[birdbum]

Hello! I’m trying to make a list of vegetable greens and fruits that are safe to feed pigeons. I’ve looked through google and when I search “pigeons and greens” I mostly get results for chickens or parrots. I’ve also looked through quite a few posts here but have to look through different threads to find information because it all isn’t in one place. I was hoping we can group together to build a list that would benefit all of us!

My birds love:
Kale (dino,curly, etc)
Turnip greens
Carrot greens

What do yall feed your birds? Are beets and beet greens okay? What about different types of lettuce, chard, or bok choy? What are things we should not be feeding them? Once I get a good list going I can share here on the thread. Thanks yall!

 

[Doves Witness]

The problem with most of the safe/not-safe plants lists is that none of the lists ever specify what amount of an allegedly "bad" plant causes toxicity. For instance, many lists indicate that garlic is toxic to birds. Yet there are dozens of research experiments in which they fed documented amounts of garlic to birds without any sign of toxicity at all. Everything is toxic in some quantity, salt for instance, is deadly in large amounts. But if the birds are not forced to eat it, then they aren't likely to reach a toxic level of consumption, so in the practical sense the food isn't toxic in the amount that the birds are likely to consume.

I offer chopped cilantro leaves, freshly diced garlic, and freshly diced ginger root to pigeons routinely. The birds do eat some of each and not only have no birds died, but they are actually quite well perhaps because all three of the plants have health benefits in reasonable amounts, despite that all three would quite likely cause illness if the birds ate large quantities of them. I also feed them diced apples, grapes (well, one grape per bird), carrots, and celery. I tried giving them mint leaves once, but nobody wanted any. I'm currently doing an experiment with herbal teas to determine which a certain pigeon likes most but so far she hasn't showed any enthusiasm for them. However she does seem to enjoy lemon juice added to her drinking water.

I also gave them a chopped, thin slice of cantaloupe along with all the seeds (with all the stringy material chopped.) I left the room to get coffee and when I returned ALL OF IT was gone. I had several birds here at the time, four I think.

 

[Marina B]

Mine love spinach and green peas.

 

[Doves Witness]

Feral pigeons' diet from research...

North America

Studies of pigeons in a semi-rural part of Kansas found that their diet includes the following: 92% corn, 3.2% oats, 3.7% cherry, along with small amounts of knotweed, elm, poison ivy, and barley.

Columba livia (common pigeon)


New Zealand

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00288233.1975.10430391


Europe

seeds of cereals form 68% of total food weight
seeds of other cultured herbs 17.5%
garbage 10.5%
seeds of woody species 1%
seeds of wild herbs 1%
green parts of herbs 0.5%
indigestible components 1.4%
animal components 0.1%

http://ethnobiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-4269-9-33#ref-CR24


I would love to know why they choose to eat leaves from some particular types of plants. I wouldn't have guessed that poison ivy would be popular, that's for sure. The New Zealand group that ate the most worms and slugs also chose to eat Black Nightshade, which happens to have anthelmintic (de-wormer) properties. I am thinking that that is not a coincidence.