# Abandoned Fancy Pigeons



## LeslieTucci

The Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley located in San Jose just received approx. 15 fancy pigeons that an owner dumped in a park. Among them are brown fan tail (?) pigeons and another sort we were unable to ID however they have dark red-brown bodies with black wings and a small crest on the back of their heads. We do not work with domestics but have been keeping them in one of our aviaries until we find a suitable home for them. Anybody interested? We would really appreciate any help - the aviary will be needed soon! Please contact Leslie ( [email protected] ) for more information. 
Thank you!


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## TAWhatley

Hi Leslie,

I'm going to ask in the other sections for members to have a look at your post .. 

Surely someone would love to have these gorgeous pigeons .. fantails and perhaps Archangels.

Terry Whatley


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## Birdmom4ever

I might be able to take a few. I'll give them a call.


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## ernie

I would be interested in the fantails. We have been thinking about getting a female for our indian fantail, so he will leave the rest of the crowd in peace.
I live all the way in Ohio, though.
Any chance you would be willing to ship?
Erna


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## LeslieTucci

I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to ship. We are a non-profit organization (which means limited funds) and I don't think Fish and Wildlife would like it if we did that. Thank you for offering your help though!


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## natrlhorse

I e-mailed you. I'm going to be in San Jose tonight (Sunday), all day Monday and leaving Tuesday morning early. I will be staying near ALum Rock Park. I raise fantails and have a couple of lonely single young birds looking for mates. Maybe I could see the birds and bring home a couple. I don't know where you are located, you can call me on my cell phone @ (805) 459-8748

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Tori
Fantails, Komorner Tumblers and Hungarian Giant House Pigeons


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## Birdmom4ever

Tori, I'm so glad to see someone else is interested! We were only able to take three of these beautiful little pigeons because our loft is FULL. We got two Archangels and one red fantail--appears to be an American fan.

These are beautiful birds and appear to be in good condition. (Though we are keeping them in quarantine, as we do with any new pigeon.) The Archangels are small, about the size of my rollers. They are quiet and peaceful, but seem comfortable with people. There are 9 of these pigeons left--I don't know how many of each breed, but WCSV can tell you. I hope and pray someone will be able to take the rest of them. It breaks my heart that they were dumped.


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## natrlhorse

I've been out of town and out of state. But we should be home and heading up to San Jose for a couple of days again at the end of this week. I don't know the dates for sure but between the 17th and 22nd of September. I never got a reply of the pigeons, I could still take a couple if they are available. Any more info? My e-mail is Natrlhorse @ hotmail . com (no spaces)

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Tori
Fantails, Komorner Tumblers and Hungarian Giant House Pigeons


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## TAWhatley

Tori,

You would need to contact Leslie directly to see if any of these birds still need homes. I don't think she visits here very often.

Terry Whatley


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## tina keller

You might also want to contact the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley directly to see if they are still available. The phone no. is (408) 929-9453. The address is 3027 Penitencia Creek Road, San Jose. The hours are 10:00 a.m to 5:30 p.m. Good luck!

Tina 




> Originally posted by TAWhatley:
> *Tori,
> 
> You would need to contact Leslie directly to see if any of these birds still need homes. I don't think she visits here very often.
> 
> Terry Whatley*


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## natrlhorse

You've got to be kidding me...I know exactly where that is and I was right there on the last visit. I did send an e-mail and didn't get a response but thanks for this info. I will write it down and give them a call. My grandparents live right there and they go to the senior center just next door.I'll let you know how it goes. Will be in SJ tomorrow.

Tori


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## natrlhorse

Update! I went to the wildlife center this morning and brought home the last three fantails. They only had one pijj left from the group of 12 abandoned in the park. It is a small kite colored archangel who looks very lonely. They also had a roller and two other pigeons that came in yesterday. I wasn't sure of their breed, looked like some sort of flight breed with longer wings and tails that fanned out a little. 

