Keeping pigeons safe from predators is one of those necessary things that every pigeon fancier is aware of. Pigeon breeders and fanciers try to keep their pigeons healthy, but it doesn’t mean it’s enough. Pigeons’ safety against predators is crucial to the whole process.
However, you won’t find every pigeon breeder or fancier taking care of this. Perhaps, some areas don’t have pigeon predators in large numbers, and that’s why it’s no biggie. In other areas, however, pigeon predators could be a threat to the pigeons.
I’ll shed some light on the common pigeon predators at the end of this blog post. The point of this blog post, though, is how you can keep pigeons safe from predators. The problem is that you can’t sit near your pigeon cage when they’re out or can’t protect them while they’re flying. So there is always a little bit of threat that you have to deal with it.
Here are 3 Common Ways to Keep Pigeons Safe from Predators:
Let me share three common ways to deter pigeon predators. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt the predators, but instead, they won’t get near the pigeons. Here are three methods you can try out:
1. Minimize the Access to the Pigeons
Cats are quite sneaky when it comes to attacking pigeons. They look at the prey and analyze the situation well before going after it. If pigeons are feeding outside the cage and you’re sitting nearby checking social media or reading a book, you won’t even notice if a cat is around unless pigeons see her and suddenly get startled.
What you should do is minimize the access to the roof or where you’ve built your pigeon cage. Keep the doors closed or make it difficult for the cat to jump on to the roof from the neighbor. If you live in a populated area, it might be impossible to completely eliminate the accessibility to the pigeons.
2. Adopt a Puppy
When you have a puppy around pigeons, not only they would create a bond but it could turn out to be a safety measure in the future. Now, it’s not easy to get a dog because it’s a lot of work and commitment. I have a dog so I know what it’s like to have a dog in the household.
The thing about dogs is that they own the territory they belong to and try to defend against all threats. When your puppy would grow up seeing pigeons around, it would be a norm for your four-legged friend. As your puppy would grow up, he would befriend with pigeons. Hence, the dog would protect the pigeons from any threat.
My dog runs around all over the rooftop and defends the territory. He barks and rushes towards the backside as soon as he listens to the stray dogs’ bark.
The point is that dogs could be great protection against pigeon predators.
3. Use a Repellent
You may have to figure out first what predators you have around and want to scare them off. Once you know that, then you can do a little bit of research on the specific repellents to keep those predators away. For instance, stray cats are the biggest threats to pet pigeons. I did some digging on Google and found out that there are so many things that repel cats, for instance, scents of orange, lemon, lime, lavender, geranium, eucalyptus, rosemary, banana, mustard, mint, and wintergreen repel cats.
Similarly, you can search on Google about the specific pigeon predators about what repels them so that you could use that thing to repel them.
As far as hawks are concerned, I found out that you can use some reflective deterrents to scare hawks away such as CDs, reflective tape, or mirror. Installing a bunch of CDs, a reflective tape, or a mirror collection might be a challenge, anyway. What it does is that it could create a reflection during the day time and hawks won’t come close.
Common Pigeon Predators
Hawks
Hawks are a natural predator that scares the majority of the smaller birds, especially parrots, pigeons, and sparrows. Not only do they attack pigeons in the forests and countrysides, but they could also attack fish, rabbits, and squirrels.
Hawks prey on pigeons quite easily. They have many advantages over pigeons, for instance, they are bigger-in-size, lightning-fast, and natural predator. A pigeon doesn’t stand a chance if a hawk sees that pigeon up on the sky and goes after him.
Shikra
Shikra is another popular bird of prey in the bird family Accipitridae and found in Asia and Africa. They are also called the little banded goshawk. You might have heard about them if you’re a pigeon fancier from Asia or Africa. They are found in agriculturally rich areas that have greenery in abundance as they prey on sparrows and pigeons all the time.
If you want to recognize a Shikra, they seem like an Eagle or Hawk, but smaller in size. However, they aren’t much bigger than pigeons, but pigeons are scared of them. Let’s say when it comes to attacking pigeons, Shikra is no different than a hawk.
Cats
Cats are one of the most skilled predators out there. They have predatory instincts of a lion and tiger, meaning, they chase the prey like lions and tigers or get closer to the prey silently.
When it comes to preying on pigeons, cats find it so easy to attack a bunch of pigeons and capture them. The escape becomes impossible for pigeons if a cat enters the pigeon cage and find a few pigeons sitting on the eggs.
Crows
Crows aren’t that aggressive when it comes to attacking or scaring pigeons, but if a pack of crows starts chasing a pigeon, they could hurt the pigeon. Furthermore, it’s been heard that crows could enter into the pigeon cage and steal the eggs or take away the pigeon babies that are a couple of days old.
Other than that, they can’t attack or scare pigeons, especially if they see a person or a dog near the pigeon cage, they won’t come near the pigeons even for the water.
How Do You Keep Pigeons Safe from Predators?
I’ve shared three methods to repel different pigeon predators.
Now it’s your turn to share something you have been doing to protect your pigeons.
Let me know in the comments what means you’ve adopted so far to keep pigeons safe from predators.
