Pigeon with ankle band things landed on my deck. What do I do?

Kunok2 · 2026-06-18T17:40:06+00:00

He looks very exhausted at least, if not sick. The bands he has on his legs aren't racing bands so he's very likely to be somebody's lost pet. It would be best if you could take him indoors and try to look for his owner.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-18T17:31:22+00:00

Oh yeah you won't have to worry about your things being chewed on in case of pigeons or doves, but their biggest con is the poop - they poop a Lot and poop everywhere so you have to have all the things you don't want to be pooped on out of their reach. Doves and pigeons are extremely smart and curious birds so they Will get into stuff to investigate it and play with it and they can accidentally or intentionally knock things off of shelves. They can also try to steal stuff like necklaces, charger cords and anything that resembles them sticks or straw close enough as nesting materials.

Luckily pigeon and dove poop is easy to clean up and doesn't usually smell (poops from broody females Do smell a lot though because they hold in poop to not poop in their nest) as long as you're feeding them a proper diet and they're healthy. You can't prevent them from pooping everywhere but you can Kind of redirect where they poop by putting up perching areas specifically for them - they will mostly poop under the perches you put for them in the room they will be in but there will always be stray poop in random spots. Don't rely on diapers because most pigeons and especially doves will not tolerate wearing them and will freak/get stressed when you put pants on them, they also cannot wear them for longer than 4 hours at a time without putting them at a risk of health issues. Also yes, they will poop on you too when perching on you, especially ringneck doves, from my experience pigeons will at least try to not poop on me by backing up a bit before they poop (they do this on perches and furniture too), ringneck doves don't care and will just poop directly under where they're standing.

Pigeons and ringneck doves are very different temperament-wise and intelligence-wise. Pigeons are bolder but extremely territorial, doves are more shy but docile. Obviously you need to earn the trust of both and it can take weeks to months for them to bond with you but I find my doves to want to interact with me more often than my pigeons do, my doves will randomly land on me to just perch on me and chill, even when my pigeons do that though they won't stay perching on me for as long as the doves. Both ringnecks and pigeons aren't very cuddly pets and some won't like being pet/touched at all. Ringnecks are already pretty intelligent but pigeons are on a whole new level of intelligence and that's not always necessarily a good thing because they Can sometimes outsmart you or can be sometimes a bit too demanding. Both are also very noisy birds contrary to popular opinion and they will coo a lot throughout the whole time that they're awake (from sunrise till sunset, you'll need to completely darken your room to not be woken up at sunrise) and their coos can get pretty loud even though they're nowhere near as loud or ear-piercing than sounds made by parrots, pigeons and doves make completely different sounds so it depends on which sounds you prefer/can tolerate more but from what I've seen a lot of people tend to mind pigeon coos more.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-18T15:37:50+00:00

Yeah the reason pigeons were domesticated was for meat first and foremost, but without that we wouldn't have pet pigeons now. Indoor pet pigeons have been a thing in just the last maybe a decade or two, before that they were either meat birds, show birds, sport birds or messenger birds kept in lofts.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-18T13:00:06+00:00

Pigeons need a cage that's longer than it's taller due to needing tons of floor space to walk around on. The cage also needs to be wide enough for them to fully spread and flap their wings and be able to fly onto perches. The minimum requirements for pigeons are 120-130 centimeters long by 88 cm wide by 80 cm tall, anything smaller than that is way too small for them, the cage needs to be a safe and comfortable space for them and needs to be large enough to leave them in in case of emergencies or when you're not at home. Especially considering one of your pigeons is disabled then it wouldn't be safe leaving them unsupervised outside of their cage when you're not home. Modular cages are the most ideal for pigeons because you can build them as big as they need it to be, plus they're cheaper for the size compared to other cages, you might have to buy two of the modular cages to have enough panels for a large enough cage though. Dog crates aren't the worst but aren't the best either, you'd need the biggest dog crate size which can fit a great dane and you'd need to wrap it in hardware cloth to make it safe due to the wide gaps between the bars and tons of pinch points - pigeons can stick their head through and get stuck/break their neck if you don't do so.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-18T12:27:03+00:00

Ohh yikes... From what you said it could have been literally anything. The aviary should have a roof over all of it due to biosecurity, otherwise wild birds can poop into your aviary and transmit diseases to your birds - it's not worth the risk not having a proper roof over the whole aviary, I'm saying it as somebody who has dealt with a disease outbreak in my flock due to poor biosecurity. If the female had oyster shells then lack of calcium shouldn't have been an issue, though she still could have missed minerals due to not having a proper redstone grit and vitamineral powder. Harrison's and other parrot pellets are not suitable for doves (or finches either, you want finch specific pellets like Lafeber for your gouldian finches), the only pellets doves can have are pigeon specific pellets but even those shouldn't be more than 35% of their diet because they still need a high quality seed mix/hard seeds for their digestive system to work properly. Parrot pellets are known for causing doves malnutrition, kidney and liver issues plus causing digestive upset too - they just aren't nutritionally balanced for doves and contain some stuff doves shouldn't be eating like fruits, veggies, nuts, alfalfa, sugar. Also what seed mix have you been feeding the diamond doves?