Anyhow the new fantails are tucked away in a small coop until I can get them home. Two are peach colored and the third young one is red. They are a little thin but hopefully will thrive on a better diet.

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Tori
Fantails, Komorner Tumblers and Hungarian Giant House Pigeons


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## TAWhatley

Thanks for the update Tori. I'm so glad you were able to help the fantails. Hopefully the other pijjies will get adopted soon also.

Terry Whatley


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## tina keller

I'm so glad you were able to get these three pigeons and hopefully the other's will find homes soon. I'm sure they'll be happy and healthy at their new home!

Tina


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## natrlhorse

They're settling in great. The lil red one will sit in my hand. One peach or pink colored bird is banded with a NPA band. It is a fairly nice fantail and I think it is a hen hatched in 2000. The other two are not banded and are definately under a year old. I think they probably aren't more than a couple of months old. They are either both males or maybe one is a fiesty hen. Hopefully they will pair up with some of my single blue bar fantails.

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Tori
Fantails, Komorner Tumblers and Hungarian Giant House Pigeons


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## Birdmom4ever

I hadn't checked the adoption forum for awhile. Tori, I'm so glad you got those pigeons! You said just a few were left, so I guess they found homes for the others. I hope so. After we took three, there were nine left. 

Here's the story on the ones we adopted: My husband wanted a pair of archangels. The Wildlife Center isn't in the business of adopting animals out and the volunteers, though wonderful, know little about pigeon breeds. I asked them to try and give me a pair (they can't allow the public in the back) and they boxed them up before I got there. I didn't think to look in the box, and when I got home, much to my surprise, I had a red fantail cock and an archangel hen! I didn't mind, but my husband really wanted an archangel pair, so we went back for what we hoped would be a male archangel. The bird they gave us was turned out to be a cock, so we got our pair. The amazing thing is, I suspect they were already a pair because they acted like mates immediately, with none of the usual preliminary courtship rituals. If so, they were very fortunate to be reunited. We named them Narcissus and Echo.

The red fan is a lovely little bird, nice quality, I believe. Ironically, he has turned out to be my favorite of the three. He has an NPA band and was hatched in 2000. He had some stress bars in his tailfeathers so he apparently wasn't getting adequate nutrition, but all three were otherwise healthy. 

The happiest part of this story concerns Jasmine, one of my favorite hens, a beautiful yellow bald-headed roller. She suffered prolapses twice while laying eggs this spring. The vet advised me to separate her from her mate for good, which I did. I put her in the small aviary on our patio with a female companion. She's on a very expensive prescription calcium supplement that goes in her drinking water, which is another reason she has to be away from the flock. But she became very depressed and lost weight. In the meantime, Rufous (the red fantail) was getting picked on by the archangel cock while they were in quarantine. Jazzy's had all her shots, so I went ahead and put Rufous in the small aviary with her. They fell madly in love. He is a gracious and gentle lover and she's delighted with him. On good food and probiotics his new feathers are coming in beautifully and he's really a gorgeous bird. And my Jasmine is happy again and has gained lots of weight. She hasn't laid any eggs since her last prolapse at the end of July, so I'm hoping perhaps she has stopped laying for good. 

Anyway, everyone is happy and we are delighted with the three pigeons we adopted. I still wish we could have taken more of them, but we had too many babies this year and just didn't have room. I'm so glad someone else took some of these special birds. 

[This message has been edited by Birdmom4ever (edited October 01, 2003).]


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## Skyeking

Hi Birdmom4ever!

I enjoyed reading your update on your adopted birds. Can you give me a description of what "stress bars in his tail feathers" looks like? I'm always interested in learning more about how feathering displays a birds past. Thank you.. Treesa


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## Birdmom4ever

I learned this several years ago when I took a young scrub jay to the Wildlife Center. He'd been fostered by humans for a couple weeks and wasn't yet weaned. They fed him Kaytee's baby bird formula which probably didn't have sufficient protein for jays, which are omnivorous. Either that or they didn't feed him often enough. Anyway, I noticed his feathers were thin looking and his primaries and tail feathers had bars across them that looked a like blank spaces in the feathers--you could see light through them. The intake person at the Wildlife Center called these "stress bars" and said they resulted from inadequate nutrition. 

