# Has anyone ever caught a pigeon cheating on his mate?



## cotdt (Apr 26, 2010)

I'm just curious if pigeons cheat, when they have a healthy mate waiting at home for them.


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## re lee (Jan 4, 2003)

They will do it when they can See another pair fixing to top the hen a cock bird will try to stop them or try to top the hen. Thats part of locking the pairs down for knowing where the young come from 100% But if good breeding holes/compartments are made then most often the toping happens there where the hen gets topped only by its mate.


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## Pigeonlove (May 6, 2008)

Yes. Lots of cheating going on!!!!


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## ND Cooper (Mar 4, 2008)

I Never saw any of my Pigeons cheating on their mates!
Then again, I never heard them making any promisses to each other either!


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

Yea. Every day. Both sexes.

Oh wait. You said pigeon, didn't you?

Same answer.


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

*Has anyone ever caught a pigeon cheating on HER mate?*


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Yes...some do...and, some will for different reasons.

A non fruitful Hen will sometimes seek a clandestine liason with a different than her Mate male, in order to preserve her marriage, while at the same time seeking viable Eggs.

Some males are just Playboys, and will seek casual liasons with hens other than their mate, just for fun.


Most Pigeons seem to be faithful and do not go outside of their marriage.



Some males have more than one marriage at the same time, with seperate Hens and seperate Nests and seperate simultaneous clutches of Babys.

Some males will have more than one Hen in the same Nest.

I have a male here who had three Hens in one Nest, sitting on six Eggs, and fighting with one-another about who's turn it was to sit, with him never sitting at all...but instead, he always stayed close to the Nest, guarding the situation faithfully, fiercely.


He loves Babys, and will adopt wayward or orphan ones and look after them and feed them...adopt them.



I do not know how he does it..! Pretty amazing to have three Wives/Hens in the same Nest.


All the Eggs hatched within days of eachother.


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

A lot of them do, all cock bords in my loft bills and coes behind many other hens, if any of those hens would have accepted the cocks' venture, they would have mated, I am 100% sure. Yet don't expect the playboys take care of the incubation and parenting role as said above if that hen already has another mated cock


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Yes...far as I have seen also, whether in here or amif the outdoors Ferals, the 'Playboys' are in it for passing fun, and there would be no courting or follow up, no togetherness or Nest Making or Baby Raising.


I have a lovely older Hen here, a non-releaseable, who had a wonderful mate, they built Nests, sat devotedly, cuddled and mooed and so on...and...no Eggs.

Eventually her mate left her.

Over time, she had a new Mate, everything lovely, faithful, sincere, built a Nest, took tuns sitting...no Eggs.


She very sveltly carefully, outside of his view, had a fleeting liason with a Playboy, and her mate never knew it.

I imagined she thought the lack of Eggs were somehow from a deficiency of her mate, and, that having the dalliance might remedy it.


However, no Eggs resulted.


She did it again, and, this time, her non-flying mate happened to have been trotting around the corner just at the worst possible moment.

He froze in his tracks, looking I would say 'devistated'...she looked terribly embarassed and consternated, and did not know what to do with herself, so she just sort of went in circles, and, it took quite a while for them to smooth this out, and, it did not stick, and, he left her not long after.


She eventually had a new mate, and, again, no Eggs.


Poor dear...my guess is that over her many years, she used up her allotment of Ovums, and, has no more for any Eggs to occur from, even though she wishes for Eggs and Babys.


Anyway, I am confident she would have remained with the same mate forever, and never wandered, if she could have produced Eggs. 

But not producing any, she was unsure if it was somehow his deficiency, and, that underlay her careful secretive liasons.


Even though she is old, when outside among the ferals for the occasional social hour, in periods of not having a mate, she gets a huge amout of attention from various males, and is very popular and gets a lot of one may say mating activity.

Though when she has had a Mate, I never saw her accept or encourage any of these attentions when out for her social hour.


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

> Has anyone ever caught a pigeon cheating on HER mate?


Maybe...but what our hens tend to do is just leave their mate if they find someone better! Wingo has had 4 mates this year!


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## Msfreebird (Sep 23, 2007)

pdpbison said:


> Yes...some do...and, some will for different reasons.
> 
> A non fruitful Hen will sometimes seek a clandestine liason with a different than her Mate male, in order to preserve her marriage, while at the same time seeking viable Eggs.
> 
> ...


 I have ALL of the above! With a mix of "Playboys" that don't follow though on their duties 
Laying on my hammock watching my birds is equivalent to laying on the couch watching a soap opera


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## Whitedove06 (Jul 7, 2009)

My male pigeon is devoted to his mate, Sweetie Pie most of the time; however his daughter Snowflake seems to think that her father is her mate, and vies for his attention.
Just to get her to stop pestering him, he mates with her! Then he goes back to the mother.


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## Pigeonlove (May 6, 2008)

My male Pigeon mated with a Mourning Dove. His mate was laying on one newly hatched chick and one egg, and the Mourning Dove laid an egg the next day. Go figure.


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## yopigeonguy (Oct 22, 2009)

My male also is devoted to his mate, but will act up to anyonewho comes up, trying to woo them too!


