- [Cameraman] All right, I'm rolling.
Whenever you're ready.
- Pigeon pillow, okay.
Hey everyone, Jamieleigh here from BirdTricks,
and today I'm with (laughs) Maddie Smith.
- Hello. - And her pigeon, Coo-per.
And today's video is 12 things
you didn't know about pigeons, but now you do
and before you hear 'em
you would have wished you would have already known.
(both laughing)
(energetic instrumental music)
All right, so number one, what does a pigeon cost?
- So the price of pigeons can vary, like extremely.
You can find them on Craigslist for like five bucks,
or you can rescue one off the street
for free minus vet bills.
And it can go all the way up to the most expensive pigeon
that was ever sold in China last year for $1.9 million.
- That's ridiculous. - Pretty penny. (chuckles)
- All right, so number two.
You mentioned you can just go outside and catch a pigeon.
(laughs) What's up with that?
- So pigeons are not federally protected birds
because they're technically considered invasive.
So even though you could go outside and catch a pigeon
on the street and keep it as a pet or eat it
or do whatever you wanted with it,
technically you shouldn't because pigeons mate for life.
And if you grab them off the street,
there's a very high probability
that you're either taking them away
from their chick or their mate.
And they grieve very heavily
because even though they might not look super intelligent,
they are super intelligent
and they really, really love their mates
so you should not just grab one off the street for fun.
(both laughing)
- That had so many emotional ups and downs for me.
So one of the things I learned from you
is that pigeons are domesticated.
Can you elaborate on that?
- Yes, so if you're getting something like a parrot,
now you know, obviously parrots still for the most part
exist in the wild even, you know,
despite being threatened because of us mostly,
but pigeons actually are a domestic bird, and it's possible
that they were the first domesticated bird.
So just like you wouldn't commonly see a wild chicken
walking around that didn't once belong to someone,
and got turned loose, we actually turned pigeons loose
in the streets because we liked feeding them.
And they're thriving in the cities now
because their natural environment is rocky cliffs and stuff.
And it turns out our city infrastructure
perfectly mimics that.
So they can nest very easily,
like under overpasses and everything.
So now even though we brought them to the cities
because we loved feeding them,
they've become a huge problem.
And now our cities poison them because there are too many
and people no longer like feeding them so.
- That got sad. - Yeah, yeah, it is very sad.
- Okay, so let's say I'm getting a pigeon.
Do I get one or do I get two pigeons?
So it all depends on the individual bird
and how much time you have to spend with them.
So the main thing, and the main important thing with pigeons
is that they need to bond to something,
whether it be a human or another bird.
The easiest thing you can do is get a pair
of already bonded pigeons
because they already enjoy each other's company.
They'll keep each other company all day.
Or you can find a bird that hasn't bonded with another bird
and you can bond with it,
but you have to spend way more time with them
because they require you to be around to keep them company.
So the answer is basically,
how much time do you want to spend with them?
And have they already bonded with another bird?
- And if they are in a bonded pair situation,
can you still handle and hang out with both of them?
- Yeah.
- Or is it more of a hands-off situation?
- Yeah, you can still hang out with them.
Some will tolerate it differently.
Each bird is different.
I do have a friend that has a single raised male
that ended up bonding with a female,
and the female is completely hands-off,
but the male is still like, still loves her
and will come out and hang out
and then go back and nest with his female
so just depends on the bird.
- Okay.
So one of the interesting things I overheard you talk about
while we've been here is that you can hand raise them,
like hand feed them, but it actually makes some birds,
seemed like maybe more males, aggressive.
And that was kind of surprising because in the parrot world,
when you hear about hand rearing, hand feeding,
anything like that, that's kind of known
to make them more conditioned to being handled
and therefore making them tamer,
but in the pigeon world, that almost seemed backwards.
Can you kind of expand on your experience with that?
- Yeah, so in my experience, pigeon for pigeon,
Coo-per was a hand-raised male.
I also have a friend that has a hand-raised male.
Both of them have turned out a little bit more aggressive
than the just regular pigeon males
that have been raised up by other pigeons.
And the best guess we have
is because they weren't put in their place
and taught how to be a pigeon by the mom.
So for the first month of their life,
they're completely reliant on the parents
to regurgitate the pigeon milk
that they make in their crop, into their mouth.
So if you take them away from their mom
and you're doing that or some situation takes them away
from their mom, they don't have that boundary
that their mom's like, hey, stop pecking me that hard
or like, you can't do that.
And so by you doing that, you're not setting the boundary
in the way that they understand.
So then they just get away with murder
and the rest of your life you'll just potentially be dealing
with a slightly hormonal, off, human-reared pigeon. (laughs)
- Fun. (laughs) - Yes, it's great.
- So that brings me to how you have a whole setup in here.
And we saw what would normally be for cats.
- Oh, yes. - And you were like,
"Hey, we don't have cats.
We actually just have pigeons.
And this is sort of the environment that they like."
So can you expand on that?
For anybody wanting to get a pigeon,
what kind of environment do they need to set up for it?
- So pigeons typically rest on flat perches
more than they'll rest on branches and ropes and stuff.
I found that my pigeons actually don't use dowels
or natural wood perches really at all,
and they strictly prefer using wooden platform perches
and stuff so what I actually did is I went out
and I bought a cat tree
because it's all platform perches, and they love it.
They'll go in, they'll nest in the little boxes.
They'll sit on it and sun themselves in the window
and they love it, but everybody's like,
why do you keep cats in your pigeon room?
I don't have cats.
It's for my pigeons.
So they like platforms.
If you're looking into getting a pigeon,
make sure that you do not put a ton of just dowel perches
and natural perches and ropes in there.
Make sure you have flat surfaces for their feet to walk on.
And this is especially important when you're buying a cage.
Many birdcages in stores are not catered
to be able to hold a pigeon,
which is why I actually keep my pigeons and dog crates
because it's one of the only cages I can find
that has more horizontal space than vertical space
so they can walk because that's what they do
most of the time, they walk on the ground.
- Yeah, that's usually where you find 'em.
- Yes. (laughs)
- So number seven about pigeons is,
you guys are probably wondering
about this adorable birdie wardrobe right here.
And we're gonna get to that in part two of this video
so go check out Maddie's channel
where we're gonna post part two
of all the things you want to know about pigeons
that you didn't know you wanted to know.
(wings flapping air)
Bye, Coo-per. - Perfect timing.
(both laughing)
(cheerful instrumental music)