Companions for life

Figured I should make a more comprehensive and professional post about this after seeing some real bull that Palomacy pulled recently, so here it is. Making this primarily to point to when someone inevitably asks me about them again.

tl;dr: Palomacy is an organization that does some great work in rescuing pigeons, but they should be avoided if at all possible due to their ties with ARA, blatant spreading of misinformation, and tendency to keep suffering animals alive for their own gain. Adopt from or donate to Chicago Pigeon Pets Rescue or a local pigeon-friendly humane society instead.

1) The biggest immediate red flag about Palomacy is that they believe that all non-vegan diets are exploiting animals (link). They source blatant lies about the dairy industry on their website that anyone who has ever visited a dairy farm will tell you are only fearmongering. While the ethics of squab are debatable (keep in mind these pigeons are 4 weeks (which is weaning age) when slaughtered), the animal rights propaganda that they spread is generally unfair slander of the animal agriculture industry. I shouldn’t have to tell you why animal rights activism is bad, but here it is: insisting that animals should have rights and be free to do whatever they please equates them to humans, which is harmful for both the animals and people involved. Domesticated animals need human management in order to be healthy and safe. Equating AI to rape and animal slaughter to murder puts rape survivors on the same level as animals and dismisses very real murder as an issue equal to slaughtering animals for food we need to survive. Animal welfare supports major reforms in agriculture while animal rights supports the eventual decline and death of all domesticated animals due to anti-breeder stances.

2) They are anti-breeder (link). This goes along with being supportive of animal rights causes, but it deserves its own point. They advocate that you keep any bird you find even if it’s banded, and they even claim that bands are only to keep track of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ (link) when in reality, responsible breeders who genuinely love their birds band them for two purposes: to have a way for lost birds to return to them, and so that they can enter shows in hopes of changing the pigeon hobby for the better. Hell, Palomacy sells their own bands so that people can feel superior for ‘freeing’ their rescued bird since this band isn’t seamless unlike that terrible, terrible breeder’s (what?). It is true that most breeders of performance birds won’t want their birds back, but there are many cases where the bird is an escaped breeder that means a lot to their owner (whether that be in monetary value or emotional attachment). The pigeon breeding hobby can be extremely cruel at times, just like breeders, sanctuaries, and rescues around the world. This doesn’t mean all breeders, sanctuaries, or rescues are evil.

3) They spread misinformation on pigeon diet and, in turn, hurt many people who need to get their birds into good condition after rescue. They insist that pigeons need vegetables (link) when their anatomy doesn’t even let them digest them. Pigeons are strict granivores and should not be fed vegetables or fruits. Pigeons are not parrots. They also say that pigeons should have grit and oyster shell sprinkled over their food and not free choice, which is just false information. Pigeons self-regulate their consumption of grit and calcium depending on their needs, and they should both be provided in bowls separate from their food. Palomacy has a vet recommending dietary choices but that vet apparently has never looked at an anatomy chart of a pigeon or dissected one, because the anatomy of a pigeon (link) easily disproves this lie. The ceca of a chicken (link) are much larger than the barely-there cecum of a pigeon, indicating that pigeons can digest little to no non-embryonic plant matter. (Here is a paper on the function of the cecum in birds if you’d like to know more! Note on the chart that columbiformes have vestigial or absent ceca)

4) They directly contradict their own values time and time again. Despite them saying on their website that pigeons are domesticated and cannot be released, they advocate rehabilitation and release of feral pigeons, despite them also being domesticated (link). They also recently ‘rescued’ some feral eggs and hatched them under some of their own pigeons only to make the decision to release the peep that hatched (link). Something like this not only contradicts their values, but it is irredeemably cruel to release a pigeon that has been raised in captivity. This logic seems to escape them when applied to feral pigeons but makes sense to every parrot rescue on the planet, even the one Palomacy stems from! Then they have the audacity to denounce breeders as if they aren’t being as bad as, if not worse than, irresponsible pigeon breeders with this act. Furthermore, their association with ARA drives their supporters to believe that all animals should be ‘wild and free.’ This harms domesticated animals and drives more releases of the Utility King pigeons that Palomacy rescues so often.

5) They keep birds who cannot function like birds alive to be donation sob stories. Such as this bird (link) and this bird (link) which should have been euthanized by an organization like Palomacy that runs on donations and is constantly pushing people to donate. I can assure you that their vet care and surgery cost thousands of dollars, and for what? More donations because, oh no, now we can’t afford to feed and house our healthy and adoptable birds! Just because it makes you feel better does not mean it is morally correct. The same with the bird who had to be on oxygen in this story (link). Palomacy also guilts people who bring their misuse of rescue funds up (link) and keep spending thousands of dollars on vet care to make these terribly disabled birds even remotely adoptable. I’m all for rehabbing birds into adoptable homes but at what point is it too much? If a bird needs extensive surgery to fix a splay leg and will likely live with pain derived from that surgery from their whole life (let alone the risk of putting birds under and the fact that they likely have many surgery losses that they don’t show on their website), is it worth the thousands to an organization that has upwards of 100 birds in their care at once?

