When would be the best time of the year to obtain a pet pigeon? And what are your views on adoption?
There is no real best time of the year. Pigeons breed year round, but most large scale breeders only keep pairs together in the spring and fall.
Show breeders will usually have birds for sale at the end of the year, after show season and before their next breeding season begins, so that is when you will see a ton of people offering pigeons for sale.
I was not sure how to answer that second question, so things get really wordy from here.
As many people as can care for a rescue should seek to adopt a bird in need before going to a breeder.
A significant part of he Ramsey Loft’s operation is our pigeon shelter.
Vet visits, medical equipment, and medicine for our new rescues are what our Patreon was primarily set up to cover.
But I don’t follow the “Adopt, don’t shop” mantra because it assumes that every person can take great care of any rescue, and that is not true.
Rescues have either physical or emotional special needs that must be met, and not every potential adopter is prepared to or capable of meeting them.
I need to screen carefully to match each bird to the person that will best meet their needs and is most likely to continue for the rest of their potentially 25 year lives.
A therapy bird, bred specifically for a more human-social temperament and trained from hatching to pay attention to a handler and understand some commands, will much more easily pick up on exactly what their new partner needs from them, and is more likely to continue to be willing to do what their partner needs than even a sweet tempered, human social rescue.
(Service dog trainers that specialize in shelter dogs will tell you with broken hearts just how many wash out and end up unsuitable as Service Dogs through no fault of their own.)
A bird that has been hatched and raised in a stable home by some one who understands their physiology and behavior is going to be a LOT easier for a beginner that just wants a companion animal to care for.
It is not irresponsible for a person to evaluate whether or not they can provide the necessary care for an animal with physical or emotional special needs, decide that they are not able, and seek out a pet whose needs they are certain that they can meet.
For these people, babies that washed out of Therapy training are perfect.
That is not to say that a beginner can’t meet the needs of a rescue.
Lots of my adopters have been passionate first time keepers that took the time to learn how to work with birds with emotional or physical special needs, evaluate what they could handle, and make certain that they could be ok with a bird that never lost all of its skittishness or never fully healed.
If you want to adopt, you have to be prepared for what ever that animal needs.
Ferals have a very good reason to be afraid of people.
So do performance survivors whose breeders consider them useless for having gotten lost or hurt.
Some rescues will never fully lose their fear of people, and their adopters HAVE to be ok with the possibility that that individual will always be afraid of them.
They have to be willing to give that bird what ever space it needs, and not come to resent it for still being afraid, no matter what they do.
Some injuries never heal. And some of those are debilitating.
Karen and Bird-Bird are both rescues in quarantine right now waiting to be cleared of lice so they can go to new homes.
Both are Racing Homers with broken wings.
Birds with a healed broken wing will need a lot of floor space, because they can’t fly.
Pigeons are not like parrots. They can’t climb ladders or ropes, or much of anything other than a ramp with a steady incline.
And if one with a healed over broken wing falls from too high, it could either crack the previously injured wing, or break something else from the force that it’s no longer able to mitigate.
So all of their enrichment has to be on the ground.
Her environment needs to be as stable and unchanging as possible so that she can continue to find her way around once she’s mapped a new place.
Birds that survived PMV may never be able to lift their heads again. Some tilt to the side, some dangle.
Some survivors will never regain their balance or stop having seizures.
Not every one can handle that sort of thing, and that is ok.
Knowing what you can’t handle and taking that into account when bringing in a new family member is being responsible.
No one who can handle special needs animals started off with that skill set.
For many, getting their feet wet with the norm of a healthy, well adjusted individual can give them the knowledge and confidence to make the necessary adjustments for one with different needs.
And pigeons being social animals makes people who fell in love with a healthy baby more likely to adopt one in need later.
I’m still not sure what you specifically meant about my views on adoption, but I hope that lays them out in enough detail to give you a good feel for them.
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