Saturday, November 7, 2009

Squeakers.

Two weeks ago we had some friends over. We were showing them around the house and property and they wanted to see the pigeons. I opened up the door so they could look in the coop and out of NOWHERE, Buk (our dog) darted his head in and grabbed a pigeon! I grabbed Buk and he dropped it right away, and it flew up on the house. I caught it a day later. The strange part was that it was sitting in the front corner of the coop, where there is no perch, so I couldn't even see it there when I opened the door. Fast forward to a few days ago, when I was feeding them in the morning, I stuck my head inside and was surprised to see two yellow fluff-balls in a feather-nest in the corner! The bird was in the corner sitting on eggs!

These are about 4 or 5 days old, with eyes still shut. I thought the back one was not alive, but I watched and it rolled over. Unfortunately, it didn't make it for too long, and was still the next day. It was probably the second egg to hatch, and I read that the second, weaker pigeon of the two will sometimes not make it. So we will have one baby pigeon this winter.

The doting parent. I have nest boxes, but I didn't want to put any in until the spring, when warmer weather would make it easier on the chicks, but the birds were resourceful and made their own. I also read that I shouldn't put in a nest now, or move the baby into a nest, or the parents may reject it. So I'll just let them be. Exciting though!

4 comments:

Farmers Veggie Wife said...

dang it, I was going to make this post...from a different point of view that included Sam's leap.

Gevan said...

Cool. It is very exciting to find, especially unexpectedly, the first (horribly ugly...) squeakers. When I had the rollers I often had two hatch, and almost always one died, so don't be surprised.
I'm surprised Buk grabbed an adult, though.

TyMarrs said...

Yeah, the one in the picture is the one he got - it seems pretty unfazed. Pretty bad foreshadowing for when I get chickens though, should be fun to break him of that behavior...

Farmers Veggie Wife said...

yo, update your blog, yo!