hen picking sqaubs

[Guest wattle]

i have a hen sitting on two seven day old youngsters and she has there butts picked and the little feathers around there butt picked aswell, the cock is fine he does not pick them, any ideas, in thirty years of pigeons never seen this before.  

[nogin]

i have a hen sitting on two seven day old youngsters and she has there butts picked and the little feathers around there butt picked aswell, the cock is fine he does not pick them, any ideas, in thirty years of pigeons never seen this before.  

 

I'V HEARD OF THIS, YOUR HEN IS NEEDING CALCIUM M8.

[ch pied]

i have a hen sitting on two seven day old youngsters and she has there butts picked and the little feathers around there butt picked aswell, the cock is fine he does not pick them, any ideas, in thirty years of pigeons never seen this before.  

i also had a hen that did the same , a stock hen , the only thing we could do was float the egg's , some outstanding bird's came from this hen to 3 cock's , the old man never seen this before

at that time 50ys in pigeon's , strange to say the least

 

 

[Merlin]

Like above have never seen this with pigeons,but have seen something similar when rearing small birds.finches/canaries,suggestions then were to feed it some animal fats,as this was supposedly lacking in their diet.

[Guest IB]

I notice that my birds 'toilet' their youngsters. I knew wild birds did this, but had no idea that pigeons did it too.

 

It involves picking around the youngsters rear-end, either to encourage it to 'poop' when days old, or to keep the area clean when feathering-up - I don't know which. I reckon your pigeon is just being a bit over-attentive.

[Guest shadow]

Had one hen used to pull all the feathers out as they grew had to foster young and never let her rear her own, got rid of her in the end

[pouw22]

I Have a hen that did this two years on the trot when young were about two weeks old never seen it before,gave her another bowl and some tobacco stalks and hey presto no more feather plucking.cheers phil.

[Guest wattle]

ok thanks for all the help i will try tobacco stalks and see what happens.

[jimmy white]

i have a hen sitting on two seven day old youngsters and she has there butts picked and the little feathers around there butt picked aswell, the cock is fine he does not pick them, any ideas, in thirty years of pigeons never seen this before.  

 

just goes to show you never stop learning with pigeons, having pigeons all my life ive never come across this , but  on that subject , i wonder if anyone can help,, i have a pair of diamond doves , they seem to have paired [some time ago] seen them tread ,, built a nest ,,large cage in fact 6ft high but hen never seem to have laid allthough sitting in nest with the cock ,,,,then after a couple of months the cock became really aggressive and stripped the feathers on the hens head and neck until it was red raw [and i seen it] i seperated them for about 4 weeks till the hens feathers came back in,, put them together , after 2 days the cock did this again , now got them apart , the cock will call on the hen ,sit in the nest [had i not caught that hen in time im sure the cock would have killed it]they are not much bigger than sparrows, tiny little doves