just don't know.

Do they have babies all year round? We are really having a long summer here, it is still in the 80's. Don't know how much the weather matters.


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