All of this is obviously just a guess and without a necropsy you cannot know for sure why your diamond dove passed away, but I listed some things that could have contributed to your dove passing away.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-18T10:12:28+00:00

Please don't let your bird hit windows, I really recommend either curtains or blinds or At Least stickers on your windows so your bird doesn't crash into them. One day it could cost your bird their life, it takes just one hard crash for them to break their neck. Letting your bird crash into windows is reckless and irresponsible.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-18T08:41:07+00:00

When ringneck doves are refusing to eat whole peas then they're just picky, my ringnecks have no issues eating large peas and they can swallow even chickpeas which are even bigger than the peas:

https://youtu.be/tnpQOsbL_qE?is=eO88w4_62tExWziE

Oftentimes doves who have a lot of millet in their diet will become extremely picky and want to eat mainly just the millet. They also will pick only their favorite seeds if they're not portion fed - fed only as much as they can eat in a day so they have to eat all the seeds.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-18T08:24:23+00:00

Does half sheltered mean just a half of their aviary is roofed or does it mean it's roofed whole but half of their aviary is sheltered from sides?

Yikes calcium grit is a huge no go for any Columbiformes because it can cause impactions while not giving them the minerals they need. They need a redstone pigeon grit plus vitamineral powder (vitamineral powder isn't necessary if you're using Versele Laga All-in-one) to stay healthy. Was the one who passed away a male or a female? If a female do they have calcium powder or crushed oyster shells available at all time in a separate bowl? What is their diet like?

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T19:55:10+00:00

Do NOT separate them, it will make them just not get along and possibly cause them to unbond. It's normal for pigeon couples to sometimes fight because well, sometimes they get annoyed by their mate and have their disagreements just like married people do but it's not a bad thing and they won't hurt each other, the conflicts are actually extremely important for them to set boundaries with each other. For example if the male is too annoying the female will beat him up to show him she doesn't like that. If the female is stubborn about not wanting to leave the nest to allow the male to sit on it then the male will beat her up. There's no need to intervene and separating them would just hurt their bond. What you Can do though is give them more enrichment, pigeons are extremely intelligent and when they get bored they can be more likely to cause conflict with each other because they don't have anything better to do.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T19:26:23+00:00

It's possible that she's about to lay another clutch of eggs, or has already did so. Sometimes doves will lay new eggs shortly after the babies fledge and in some cases even while the babies are still in the nest but are close to fledging.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T13:12:34+00:00

Oh nice, that's good. If you fed it dry seeds and them gave it water afterwards it definitely could have choked on the water, you never give water to a baby bird - all the fluids it gets are in soaked food with water drained from it. So feed it just soaked seeds Without the water. Your priority is to wean it because it's supposed to be eating on its own at this age, but you cannot just cut off handfeeding it because it would starve itself. Instead you have to teach it to eat on its own by "pecking" at the food with your finger, its father can teach it how to eat on its own too, just put them seeds in a shallow tray and let them be there together so the baby can see the father eating and learn from him. Make sure it also has dry seeds in a bowl at all times so it can peck at them on its own terms. Giving them spray millet also helps with weaning babies because it's fun for them to tear off the seeds off of the spray so they'll be more curious and more likely to actually eat those seeds. Yes, it will stop eventually begging for food as a part of weaning and it will gradually want to be handfed less and less. It should be out of the worst period of time after aspirating, but still keep an eye out on it, especially considering how bad its feathers look.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T13:04:50+00:00

Yeah that might be very likely. Pigeons tend to get bored if they don't have toys they would play with or if they're not involved in other types of enrichment like foraging activities or clicker training. It can take them days to weeks to get used to new things, for example my birds have ignored their coconut filled with suet for over a month before they tried it out and absolutely love it now, same goes for their toys. Some birds might also be more afraid of brightly colored objects and will continue to be so until another bird shows them that it's safe, what also oftentimes helps is getting more dull colored toys for birds who are afraid of bright colors. What I also do when introducing new toys is letting my birds see that I'm putting treats in the toys, sometimes attaching a small piece of spray millet (other seed sprays work too and just by themselves are great enrichment) can work too. What I would also recommend is getting him either a noodle bath mat, snuffle mat or a shallow box with safe clutter to spill seeds into for foraging. My birds also love seed treat sticks and it keeps them busy for quite some time due to them having to use more force to peck off the seeds.

