A Detailed Explanation of Pigeon Habits: A Comprehensive Understanding of Pigeons' Daily Behavior
The habits of pigeons include monogamous pairing, being altricial birds, feeding mainly on plant seeds, a craving for salt, a love of cleanliness and a preference for high perches, adaptability and alertness, memory and homing ability, and the habit of dominating the mate, among others. A detailed introduction follows below.
Monogamous Pairing
Adult pigeons are selective about their mates. Once paired, the male and female pigeons always live closely together, jointly taking on such duties as building the nest, incubating the eggs, feeding the squabs, and guarding the nest. After pairing, if one is lost in flight or dies, the other takes a long time before seeking a new mate.
Pigeons Are Altricial Birds
The newly hatched squab (also called the nestling) has a weak body, cannot open its eyes, and has only some down feathers, and cannot walk or forage. The parent pigeons feed the squab with pigeon milk from their crops, and it takes a month of feeding before the squab can live independently.
Feeding Mainly on Plant Seeds
Meat pigeons feed mainly on corn, paddy rice, wheat, peas, mung beans, sorghum, and so on, and generally do not have a habit of eating cooked food. Under artificial rearing conditions, the feed can be formulated into a complete compound feed according to their nutritional needs, with "health sand" (also called nutritional mud) as an additive, plus some vitamins, made into pellet feed with a diameter of 3 to 5 mm; pigeons can adapt to and make good use of this feed.
Pigeons Have a Craving for Salt
The ancestors of pigeons lived by the sea for a long time and often drank seawater, thus forming a craving for salt. If salt is lacking in a pigeon's feed for a long time, it will cause disorders in physiological functions such as egg laying. Each adult pigeon needs 0.2 grams of salt per day; too much salt can also cause poisoning.
A Love of Cleanliness and a Preference for High Perches
Pigeons do not like to come into contact with droppings and dirty soil, and prefer to perch on perches, windowsills, and nests at a certain height. Pigeons very much like to bathe, especially in hot weather.
Adaptability and Alertness
Pigeons are distributed in the tropics, subtropics, temperate zones, and frigid zones, and can live in temperatures of ±50℃. Their stress resistance is particularly strong, and they have a strong adaptability to the surrounding environment and living conditions. Pigeons are highly alert; if disturbed by natural enemies (hawks, cats, weasels, rats, snakes, etc.), they will panic as a flock and try hard to escape the loft, and after escaping they are unwilling to return to the loft to roost. At night, any abnormal noise in the pigeon loft will also cause panic and commotion among the flock.
Memory and Homing Ability
Pigeons have an extremely strong memory, especially in recognizing directions, nest boxes, and their young. Even after several years of separation, they can still discern the direction and fly back to the original place, and identify their mate among the flock. Pigeons can also develop a certain conditioned reflex toward keepers they come into frequent contact with, especially showing a strong ability to recognize the keeper's voice and the tools used during each feeding. After a period of time, when the pigeons hear this sound and see the feeding tools, they will gather on one side of the feeding vessel and wait to eat. On the contrary, if the keeper is rough, after a period of time the pigeons will flee one after another as soon as they see this keeper.
The Habit of Dominating the Mate
After the pigeons build a nest, the male pigeon begins to force the female pigeon to lay eggs in the nest. If the female pigeon leaves the nest, the male pigeon will chase her recklessly, pecking her to make her return to the nest, and will never give up until the goal is achieved. The strength of this mate-dominating behavior is highly correlated with its high egg-laying performance.