Methods for Sexing Young Pigeons and Scientific Feeding Techniques
Sexing young pigeons is of little significance in most cases, but for fanciers who plan to send them to public lofts or enter them in special-ring young bird races, being able to tell male from female when banding the squabs is very beneficial. Below are several methods.
Look at the pigeon egg. Generally, a large and round egg is male; a pointed and long one is female. After 4 days of incubation, candling under light: if the blood vessels on both sides of the embryo's basal axis are symmetrical and appear spider-web-like, it is male; if the blood vessels are asymmetrical, with one side long and the other short and sparse, it is female. This method is rather troublesome and not highly accurate.
Sexing pigeon embryos in the egg. After 5 to 7 days of incubation of a fertilized racing pigeon egg, observe under light: if the blood vessels on both sides of the embryo's basal axis are symmetrical and form a surrounding spider-web shape, it is a male pigeon embryo. If the blood vessels on both sides of the embryo are asymmetrical, with one side long and numerous and the other short and few, it is mostly a female pigeon embryo.
1. Look at the navel. When the squab is 1 to 2 days after hatching, look at the distance between its navel and the tail end. A greater distance indicates male; a shorter distance indicates female.
2. Look at the down. When the squab is 3 to 5 days after hatching, look at the down on the top of its head and neck. Pale yellow (light, the color of a layer hen's egg yolk) indicates male; dull yellow (deep, like a free-range egg yolk) indicates female. The author has observed this method for over ten years, with an accuracy rate above 70%.
3. Look at the vent. When the squab is 4 to 8 days after hatching, view the vent from the side. If the upper edge covers the lower edge, the two ends of the vent opening tilt slightly upward, and the inside of the open vent is roughly hexagonal, it is male; if the lower edge covers the upper edge, the two ends of the vent opening bend slightly downward, and the inside of the open vent is roughly star-shaped, it is female. The author has not observed this method much.
4. Look at the uropygial gland. When the squab is 5 to 8 days after hatching. If the tip of the uropygial gland is forked, it is male; if the tip of the uropygial gland is not forked, it is female.
5. Look at the true feathers. When the squab is 10 to 14 days after hatching, if true feathers appear first on the head and cheeks, it is male; if true feathers appear first on the top of the head, it is female.
6. Look at the breast feathers. When the squab is 25 to 30 days after hatching, if the true feathers on the breast and neck have a slight metallic sheen and no lacing, it is male; if the true feathers on the breast and neck have no metallic sheen and have lacing, it is female.
7. Look at the flight feathers. When the squab is 25 to 30 days after hatching, if the tips of the 7th to 10th primary flight feathers are relatively pointed, it is male; if the tips of the 7th to 10th primary flight feathers are relatively rounded, it is female.
8. Look at the toes. After the squab is one month old, if the 2nd and 4th toes are of different lengths, it is male; if the 2nd and 4th toes are of the same length, it is female.
9. Look at beak movement. After the squab is one month old, hold the pigeon's beak with your hand; if it does not smack its beak after release, it is male; if it smacks its beak, it is female. This method has relatively high accuracy.
Feeding mainly involves the following stages:
I. From hatching to banding
During this period, the squab's food is mainly “pigeon milk”, which comes from the crop of the parent pigeons. It resembles animal milk but differs from it. Animal milk is a liquid secreted by the mother's mammary glands and delivered through the nipples, and the young obtain food by suckling. Pigeon milk is a solid secreted by glands on the inner wall of the crop after the parent pigeon digests and absorbs food; the parent pigeon regurgitates the pigeon milk from the crop into its mouth, holds the squab's beak, and the squab obtains food by swallowing inside the parent pigeon's mouth.
The secretion of pigeon milk by parent pigeons is conditional. Just as animal milk requires the mother's gestation process to stimulate mammary gland function before milk is produced, parent pigeons must go through 18 days of incubation before they can secrete pigeon milk. The difference is that both male and female pigeons produce pigeon milk, and how abundant the pigeon milk is has a great deal to do with the food composition and timing you provide.
