# Kissing??



## Hanie (Oct 14, 2004)

My piji Mix has just laid her seccond egg and Im not sure whether its fertile or not because shes only been together with a male for 2 days (the previous owner kept them in male female lofts) and I havent seen any of the males "helping" like sitting or anything, and when she came down to get food no one was on the nest. 
But today Blaze flew to the box the nest is in and started preening her around the face, then he poked is nose under as if to look at the eggs. then they started "kissing". they rubbed their beaks together and all this. What does it mean??
And how long does she not have to be on the nest before the eggs die??


----------



## rosey_love (Mar 21, 2004)

Hummmmm well, the male and this hen has only been together for 2 days and she laid an egg? Was this the same male she was mated with in the other loft? If it isnt then she prob eather has mated with the other mate and laid an egg or it could be just an unfertile egg (that would be my least choice).

It prob isnt her mate she has now because she does not have time to develop this egg.


----------



## ZigZagMarquis (Aug 31, 2004)

Hanie,

In addition to the preening, the "kissing" you saw could have been "billing" where one of the birds puts their beak inside the others, kinda like when an adult is feeding a youngster. I don't know how reliable a clue it is, but I've heard that when you see a mated pair billing each other, it is usually the female that puts her beak inside the males.

I found this :

http://birds.cornell.edu/publications/birdscope/Winter2001/notebook.html

... too on pigeon courtship habbits. It doesn't seem to cover all of the behavior, but most of it.

Also, you can candle the eggs in a few days and see if they are fertal. Over to the experts to correct me if I am wrong, but if they are not fertal, I would replace them with dummies and let the hen sit them for the cycle so you don't wind up with any broken (rotten)  eggs along the way.

---- edit ----

Here ya go, scroll down a bit on this link and it talks about billing :

http://birds.cornell.edu/publications/birdscope/Winter2001/courtship.html


----------



## JGregg (Jul 28, 2003)

*billing*

In my personal experience the female puts her beak into the male's beak and he regurgitates for her.

All of the male pigeons that I've had choose me as their mate insist on grabbing my finger and regurgitating seeds for me. None of my females have done this.

I've also seen the pigeon couple that lives across from me do this too. The female always has her beak in the males during billing, never the reverse.


----------



## Chikory's Inner Chicken (Apr 13, 2004)

On the subject of how long the eggs are left unattended before they die - 

Well, scientists have said that 3 minutes after they go cold or somthing they die. I have had two instances, two very freaky instances where this has been proven wrong. The first was when I was putting their eggs in the fridge so that they would not hatch, I didn't have enough room in my coop and I couldn't let them out because we had a nest of hawks not far away (and when I say not far, I mean like 10 meters!). So I had these eggs in the fridge for close to 2 weeks, and then I shoved them in the nest box for Bernitta and Arnie to sit on. A few weeks later, the eggs up and hatched! I had two healthy baby pigeons! P8 and Chance. Unfortunantly they did not get to grow up because a rat came and killed them, but the rat did get beaten by the mother, enough to make it bleed. Boy was I P.Oed!
The second instance is Philomena-Moonie. A young bird with a heck of a lot of personality! He was left out in the cold for about a week, maybe a little less than a week, but long enough. It may be Australia, but the winter was still quite cold. I put him back under Fern and Brownie and he hatched too. His brother or sister didn't make it though, never made it out of the egg. Although he or she may not have even been alive. But anyway, that's my two cents. 

Basically, the scientists are full of it, stuff happens (Well duh!). The parent pigeons know what they're doing, come feeding time if one or the other jumps off the nest to get a quick feed, they won't stay away long. They both will be keeping an eye on their nest, and if the one that got off dosn't hot foot it back in time, the other will take it upon themselves to do so. 

~Chikory


----------



## Hanie (Oct 14, 2004)

wow thats amazing!!  in the fridge for 2 weeks and it still hatches!! ashame about the hawks!!  

Hanie


----------



## KIPPY (Dec 18, 2003)

THANK YOU! so that's what it is (billing).
I have 2 female pigeons that do that billing thing. They both lay eggs in the same basket. They were not born that way they just don't have a male around. I kinda knew it was something like that but not sure and didn't ask.
Kippy seems to be the one to get sick. I quit giving her those peas, it wasn't pretty.


----------