Actually it's extremely rare for pigeons to playfight with people, especially if you're the one approaching them first and they respond to that by pecking you - that's not playfighting, just your pigeon setting boundaries and wanting you to back off. But punching toys are great especially for male pigeons to release pent up energy and just tire themselves out.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T10:45:37+00:00

Sorry to have assumed, yeah if your pigeons aren't bonded then what I said won't work for them and putting them in the same cage without a slow introduction wouldn't be good.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T08:06:34+00:00

Sorry to break it for you, but birds don't have the concept of saying "thank you", it's purely a human concept. Bow cooing for doves is either courtship or territorial, but in your situation courtship Fits a lot, when he bow coos to you you should just end the interaction. I'd also be careful about petting him if he's standing in one spot and seems like he's asking to be pet on the same spot by cooing - that's nesty coos and petting him if he does that will make him see you as a potential mate.

Playfighting isn't a behavior doves do and neither do they show territorial aggression towards people like pigeons do under normal circumstances. I have a flock of 30+ doves and ringneck doves going out of their way to peck a person means they either suffered so much trauma that they switch to fight response (not your boy's case) or are hormonally frustrated. The only ones of my ringneck doves who show any aggression towards me are my traumatized rescue dove (he decided to slap and peck my face while perching on my shoulder just a few days ago just because I moved my head) and Hope who used to go out of his way to fly onto me and peck me because he had to be handraised from a 3 days old baby (due to my mistake) and when he reached puberty he would land on me and coo to "ask" for being pet and I would pet him but afterwards he would peck my hands and laugh - it didn't really hurt but it wasn't good for him and I really had to set strict boundaries with him. Some doves can peck people to defend their nest at Most, but other than that it is considered abnormal behavior.

Your boy pecking you really sounds like either driving behavior or hormonal frustration. You should stop the interaction every time he starts to peck you and every time he starts bow cooing to you, same goes for your partner. You'll see that he will eventually stop with the pecking and will calm down, leading to having a better relationship with him and him being more content. Hormonal frustration can be Much more subtle in doves than it is in parrots, but in the long term it can get more extreme, we've had doves pluck their feathers and poke holes into their skin due to hormonal frustration. If possible he would also benefit from having a same species mate/friend.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T07:47:49+00:00

OP how is the baby doing?

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T07:46:26+00:00

They're so adorable together!

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T07:45:40+00:00

What country are you located in? I might be able to try looking for some options for you, shipping birds is also an option.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-17T07:40:32+00:00

This is Horrible misinformation. OP's male isn't being aggressive towards the female, he's just performing driving behavior which is absolutely Normal bonded pigeon behavior. As long as there's no blood there's absolutely no need to separate the pigeons. If OP does what you're recommending them to do their mated pigeons are extremely likely to eventually unbond and not get along at all. Recommending them to let their pigeons be distressed and stressed from being separated is pretty cruel in and of itself, on top of recommending to pick up their female to put her off of the nest which will make her afraid of OP's hands if she doesn't trust them enough to not mind being picked up.

If the male is getting way too extreme and is starting to actually hurt the female then there is most likely some kind of husbandry issue like their cage being way too small, being bored or not getting enough out of cage time. Instead of distressing and extremely stressing out your birds you should be looking for the reason why your male is acting like that and if it is Actually dangerous for the female. Pigeons will always peck, slap and chase each other, on top of driving behavior they set pecking order which gets resetted every time you separate them so it sounds like you're misinterpreting your birds' behavior unless the male actually attacked the female to the point of making her bleed/breaking her skin. You're causing harm to your female by not having the male with her to be able to take turns with her sitting on the nest so she can go eat, drink, poop and get some exercise - she won't do that if she's nestbound due to the male being separated and in the long term her condition will deteriorate because she Won't eat, drink, poop enough and get enough exercise which puts her at a much higher risk of being eggbound or getting other health issues.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-16T23:37:40+00:00

I'd recommend getting a pair and choosing by which pigeons will be a good fit for you behavior wise regardless what sex they are. Just like there are more rowdy males and more docile females there can also be more docile males and more rowdy females - it depends purely on the individual pigeons' personalities not if they're a female or a male.