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

You gotta love them, even the bad ones! The cock with three hens and a penchant for feeding and adopting babies is incredible! What a generous heart he must have.

Our sweetest relationship started when Kermit had two hens on different nests. We think he was the "fater" of the second hen's eggs, but he took no notice of her at all, so she was forced to leave the eggs uncovered when she had a break. Another widowed male pigeon saw the uncovered eggs and took over the nesting duties. At the beginning they used to fight over ownership of the eggs, but then they started taking the shift over from each other and eventually became mates.


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## pigeonmad eire (Jul 18, 2010)

very interesting topic,i have three birds ,2 racers and one tumbler,the 2 racers have been paired together for some months,and today ive seen the tumbler has laid an egg and is sitting on it..obviously my cock racer has made two mates..is dis normal or will he return to the hen racer..or both?


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

He will probably stay with his mate, and ignore the eggs from the tumbler. You would be better off changing them out for fake eggs. He more than likely will not do nest duty for her, and will not help her raise the babies. So if she doesn't get tired of sitting on the eggs with no help, she may easily tire of trying to raise them herself, and they will either die, or you will have to raise them. Although some birds have raised babies alone, many do not. Why not get her a mate? Having an extra male or female in with the mated pairs just causes problems.


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## PigeonX (Oct 17, 2010)

my birds are just like that also


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## fantaillover100 (Jan 21, 2011)

i once had a arfircain owl and i paired him up with princess my indian fantail but he seemed to like this other fantail peach ( she had a mate already) she always ran away from him after a while he stopped and got back with the mate he should have been with


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## doveone52 (Aug 3, 2009)

I have a beautiful yellow and white hen, Tailfeather who is like the movie star or supermodel of my loft. There's not a male in the bunch who wouldn't drop his mate in a heartbeat if she looked twice at him. She has her little dalliances! Funny little guys!


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## Cyreen (Jun 6, 2010)

Hmm... sounds an awful lot like people. Maybe Earth is just one giant loft.


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## GEMcC5150 (Oct 24, 2010)

TroupsAssaulp said:


> hi everyone,
> 
> I just found this community from researching a few keywords for my school project. I simply wanted to say hi to everyone. Thanks!


Hi there you said it.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

I have a hen that is so monogamous and so faithful that it never been unfaithful. She wingslaps any male that tries to court her. I also used to have a hen that was a "*****." She "sleeps" with any male and go to somebody's nest box just to steal the cock.

I have a cock that is a playboy and his mission in life is to top any females and males or whoever is lying flat in the ground.

Most hens seem faithful except they may accidentally topped by other males. It is the cocks that are not faithful. It seems they are always in search for female to either court or top(mate).

They said that pigeons are monogamous. Ok, they do, but that doesn't stop them from messing around.


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

Mated hens are more eager/vulnerable for mating with other cocks when she is around the time to lay eggs, thats one reason why you find the cock bird driving the hens back to the nest.

Adding to my earlier comment, hens do cheat, especially if you are switching her eggs with fakes and the pair doesnot get a chance to raise a baby. It might be more as a natural instinct, she will try to mate with another male


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## Lynnwood Lofts (Apr 12, 2010)

I see a lot of cooing and showing off from the Playboys in my loft, but no actual mating. However, I had a pair recently that were just coming to sexual maturity and pairing up. I wanted to pair the male with another hen so I took him to my quarantine cage in the house with the new hen and within two hours, they were already mating and loving on one another. Feeling bad about taking her mate away from her, I went back out to the loft to check on my lonely lady just to find out she already had another boyfriend in her nestbox!! They have since paired up and are sitting on their first clutch of dummy eggs.
On the other hand, I have one pair that never cheat. While the hen is off the nest, if one of the playboys comes after her, she just ignores them and will give them a well deserved peck if they get too close. When the male is off the nest, he spends his time picking at the straw, the wood, playing with the toys, and when he is done, he goes back to her and keeps her company. The last time she laid eggs, I actually watched him comfort her through preening while she laid the egg.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Lynnwood lofts,

Nice baby sequence picture you have there. They look very cute. How did you do that?


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## Kiko&Kalani (Aug 10, 2010)

My male pigeon is shameless! He will try (who are we kidding he goes all the way) to mate with my foot right in front of his mate. Here's the funny thing though, he always goes back to his wife (sound familiar?). After 40 years of standing firmly against becoming "the other woman", I was brought down my a pigeon. But she just has to coo once and he flies back to her and forgets all about me. I feel so used!


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## Guest (Feb 11, 2011)

My pigeons do cheat alot I have a blue check cock bird he had been mated to this hen for 2 year an then the next year he went with three hens!


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## Lynnwood Lofts (Apr 12, 2010)

RodSD said:


> Lynnwood lofts,
> 
> Nice baby sequence picture you have there. They look very cute. How did you do that?


Thanks Rod! Those are my babies from last year...I just lined them all up and took a pic. If it's warm out, I like to take the older babies (like the two on the far right) out of the loft and sit on the ground with them so they can see what "outside" looks like  

Kiko&Kalani - I feel so used!  HAHAHAHA!!! You are the mistress!!!


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