cooing

[idit85]

Do both male and female doves/pigeons coo?

My white dove was free flying the whole summer and now because I have no "winterized home" for her I brought her indoors til next summer.She is in a different location in the house where I could theoretically let her "outside" on warmer dryer days.
Question: Would she get confused and go back to where her cage was during the summer (the back side of my house) or would she be able - after a few weeks - to recognize the new location of her cage which is now indoors inside a study window on the other side of the house?
I have no way of "catching her" if she does not enter her cage, so if she went back to her old location on my porch, I could not bring her in to show her the cage. I need to be able to rely on her orientation sense, i.e. rely on her newly acquired knowledge of where her cage's NEW location is...
Can I do this, or would she be all confused and never find the cage in the new location?

[Lee]

Lee here.
If you put the bird in the new cage and leave it there for a while a week or so and of course feed it there it will go to the new cage .. It is going to go where the food is .......

[John_D]

Regards the cooing.. In the aviary, one of the unpaired hens does coo sometimes, and if it weren't for the proof of eggs (when one of the males has been playing away), could be mistaken for a male. I only notice this when I have evicted one of the elder males from taking over her box - she gets back in and does what looks like typical male turning circles, puffing up and cooing. The other hens, in my observation, tend to be pretty much non-vocal except for a warning croak (or snarl ) from some of them when I get too near their nest.

John

[Poulette]

From my experience with ringneck doves, young females often act like males until they find a real male mate. 2 "couples" of young doves I had were... all females! The dominant one bow cooes and mate with the other female, like a male-female couple. But when you find 4 eggs in the nest, it is a real surprise!
Suz.

[ZigZagMarquis]

I'm confused... so do hens coo or not???

[Motherlodelofts]

With pigeons , yes both hens and Cocks will coo. Only the cocks will "drive" another bird. And cocks are generally much more aggresive with the cooing.

[ZigZagMarquis]

Originally Posted by Motherlodelofts

With pigeons , yes both hens and Cocks will coo. Only the cocks will "drive" another bird. And cocks are generally much more aggresive with the cooing.

"Drive"?? What's that?? Is that where they peck at another bird or try to drive them off a perch of something??

[John_D]

This is where you have a pigeon with a mate, and the male will peck at, or otherwise hassle, his mate to get her to go to the nest. To a great extent it is to keep her from other males, but it is such a part of pigeon behaviour that it happens often even when there's no other male around

John

[Motherlodelofts]

Pretty much like John said. Just constantly pushing the hen. you'll know it when you see it. normally only the cocks will strut also although some hens may strut a 'tiny" bit but nothing like a cock in a horndog mood, that is an exception though. There will come a time if you are observant that you can pretty well pick the hens and cocks out at a pretty young age just by features. Plus hens just have there own look as far as exspression. Some birds can fool you though

[idit85]

Thanks for the anwers!

Because what-i-thought-to-be my female dove had started to coo, I was wondering if she was perhaps a male... I supose she's just a cooing female, after all. She has not yet laid any eggs though. I think that she's still too young, perhaps around 6-8 months old...

I will try soon to let her out again from her new location and asume as you said that she will not get mixed up, but will return to her new cage-location.

[Sweetie]

Could Sweetie be truely a hen? I have had her for 50 days now, when I first caught her she was a squeaker, but after the 15th day she stopped and now she doesn't make
a sound. With the estimating of age, she will be 3 months old October 25, 2004. I placed 2 mirrors in her box and she isn't attacking them, she is gently pecking at mirrors. She is not ruffling or making her feathers poof out. How do you tell the hens and the cocks from a young age? Sweetie is still just flapping her wings.

[BrianNAmy]

Wait until she lays an egg. We have one hen (Peetsy) who we could have sworn was a male until she laid her first egg a few days ago. The male (Stewie) was a dead give-away once he started to mount Amy a couple months ago