I didn't see that again until I got this fantail and he had the same kind of bars on his flights and tail feathers. It looks kind of like a tiny bar code, but you can see through it. His new feathers are perfect, though.









I'm curious about their past, too. Since the feathers are from last year's molt, I assume he wasn't getting everything he needed for at least that long. But the archangels didn't have that problem. Also the fantail had a lot of poop on his feathers, but the archangels didn't. So I'm guessing they were kept in crowded conditions and because fans are poor flyers, they got the worst roosting spots and were low in the pecking order. I'm also guessing that because my fan had a permanent band and the archangels didn't, he was purchased by whoever abandoned him but the others were bred by the owner. Another clue: The archangels were banded with plastic tie-wraps with the ends cut. The hen had two bands, one on each leg, and the cock had one. I'm guessing this designated male or female. A friend of mine knows some people from a certain part of the world (I won't say where 'cause I don't want to offend or accuse anyone) who use that system. So it's a lot of guessing, but I was able to deduce a little about my new birds' past. 

It's easy to judge someone harshly for abandoning these fancy pigeons in a park, but who knows what the rest of the story is. Perhaps the owner died, or was disabled, or lost his job...could be a lot of things. We all know it isn't easy to find homes for pigeons. At least he or she didn't just kill them. And some of us have been blessed with beautiful new birds.

[This message has been edited by Birdmom4ever (edited October 01, 2003).]


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## natrlhorse

Those stress bars could be bald spots in the feathers caused by lice. I don't know if you dusted your birds with sevin dust (you can do it like shake and bake in a bag) before you introduced them. I dusted my three in the box they came in. But poor feather quality can be from lack of nutrition. They were a little lean on just the wild bird feed provided at the wildlife center. I would be a little stressed if I was a pijj hanging out back there with the birds of prey and other critters in rehab!

The vet at the center let me come in the back to see the birds. I bet your fantail cock was the mate to my "pink" hen, perhaps the young ones are their offspring? No need to worry as my hen with the 2000 band has been spending time with a single blue bar cock in my loft. I think that the two youngsters (one pink, one red and smaller) are boys, they were having a regular wrestling match in the box together









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Tori
Fantails, Komorner Tumblers and Hungarian Giant House Pigeons


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## Birdmom4ever

Hi, Tori. I was thinking the same thing--that your pink fantail hen was probably Rufous' mate! I was so happy to see your post because I had guessed, since he was three years old, that he probably had a mate and I felt sorry for her being left behind. It warms my heart to know she has a happy home and a new hubby. I love happy endings.

I dusted the new birds thoroughly because they had a lot of mite damage to their feathers; it looked like tiny holes had been punched in their tail feathers and flights. But it looks different than the bars. 

So much for hoping Jasmine would stop laying. She laid an egg today. But she didn't prolapse this time, so I'm hoping she'll be okay as long as she stays on her special calcium supplement. I don't know why she has this problem. I give all my pigeons lots of grit with oyster shell and vitamins and minerals in their water. She's the only one with this problem. 

If you're up this way again, let me know and you can come visit our flock.


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## gogo45

*hello*

hello i will tke the birds just ship them to me please for information contact me my email [email protected]


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## Guest

again this is an old post from 2003  the dates are listed up on the top in the left corner if you want to know how old they are


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## Morris Loatman

Hi Terri
I would take the rest of the pigeons if you could ship them cod and i will send you the box for them. Name is Morris
This is my e-mail address [email protected]


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## Msfreebird

Morris Loatman said:


> Hi Terri
> I would take the rest of the pigeons if you could ship them cod and i will send you the box for them. Name is Morris
> This is my e-mail address [email protected]


The post your replying to is from 2003


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