Female pigeon with eggs, help!

[dthomom]

Hi I’m dthomom’s daughter. She has a pet pigeon that she has raised from a baby. She used to post here about a year ago but hasn’t had time to get online. We originally thought the pigeon was a male (despite Mom’s gut feeling) because a site on the internet stated that tail dropping along with some other behaviors the bird has were more typical of a male.

The bird has been acting strange for several days to the point of being injured trying to geet inside the house (where his cage is that he stays in at night). Mom went to the cage today to get the bird out and lo and behold it had laid two eggs! Mom carried the bird outside to let it out for the daytime and the bird had a very large amount of foul smelling diarrhea. Mom wants to know if it’s normal for them to have this massive amount of loose stool after laying eggs and also what she needs to know to take care of her right now. We live out in the country where there are no other pigeons, so the eggs are surely infertile. Does she need to take them away from her now? What do we do? Are there any vitamins or medications or special foods that we need to give her right now?

[cyro51]

Hello,

Mary has noticed that when hens lay eggs their poops get wet and foamy.

Nesting hens will also hold on to their poop while they are on the nest and do a massive poop as soon as the male takes over.

If you let your pigeon out there is a possibility that the eggs could be fertile. Male pigeons will mate with single males without building any particular relationship. I would take one egg from the nest at a time, boil it and replace it. That way she will continue to sit on them full term rather than start another cycle of laying.

She will be distressed if she is kept away from her eggs during the times that hens usually sit on them. is there any possibility of letting her out only at times when the male would be on the nest?

Cynthia

[dthomom]

Thanks for your response.

The pigeon was originally found at a Houston airport, she now lives in the country where there are no other pigeons around for her to mate with.