Our pigeons aren't very freindly, no. They're racers so we don't handle them that often, but they don't mind being handled. That said, the swallow I think was hand raised and imprinted on humans. He doesn't court the females and will attack anything. If you try to pet him he attacks you. Lol.
That sounds fun, still. What happens to the broken wing hawks? Do they get put down?
Well, you could build a square aviary with a triangle piece of wood blocking the gap.
Yep. And Swiss mondains are about 2-3lbs each full grown (so about 2lbs when they're ready to butcher) so you should get a 1lb a meat from each bird. That's how big my mondains were, anywho. I think kings are the same.
Nope, one isn't better than the other. But I like having Swiss mondains since:
1) they're Swiss. Different country, awesome, durrr. Lol
2) they're not that common. Got them off craigslist.
3) they look nicer
They're the same size as kings (I believe), but they just look more... Porpotionate. Less all ridiculous looking. And they come in lots of pretty colors. Though a white bird does dress out better. I had blacks, whites, and blacks with white flight feathers. The blacks and whites could mix breed and only throw all whites, all blacks, and black white flights. The black white flights threw a lot of all whites.
The old english so far have done great... I've only had 2- 1 died. Though. So they might not all be like that, but for such little birds I'm shocked how hardy they are. Ya know, aside from one of them dying. The swallow we got from the pound, so who knows what type of life he used to have, and what strain, so he might do fine in cold. Just our cold is -30. It was on -30 nights that I decided he needed to be spoiled. He lost a lot of weight and was shivering. If you like them, you can look into them and see if there's any local breeders,
Another bird I really liked were my muffed indian Fantial pigeons. Didnt keep them over winter, but they'd be wintered before. I liked them just because they were
fabulous. Lol.
They aren't the best flyers. Come In lots of colors!
I also like frillbacks but not sure how they'd do in cold.
Also, for the record, we don't heat. Aside from the swallow, everyone's been fine. We've only had 1 week of cold weather (-30) but aside from that, it's been really warm. Come January & February (Aka -50 & -60) ill tell you how it is. Everyone's done fine though, even in the -30.
Oh, and its best to either cut up the 2x4's into sections and screw them to the wall, or take whole planks and screw them to wall. Just for cleaning purposes (they'll get nasty fast if you put them from one side to the other) and so you don't clunk your head, lol.
Yep, muffed = Cochins feet. Grouse feet look like this :
Most rollers have grouse feet, most tumblers have muffed feet. Why? Rollers roll in the air ; keep flying. Tumblers fall out of the sky. So rollers need to fly better.
To learn more, go here. Not sure what slipper feet are - cant find anything on them.
http://mail.sumnercomm.net/~rmangile/Pi ... Muffs.htmlEdit ;;
Some other breeds you can look into are pouters. Or, the Romanian naked neck pigeon. LOL. So weird, so funny. I actually kinda like them.
Edit (again, lol);; not all tumblers / rollers have feathered feet - in fact, a lot don't. But when they do, tumblers usually have muffs and rollers have grouse, or slipper I suppose (based on the photo in the link)
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