Never mind what the composition of pigeon milk is; careful fanciers will notice that in the two days before the squab is about to break out of the shell and during the week before the squab is banded, if you carefully observe the foods the parent pigeons like and dislike, you will realize what kind of food produces abundant pigeon milk, and thus you will understand what kind of food promotes the secretion of pigeon milk in the parent pigeons. When you find that the squab's crop is not full, then examine yourself: is there a problem with the grain formula you feed the breeding pigeons, or with the timing and amount of food the parent pigeons obtain? Improving the breeding pigeons' food and feeding time will improve the feeding quality of the squabs, thereby ensuring the growth of the squabs in the first stage.
During the period when the parent pigeons are regurgitating milk, the alternation time between male and female does not change much, but some male pigeons that are attached to the squabs will show longer brooding, giving the female pigeon ample time to leave the nest to eat. If the squabs do not eat the milk food well during this week, it will directly affect their development in the second stage.
If in the morning you find the squab's crop is not full of food, it means the female pigeon has not obtained good enough food. First, your grain formula lacks ingredients she would choose for secreting pigeon milk; second, you feed too early in the morning. The female pigeon is still in the nest box, and when the male pigeon goes to relieve her, the food in the trough is already leftovers. If your work schedule leaves you no time to fully care for the breeding pigeons during the brooding period, it is suggested that after adding food in the morning, you place a small food bowl in the nest of the breeding pair feeding squabs and add a certain amount of food for the female pigeon to eat. Even if you cannot guarantee the breeding pigeons eat on time in the evening either, then add more, leaving it for the male pigeon to eat when he comes out after the swap, and feed again after you get off work. If in the evening you find the squab's crop is not full of food, it means the male pigeon has not obtained good enough food; refer to the solution above and this problem can be improved.
If, due to special circumstances, feeding is delayed and the breeding pigeons do not get enough food, and the pigeon milk is certainly not emulsifying well, check whether the squab's crop is flat. You can use a syringe to inject a fresh pigeon egg; this is the best remedy. If no pigeon egg is available, a chicken egg can be substituted, but pay attention to the amount injected; do not inject too much, or the squab will choke on the overflowing egg liquid. This method should not be used repeatedly on one squab; after all, it is a remedy and cannot replace pigeon milk.
Pay special attention to squabs growing to the 4th or 5th day, because at this time one squab's food intake equals that of two squabs in the previous two days. So whether you feed your squabs well or not, when they are 2 or 3 days old you cannot spot major problems. As time goes on, squabs grow very fast, so pay more attention to squabs at 4 or 5 days old; otherwise the parent pigeons will feed the squabs hard food early. Since at this time the squab's digestive system is not yet fully developed, and looking at the squab with a bulging crop, if there is too much hard food, the nutrition provided to the squab will be slow, which will naturally affect the squab's development. Those squabs born on the same day will show different sizes when banded; this is the reason.
II. From banding to 12 days
After banding at 6 or 7 days, the squab means it has started eating hard food, the digestive system is gradually maturing, and feathers are beginning to grow. Likewise, you will understand what food young pigeons need at this stage through the parent pigeons' food choices. In Mr. Gao's article it is also clearly pointed out that in food without corn, barley, or paddy, you will find from the parent pigeons' food choices that they will not eat such food. Instead, you will find that the parent pigeons' demand for health grit increases. Reason one: the trace elements in health grit include phosphorus and calcium that help squab growth; reason two: the sand and red soil in health grit help the squab's digestion and metabolism. At this time the squab's bones and whole-body feathers begin to grow, and food intake also begins to increase greatly. The navel can be treated at 10 days with good results.
At this time, the parent pigeons are still very picky about food, and the intake of some legumes is not yet much. You can mix some phosphorus and calcium that help bone and feather growth into the health grit, mixing once a day. You can also reprocess the health grit you bought yourself: at a ratio of one bag of shell powder to two bags of health grit, add an appropriate amount of phosphorus and calcium powder. I do not like catching the breeding pigeons to stuff pills every day; this makes the breeding pigeons feel insecure, which definitely affects brooding. Just think: can a pair of breeding pigeons without a sense of security produce good offspring? I feel it will affect the breeding pigeons' heredity as well. Nor do I like holding pills and stuffing them into each squab's mouth one by one every day; better to leave this work to the parent pigeons to feed themselves. Disturb the squabs' rest as little as possible; only when they eat their fill and sleep soundly will they grow up healthily. As long as you provide the nutrition the young pigeons need to the parent pigeons, they know what the young pigeons need during growth better than we do, and besides, some young pigeon nutrition pills certainly contain growth hormones. I oppose feeding these things to squabs; squabs fed pills do look good, but that is all superficial; the essential things cannot be changed.
