Expert: Jana Connell RVT, CVT - 3/24/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hello, how are you going? :-) I live in Australia and I love birds too much!! We have some pigeons who visit our house each day and we feed them and give them water and a birdbath which they love. I am going to adopt 5 homeless pigeons from the rspca which is the local animal shelter. 4 of them are white pigeons or doves, and one is a grey pigeon who looks like a cat bit him on the head as he has a dent in his head. The rspca said that they have checked all their health now, and that they are all healthy. We have a massive backyard, so these 5 birds will all have a wonderfully happy life living in our backyard, with plenty of birdseed, water, and fresh food, and lots of love. I was just wondering- is it true what I have heard that if I just put them in the backyard they will fly away. I have heard that I must "home" them first by putting them in an aviary for one month, and then letting them out of the aviary after one month, and then they will stay. Is that true what I heard? Is this aviary on ebay big enough for this do you think? Here is a link to the aviary I want to buy on ebay- do you think that this aviary is big anough for 5 doves or pigeons to live in for one month happily?

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140392826660&ssPageName=ST

Thank you so very much for your time, I do appreciate it a lot :-) Kind Regards, from Christina in Australia :-)

ANSWER: Hi Christina,
Are these wild pigeons or domestic ones? I don't know much about homing pigeons but what you heard is probably true. If you release these birds right away from your yard they will fly away.
This cage is big enough for five birds but there is no where for them to roost, etc.

Pigeons are usually kept in coops, and when they are released to fly, they then come home to their roost in their coop. This is what they call home, thus the name homing pigeons.
This is what a typical coop looks like: (scroll to the bottom)
http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=247771

If you or your hubby have some carpenter skills then you can build onto this one and make the coop area in it. The main thing is having the bars on the window so that the pigeons can fly in and out but the predators (most of them) cannot get in. Weasels certainly can!

You might want to repost to the bird section in here and see if there is some one there that can answer this better for you.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello, and thank you so very much for your help, I do appreciate it a lot :-) Wow, those bars on the window are the best idea ever! I've never seen that before! Did you mean that I could build something like that onto the bird cage, or should I build the whole thing from scratch do you mean? If I put some really big braches off tress in that cage, up high, do you think that would be good for them to roost on? What does roost mean again? Does it mean somewhere where they can sit and relax and sleep on at night? Thanks heaps for your help, I do appreciate it a lot :-)

Answer
Roosting is the act of them sleeping or resting. Pigeons like to have a place to go, to eat, to sleep, to drink water and to have a nest if they breed.

They need a covered wooden box basically with the ability to fly in and out of it, hence the bars on the windows.

I didn't see anything on the bird cage you are bidding on that looked like a shelf or boxes for them to nest in. That is what I was talking about. You can use that cage as the outside and build them a roost inside.

Branches are not the kind of thing that pigeons normally use. They prefer flat surfaces to walk and roost on.
Here are more images of the kind of surfaces and coops I am talking about.