Showing posts with label Doves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doves. Show all posts

Friday, September 1, 2017

Speckled PIGEON - Columba guinea

Speckled Pigeon - Columba guinea



Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Diamond DOVE - The Pet Bird That Doesn't Talk Back (Or Bite!)

The popularity of keeping parrots as pets has overshadowed the other available pet bird species, species that make endearing pets that are often simpler to care for, and can be highly entertaining when given the opportunity.

The Diamond Dove is one such bird.

Diamond Dove (Geopelia cuneata) In captivity i...
Diamond Dove (Geopelia cuneata)  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Diamond Doves are the size of parakeets or budgerigars for those of you in Britain. These birds can live anywhere from five to twenty years old.

The beautiful wild color variation is the most commonly found, with the males bluish-gray on the heads, necks, back, and wings, white tails, white spots on the wings, and a well-defined orange ring around each eye. The female of this color variation has more brown on her head, neck, and wings, and a less well-defined orange eye ring, but is beautiful none the less.

Diamond Doves come in a wide variety of color variations, from the wild type to cinnamon, silver, silver-blue with white tails, soft yellow, to a gorgeous pure white.

The sound the doves make is a gentle 'coo-coo' with the male being somewhat louder during courtship. My female dove Emma's 'coo-coo' is somewhere between a coo and a beep. Diamond Doves are never obnoxiously loud, as so many parrot species are.

Diamond Doves are highly sociable birds always happiest when in the company of their own kind. But these birds are also highly prolific. If you do not want a flock of tiny doves, then purchase only one bird. Be patient and the dove will bond with you in a few weeks' time.

My dove follows me around the house each morning. When she can't find me I hear her coo-coo. I call her name and then mimic her too. I soon hear a flutter of wings as she arrives. I have to be careful not to step on her when she follows me around because Diamond Doves are ground-feeding birds. They spend a lot of time poking about the floor or the bottom of their cage.

The best cage for Diamond Doves should be long rather than high so the birds can fly from perch to perch. A cage two feet by two feet can house a single pair of doves. The birds will even breed in a cage this size.

Remove any wire mesh on the floor of the cage. Your bird or birds will want to pick after fallen seed or grit, or simply sit on the floor from time to time.

English: Diamond dove Deutsch: Diamanttaubbe N...
Diamond dove  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Feeding a Diamond Dove is simple. A diet of mixed Finch seed with plenty of millet mixed with a vitamin powder will do, with the occasional treat of greens or egg crumbles. Be sure to provide a bowl of grit because doves need the grit to crush seeds. Fresh water should always be available. You can also provide a cuttle bone for calcium, but I find doves get plenty of calcium from their grit. The choice is yours.

Diamond doves have individual personalities best seen when the bird is kept singly in a cage and when bonded with you, much like house cats. He or she may be a fussbudget, a mother hen, aggressive, noisy, laid back, always on the go, or any combination of the above.

Diamond doves can be trained to step onto hand-held perches and even come when called. My dove Emma knows her name and even her nickname ('munchkin bird'). She knows how to nag me into opening her cage and, once out, will often perch on the edge of my laptop while I write, if not on my shoulder. When feeling demonic, she pecks at the keys while I am trying to work. I shoo her off and then she retreats to the houseplants, where she pokes about in the dirt.

Parrots are wonderful birds. But if you are looking for a smaller, quiet, and easier to care for feathered companion, but still a lot of fun, then you owe it to yourself to get better acquainted with the lovely Australian charmer the Diamond Dove.

    Jennifer Harker is a freelance writer experienced with writing nonfiction, creative nonfiction, and fiction. 
    Article Source: EzineArticles


Monday, August 28, 2017

Breeding For The Best RACING PIGEONS

Racing pigeons are a great wonder especially for individuals who have a passion for animal cognition. The ability to return to its owner after traveling thousands of kilometers by flight is certainly an amazing quality especially for a bird. Let alone migratory birds fly the really long distances. But whenever pigeons lovingly return to the arms of their owners, the feeling of elation is just unavoidable.

English: Racing pigeon photographed near Barkb...
Racing pigeon photographed near Barkby, Leicestershire
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Amazing as they are, pigeons who are made to race are not as easily cared for like ordinary pets. Breeding pigeons that can win race competitions is not a joke. Any racing pigeon fancier must be ready to invest a huge amount of attention to the pigeons as well as understand that time and money are involved. And certainly a great deal of passion will tremendously affect your success in raising and turning your special pigeons to real winners.

There are basically three types of breeding methods that you can adopt to make sure that you get the best possible pedigree for a racing pigeon: cross-breeding, line-breeding, and in-breeding.

In cross-breeding, unrelated pigeons (or which are five generations apart) are made to mate with the hope of giving birth to better pigeons – better than their parents. This breeding method is more expensive than line-breeding because of the generation gap (the bigger the generation gap, the more expensive) but relatively more effective than in-breeding.

Line-breeding allows the mating of pigeons with smaller generation gaps (ex. grandchild to grandparents or cousin to cousin) than those for cross breeding. Although less expensive than cross-breeding and a lot safer than in-breeding, this method may take a long time to establish the traits that you want in your pigeon.

In-breeding is the riskiest but may also be the most successful method provided that you have really ideal pigeons. In this system, the mating happens between a parent pigeon and its child or between a brother and a sister pigeon. Because of the closeness of the generation, any trait from any of the pigeons can be easily passed to the resulting offspring – both good and bad traits. Add to this, any bad trait found on one of the partner pigeons is likely present on the other too because of their close generations. 



So while in-breeding can magnify the good traits of your pigeons, the risk is that it can also equally magnify their weaknesses. You may even end up with a pigeon that has both the best and worst traits from its parents – what a waste that will be! Also, while in-breeding does not have to spend that much money for bigger generation gaps (because the mating pigeons are IN the same generation), it may however end up becoming more financially-challenging because of the need to eliminate pigeons with non-ideal traits. Not to mention that you should be capable of culling.

The secret to breeding the best racing pigeons lies in thoroughly learning as much as all of their traits. Learn the rules of compatibility – and some genetics too. And be as passionate as you can be in caring for your pigeons.