Do not take the squabs out several times a day to look at them over and over. At this time the squabs are plump and indeed adorable, but for them to become excellent racing pigeons in the future, I advise you best not to handle the squabs for no reason. After putting out the pigeon grain each day, just check that the breeding pigeons are actively feeding their young and that the full squabs are sleeping soundly and safely in the nest bowl. What you need to look at is around the nest bowl: whether the squabs' droppings are normal. For squabs around the nest bowl whose droppings are not well formed, check whether the squab's crop has too much water. If so, that is caused by the parent pigeon. Catch the parent pigeon feeding it and check whether it is the female or the male that has too much water in the crop. The reasons for a parent pigeon having too much water: reason one, the parent pigeon may have trichomoniasis; reason two, the parent pigeon has a history of illness, and after feeding the young, body fluids are out of balance, causing it to drink a large amount of water, so the squab is fed too much water and frequently defecates, causing unformed droppings. Solution: stop the breeding pigeons from feeding the young; the squab will naturally improve. After conditioning the parent pigeons, pair them again.
III. From 12 days to 18 days
At this stage the squab's feathers gradually increase, and the primary and tail feathers also begin to grow rapidly. The breeding pigeons are also less willing to brood them and begin busily preparing to lay a second clutch. Squabs 12 or 13 days old are the least appealing, looking quite ugly. At this time the squabs need a large amount of protein, so the parent pigeons' demand for legumes is relatively strong. The small food bowl hung in the nest box can be used again: first, at this stage the squab's food intake equals that of an adult pigeon, ensuring the food supply; second, the squabs can learn to peck food together with the parent pigeons. If the nest box is large enough, you can place another nest bowl at the other end of the nest box, to avoid the parent pigeons searching everywhere for a nesting site and neglecting the squabs. When they are 16 or 17 days old, pay special attention because some squabs, able to learn to stand or walk, easily fall outside the nest box. A single squab that falls outside the nest box is easily pecked and injured by other parent pigeons, especially on the head; this phenomenon generally occurs with squabs in relatively small nest boxes.
At this stage the water intake is especially large, so pay attention to the drinkers in the loft and ensure there is enough clean drinking water every day. Otherwise, squabs deprived of water will easily leave a mark on their feathers during growth, commonly called a “water mark”. Sometimes you will find that a squab's small wings have an outward-turning phenomenon, and some squabs' primary and tail feather quills grow very long without breaking open, like bamboo skewers stuck on the wings; that is caused by a lack of protein and phosphorus and calcium. Improving the breeding pigeons' food and ensuring the supply of phosphorus and calcium will avoid such phenomena.
IV. From 18 days to 22 days
When the squabs have grown to 17 or 18 days old, fanciers with the conditions can place all squabs of the same size together with their nest bowls on the floor of the loft. First, the female parent pigeon may already have laid a second clutch, so this provides the parent pigeons with good incubation space; squabs always like to squeeze together with the parent pigeons, which easily affects the parent pigeons' incubation. Second, with the squabs on the floor, all the parent pigeons will come to feed them, especially the male pigeons, who will be responsible for supplying many squabs; in this way, the squabs will learn to compete and develop a sense of grabbing food. Those that cannot grab food will also learn to follow the parent pigeons to the trough to forage, laying the foundation for independent living in the future. Before the squabs leave the nest, they can smoothly complete the transition from raising their heads to beg food from the parent pigeons to lowering their heads to forage, reducing the stress response when the squabs become fully independent.
At this period the squabs' food is mainly legumes, and the proportion can reach 50%; squabs fed this way will have very full and firm muscles. From 22 days to 24 days, the squabs begin to enter the stage of completely independent living; for independently living squabs, the food is still mostly legumes. At the same time, feed nutritional soil pills the size of peas, put out before feeding, preferably 5 or 6 per bird, to ensure the growth needs of squabs still in the growth and development stage, and also to help the squabs digest. Feeding this way until after 30 days, look at the squabs again: every one has firm muscles and hard bones, laying a good foundation for their future racing career.