Can dove's breed with pigeons??

[jbangelfish]

In Europe, you will see very large aviaries that are shared by only a few birds and they will mix doves, pigeons and sometimes even other types of birds. These large facilities are always heavily planted, like gardens and never crowded. In this way, the birds can be fine but they need room to get away from each other and to hide if necessary. In the US, we are less likely to give the birds the room that they need to get along this way and are best kept separated.

Bill

[maryjane]

Originally Posted by rudolph.est

My two cents' worth...

In my loft, I have a pair of ring-neck doves housed with my homers (someone gave the doves to me as a gift)

Originally, the doves were quite skittish of the pigeons and didn't stand their ground. Recently though, (since it is spring) the doves have started to stand up to the pigeons, and defend their territory well.

The male dove jumps on the pigeons' backs and ferociously pecks at their heads. He wins most of the time against the much bigger (and more aggressive) homer males. I have seen no reason not to keep them together.

This is exactly what my male dove did to my male pigeon before my male pigeon cornered him, scalped him, and killed him. He did it to two other doves when they got out of their cage and he was out of his later in his life and almost killed them too--you cannot imagine the blood, the injuries were horrendous and it was so awful. This pigeon was raised with doves and knew no other pigeons. I have also kept doves in my "disabled pigeon" aviary with no problems until one day one of my nicest, sweetest pigeons turned on one and nearly killed him because the dove was harassing him a little bit.

I've found that the doves are very single-minded when it comes to "Oh yeah, I'll show YOU" even when they are much smaller than the pigeon. To put it bluntly, they don't seem to have the sense to back down when they're going to lose. Don't get me wrong, I love the little guys, but they're just not sensible when it comes to picking fights and knowing when it's better to walk away. Your doves could be happy and fine with your pigeons forever, but experience shows that this is not likely. I would just hate for your doves to have to go through what mine did before I knew better.

[rudolph.est]

Sounds like I'll be buying a separate cage for the pair of doves. I really don't want them to get hurt...