biRDS

Sort of?

I've had a few imprints pair up, but it's only successful if the imprint is left in a loft, so their human access is limited.

With their species template set to human, they can't really pair bond with anything else.

They'll mate and set eggs and feed peeps by instinct, but every time a human walks in, the imprint will abandon their pigeon mate and nest in favor of the human they actually want.

And because pigeons use social shunning to kill off members of the flock that they want to get rid of, leaving an imprint with minimal human interaction is existentially terrifying to them.

Your best bet for flock integration is socializing nestlings together and leaving a group of weaned babies with a flock you are trying to integrate them into.

Once they are self feeding, the sooner you integrate them, the better.

An adult may eventually make friends with another bird, but they generally won't be attracted to them or able to form a mate bond.

Cheeto, for example, flirts with May, but when she's offered for him to tread, he isn't actually interested.

It doesn't even occur to him to attempt to go through the motions.

But I have had other imprints take mates, only to abandon them the second I stepped into the loft.

Simplified bird #124 - red-shouldered hawk

Of course! It's a great question.

It's because feral pigeons have a type of intelligence that can't be ethically sourced any other way.

There is a huge difference between maintaining intelligence over generations and building it up in the first place.

The same way Racing Homers are more structurally sound and fitter, with a much more robust and adaptable immune system than any other pigeon, because they are bred to race hundreds of miles and thousands of them from all over the country are exposed to each other all at once and then to the wild when they are transported to a race and then released.

No other breed has that kind of strength or stamina, and no other breed has to endure exposure events of such magnitude.

Ferals have the single most rapid uptake of new information and highest learning flexibility of any pigeon breed because they survive entirely on their wits.

Racers are the second most intelligent breed, capabpe of independent decision making, with a very long memory.

But they are extremely rigid thinkers. Once something becomes a habit for a racer, they can't unlearn that habit with new information they way ferals can.

No other breed comes close to a Racer's intelligence.

I have Rollers and Tumblers in the program because generations of working with their breeder (looking to him to be called in away from a hawk or storm) have made a very biddable bird, but they are not intelligent enough to think as independently as a racing homer, because there is no pressure to.

There is no humane way to recreate the pressures that built feral intelligence.

Agami Heron (Agamia agami), family Ardeidae, order Pelicaniformes, Costa Rica