Healthy pigeons are a blessing for pigeon breeders and pigeon lovers. If you just got pigeons at home or you’re getting into pigeon breeding, but have no idea how to tell if pigeons are healthy, then you’re about to learn a whole lot about the pigeons’ health and diseases.
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So there are many pigeons that you might want to look out for in every season, especially in winter. However, I’ll talk to my pigeon expert (who is my uncle, by the way) as well as research on the exact names of pigeon diseases, and share everything with you in a different blog post.
For now, let’s stick to the signs that can tell whether or not your pigeons are healthy:
Being Energetic
One of the signs of healthy pigeons is their energy. They’re pretty energetic birds. You’d find both male and female pigeons are either feeding, mating, or working on their nest. In other words, if they’re busy at something, they’re healthy.
Bowing and Scraping
The male pigeons do this dancing in front of female pigeons or their female partner. It’s usually bowing and scraping. What they do is that they bow their heads and scrape with feather tail. Plus, they also make a certain coo-gu-coo sound that’s specific to male pigeons. It also seemed like a sign of happiness, territory, and romance. You’d often see male pigeons bowing and scraping and making that sound if they successfully defend their nest or win a fight with another male pigeon who wants to share the place.
Mating with a partner
One of the signs your pigeons are healthy is that if they’re mating. It’s been seen that unhealthy or pigeons with the disease never mate or involve in mating and romantic efforts. They don’t seem interested in such activities for a while. So if your pigeons are mating, then it shows, they’re all right.
Sitting on the eggs
Healthy pigeons sit on their eggs and stick to the regular schedule. Most male pigeons sit on the eggs in the morning up until the afternoon, whereas, the female pigeons from the afternoon till the next morning. When one sits on the eggs, the other one feeds, drinks water, and stretch their wings for a while.
So these were a few signs your pigeons are healthy.
Now let’s take a look at the signs that show your pigeons aren’t well:
Vomiting
Vomiting is surely a sign your pigeon is a stick. I’m not sure about the reason why vomiting happens because they could be several reasons such as weather or a bad batch of pigeon food or poisonous water or something else.
Diarrhea
If your pigeons are pooping green-ish lose motion, then perhaps it’s a sign that they’re sick. Green diarrhea would be different from normal pigeon poop.
Lethargy
Lethargy means the state of no motivation to do anything. When your pigeons are lazy and ill, they’d stick their neck to their body and sit quietly on the side. They won’t participate in mating or chasing food or bathing in the water. You’d know when they go through this illness because they’d look different.
Neck Twisting
Neck twisting is a dangerous illness in pigeons. It’s known as Lakwa in Asian countries. What it does is that it twists the pigeon’s neck and pushes it backward. There are many remedies that pigeon breeders try out; sometimes they work, and in some cases, they don’t.
Head flicking
Head flicking is also a disease in pigeons that makes pigeon’s head flick consistently. It’s very hard to recover a pigeon from this disease.
Cough
Cough is common among pigeons, especially in winter. They are medicines for pigeon coughing as well as pigeon breeders use home remedies to cure the pigeon coughing.
Let’s End This
So I shared some signs that you should look out for in your pigeons to find out whether or not they’re healthy. If you’ve taken care of the weather and food, there shouldn’t be any problem with your pigeons unless they’re exposed to an ill pigeon or a viral.
Plus, I also mentioned the symptoms that show that your pigeons are suffering from a disease or illness. After reading those symptoms, you’d be able to identify what’s going on with your pigeons.
If you notice any of these diseases in your pigeons, consult the breeder or a bird veterinary clinic in the town.
