Pigeons laying too many eggs!!

[CCBIRDDOGMAN]

I started my coop last August, I bought 6 birds (not knowing male from female), I ended up with 3 males & 3 females, all three pairs hooked up & started laying almost immediately (one pair took a little longer), and they laid eggs & hatched babies all winter, I have only lost one baby that hatched & I'm pretty sure on of the males killed it. One of the original adults died a few weeks ago and I have lost I think three birds while letting them fly (pretty sure a Hawk got em). After all of that, I think I have 19 birds right now (17 of them flying & homing - including the 5 adults that I started with). These suckers breed like rabbits!! I'm not letting them have anymore right now, I have probably already tossed 10 eggs.

I know the pigeon racers probably want perfectly bred / pedigreed birds but do you guy's like me that just keep birds for dog training worry about inbreeding? I am only needing birds to home 15 miles max but I will be using most of them within a mile. If they do inbreed, does it lessen the distance they are known to home to? I work 60 miles from my house & want to get to the point that I can bring them to work with me & turn em loose. Unless I'm likely to lose a bunch of em.

[RichK]

With the proper training 60 miles shouldn't be a problem.

[DonF]

Are they homer's or ferals? My ferals will come back 50+ mi. Homer's I don't know but they have returned from 75mi when I let a friend take some home!

[CCBIRDDOGMAN]

Homers. Started with four solid white ones & 2 gray ones. Now i have a mix of colors from solid white, white with gray, white with brown & solid gray.

[RickB]

I haven't needed the distances that you need, so I cannot comment.

I have been known to throw a feral in with the homers. I wanted the genetic diversity. I also wanted the "street savvy" that I supposed to come from a feral bird. I don't know that it helped. I do not feel it hurt.

Rick

[rinker]

The inbreeding will not affect them. Start moving the distances out some, if you got a dud in the bunch, he won't make it home and therefore will be out of your breeding pool. There are constantly people on these boards begging to buy homing pigeons, I would think you could maybe offset the cost of your feed if you sold the squeakers that are being produced.

[ezzy333]

We fly our birds up to 600 miles though we try to limit young birds to 400 at most. if you have tossed them at 20 miles or so and had them return they should be ready to go out to 30 or 40. Nice thing when you have too many it doesn't hurt to lose a few and it will make your flock better. And don't worry about the inbreeding. And I will advise you not to cross them with a feral for genetic diversity. There is nothing to be gain and all you are doing is weakening the genetics that have taken hundreds of years to breed into them.

[DonF]

In the past I have crossed a few with ferals. Then ferals were all I had and a friend gave me a couple homer's. I couldn't say they either helped or hurt the ferals. I wouldn't do it today though. I've got 20+ ferals here now, all hatched out here. Had ferals for about 30 yrs. They are a lot more hyper than the homer's, I've got about 35 homer's now, all except three hatched here. They are a lot calmer and bigger birds. Been a lot of times I've knocked over foot traps and they just walk around till you shoo them off, I've never had a feral do that.

I've heard the white birds are a favorite of predator birds, I've never had any. My red birds, you call them brown, do seem to attract hawks really well. I seldom fly them very far, I like to look at them! The blue, I think you called them gray, seem to me to be the best homer's I have. Don't seem to lose as many to hawks but do loose a few. The birds that don't make the trip home on a flight I chalk up to hawk kills. Not really true though. I've got a blue bar in the pen that volunteered about a year ago. It has the pigeon band on it and what I think is a racing band. He dropped in for a bite to eat and drink of water and never left.

Birds that don't return don't bother me a lot because they wouldn't be good for much other than kill birds anyway and as your finding out, not hard to come by kill birds! In my feral loft I do have some birds with quite a bit of white on them, really pretty birds. I like to see them so I don't fly them much, never from away from home. Other than I like to look at them their useless freeloaders! I'm thinking about your white birds, are they really homer's of are the king's? As easy for hawks as they seem to be, I can't imagine why a racer would want them. There are people that raise them and turn them loose at different event's and wedding's. One thing I have never worried about is how fast they get home, I don't care. I have plenty of birds so shortage's don't occur around here very often, meaning there is always birds in the loft's!

[Del Lolo]

Don't toss the eggs.
Save a few up and they make great scrambled eggs or oevos rancheros.

[DonF]

Don't toss the eggs.
Save a few up and they make great scrambled eggs or oevos rancheros.

I've had people ask me if I eat my bob white eggs. I can't imagine how many you'd need for a meal! Pigeon egg's huh? How many does it take for a meal?

[Del Lolo]

Don't toss the eggs.
Save a few up and they make great scrambled eggs or oevos rancheros.

I've had people ask me if I eat my bob white eggs. I can't imagine how many you'd need for a meal! Pigeon egg's huh? How many does it take for a meal?

How many ? Depends on how hungry you are and what you are having along with the eggs.
Another way to use quail eggs (and pigeon eggs too I suppose) is to pickle them.
Just look up "pickled eggs" for recipes.