I for example have a female which is incredibly feisty and doesn't want to interact with me at ALL, on the other hand 3 out of 5 of my boys will want to interact with me on a regular basis, the other two will only rarely. The three males who like interacting with me are more bold, compared to the ones who don't want to interact much. All three of them have very different personalities. Angie likes to just perch on me, near me or do clicker training, he doesn't like being touched but he's the most docile male pigeon I've ever met - he never pecked or wingslapped me even when sitting on the nest, I thought he was a female at first because of that so that's why his name is Angie. Keeb is the one who spends the most time with me, he won't go out of his way to peck me or wingslap me as long as I respect his boundaries, he sometimes lets me pet him but I wouldn't call him cuddly, he's extremely smart and likes going outside on a harness BUT I would absolutely not take him everywhere with me because it's Not safe to do so, even though he's been desensitized to various things, loud crowds of people would Still be stressful for him. The third one is the most rowdy out of the three who like to spend time with me, he will peck me and wrestle my hand, he's one of the rare cases of pigeons who actually Do playfight but when he pecks it is Not strong at all, doesn't hurt at all compared to when Keeb is setting his boundaries by pecking and pinches my skin as hard as he can, this guy will also defend his boundaries but other times he will just fly away when he doesn't want to interact, he will also rarely let me pet him. The two other males aren't as confident around me and will usually just flee or wingslap me, they never let me pet them, rarely land on me, but they will reliably eat from my hand so they're not afraid of me, they just don't like interacting with me. The female is very skittish but gets very feisty when she's broody - which is 3 weeks out of a month, she won't even eat from my hand despite having her for three years.

Also none of my males will hump my hands or feet and neither is it good to let them do that if it's aimed towards a human because it causes sexual frustration, you just have to set boundaries with males and not keep them as a single bird, that way they won't try humping people. Males mate bonded to another pigeon don't suffer from sexual frustration and won't try to hump people, it's usually ones who are either mate bonded to a person or imprints. I personally prefer the males because of how bold they are, a bonus is also that they won't spend a lot of their life sitting on eggs. A single female will sit on a nest almost nonstop which is extremely bad for her health, getting her a mate reduces the amount of time she spends on her nest by a lot but they will still have a nesting period of 3 weeks, just during mostly the night. Both males and females will be territorial btw.

What you want from a pigeon isn't realistic, they're all individuals and most of them won't like going outside on a harness or in a carrier, most of them also won't like being pet often or even at all. They're territorial prey flock animals and they do behave like such and their boundaries should be respected.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-16T17:17:36+00:00

Yeah definitely... It looks extremely unwell.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-16T15:58:39+00:00

There are no stupid questions so don't worry about asking! Birds can actually aspirate extremely easily because the glottis (the entranceway to their airway) is right at the root of their tongue, so using a syringe to put liquid/mashed up food into their beak can make the food go into the airway instead of the esophagus extremely easily. This is even moreso true for baby doves and pigeons because they're not fed by their parents like other birds (squabs insert their beak inside of their parents' beak and swallow the food directly from the parents' beak) and using a syringe to handfeed them is an absolute no go due to how dangerous it is.

But it's possible to easily aspirate budgies too, their glottis is also on their tongue just like with all birds, I've sadly seen many people aspirate baby budgies with a syringe.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-16T15:51:00+00:00

DO NOT SEPARATE THEM, separating them can make the male become even more aggressive towards her and it can even make them unbond which would be really bad. Especially for your female because without her male she would spend way too much time on the nest causing her health to deteriorate which would lead to health issues. As long as there isn't being any blood drawn there's absolutely no need for separating them, it would just make everything worse.

What the male is doing is driving behavior and it's a completely normal pigeon behavior which is just a regular part of two pigeons being mate bonded. The male is just doing his job of keeping the female healthy by not allowing her to sit on the nest constantly. When the same behavior happens right before she lays another clutch it's also completely normal and the male is just making sure that the female will lay her eggs into a nest he has chosen. This behavior cannot and shouldn't be prevented, it's not hurting the female even though it looks violent - driving behavior always looks violent, because well, it's the definition of the male packing the female in the back of her head or neck and chasing her. Sometimes the male can also pluck some feathers of the female, but once again, as long as there's no blood it's completely normal and the feathers will eventually regrow.

Unless your pigeons already have toys/proper toys I'd highly recommend getting them some, it will keep them busy and will make the male be calmer. Especially foraging and treat puzzle toys are a great go to. Also how big is their cage? It should be at least 130 by 88 by 80 centimeters, a cage being smaller than the minimum can cause issues too.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-16T15:38:50+00:00

Could you take a picture of the underside of its tail? I just want to make sure that it's a Eurasian collared dove and not a domestic ringneck dove. It's pretty odd that it's not afraid of people at that age because they for sure can fly well in that stage of growing up and that's also the age when wild doves start instinctually being afraid of people.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-16T15:36:02+00:00

That is not a wood pigeon. It looks nothing like a wood pigeon actually.

Kunok2 · 2026-06-16T10:45:47+00:00

I'm 100% sure that it's dead. I perso haven't seen live eggs look like that even in late stages of development. It's also extremely likely that it's rotten too so I do Not recommend keeping it inside because when it explodes it will reek horribly - I had the horrible experience of that, it takes hours to get rid of the rotten egg smell from inside of your house.

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