I don’t have the constitution to look at any more of Palomacy’s bull, but here are some screenshots from their Facebook group that should make it abundantly clear how toxic they and their supporters are whenever animal breeding is even mentioned. (under a readmore because some of these are nasty as hell!)

(tw for antisemitism, classism, and other ARA rhetoric)

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was passed in 1818 and makes it illegal for people in the US to “take,” which means killing, injuring, or possessing, migratory birds in most circumstances. That includes accidental take, such as in oil spills, bioaccumuliation of poisons, or building on bird habitat. 

I’ve worked for the the Division of Natural Resources. I’ve worked for the State Parks department, and I’ve worked as a bird rehabber.

Owls get hit by cars all the time. 9/10 of our raptors we treated at any time were car victims. No one is pressing charges.

And no one cares if you have a Blue Jay feather in your dresser with some cool rocks you found in a hike. We Don’t Care.

This proposal isn’t to protect you for these things.

Do you know who wants to be exempt from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act?

Oil & Gas, who see hundreds of millions of birds die horrible deaths in their sludge pits every year in the U.S.

If industries like Oil and Gas become exempt from MBTA laws and aren’t taken to task for accidental take, they Will not take responsibility for this impact in the environment. In fact, they’ll only get worse.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is one of the ONLY wildlife laws in the world that ACTUALLY has some teeth, as we say in Wildlife. Meaning, if you violate it, there may actually be consequences you can’t buy your way out of with wealth.

In 2015, oil companies fought against having to cover their waste pits with nets. A multi-billion dollar industry that couldn’t be bothered to spend the money. To take the responsibility.

They will not do good deeds on their own. The MBTA exists in the first place because of the greed that decimated our birds before, the greed that drove entire species such as the Passenger pigeon extinct.

Without it, greed will prevail again.

“An estimated 500,000 to 1 million birds are killed annually in oil pits and evaporation ponds.  In one study, 51 % of all birds found at oil and gas facilities were in heater-treaters, 30% in various pits, 4% in wastewater ponds, 4% tanks and trays, and 1% spills.  More birds are likely found in heater-treaters compared to other sources as they are contained and are not vulnerable to scavenging by predators. In pits and ponds, many birds likely go undetected because they sink, are scavenged by predators, or picked up by people.  Thus, current estimates of bird deaths at these sites probably underestimate the true impact.“

I’m quoting their shit back at them in my comment.

likewise, the prey animal is almost always visibly stressed and uncomfortable. So even if the cat is behaving, the other animal is in duress.

You can tell a lot about the health of a pet by its poop.

Changes in its color or consistency are among the first warning signs that a pet may not be feeling well.

In birds, you will usually see changes in poop long before the changes in behavior that indicate illness, like irritability or lethargy.

When most people think of pigeon poop, This is what usually comes to mind:

Nasty white streaks

Or splatters

Or gross colored splats

Any place feral pigeons frequent.

But this is what poop from a healthy, well fed pigeon looks like:

A small, compact ball of the indigestible fiber left over from the hulls of the seeds they eat whole, with a tiny white cap of urate.

You can see the consistency from the others underneath it, where nesting straw has been mashed into them as Pippin has come and gone and arranged, and rearranged individual blades.

A reliably well fed and hydrated pigeon will usually leave stools that keep their round shape on impact with a texture slightly softer than well worked playdoh.

Pigeon poop can be sloppy after a big drink of water following a 6-12 hour period of having gone with out. 

The bowel movement after their first drink of water in the morning, for example, may make a sloppy mess, but in a healthy, well fed pigeon, the solid part will still be brown, and there will be more water than the white urate.

Look at this third picture again:

That wet mess of solids on mostly urate, with a mucus-y shine and slimy texture, is indicative of a heavy gut load of intestinal parasites. 

Not just most ferals, but most racing, performing, and exhibition pigeons (since there are often housed out doors) are infested with the nematode Capillaria, the round worm Strongyloides, or the protozoan Coccidia.

While usually sub-clinical, an active infection of Salmonella will turn the poop a distinctive sulfur yellow to lime green.

But poop is only pure white, 

Like those streaks and splatters most people associate with feral pigeons, when the birds have not had access to solid food in 12 hours or more.

Nearly all feral pigeons perpetually teeter on the brink of starvation, and it shows in their poop.

They are strict granivores, meaning that they can only digest seeds: the embryonic tissue of plants.

With cities being so carefully landscaped, often with the only plant life available being in the form of flower beds and trees, with grasses only in public parks and mowed too short to bloom and seed, the food they can actually digest is mighty hard for the average feral pigeon to find.

Barn ferals tend to be much more healthy for access to seed and animal feed.

But spilled garbage and the hand outs of the people that like them enough to feed them are literally all the food city ferals have access to.

Most of that is bread.

And while bread is made from grain, milling that grain and baking it into bread breaks it down, making it easier for a HUMAN to digest, but HARDER for a pigeon.

They like the taste of it, and eating some as an occasional treat won’t do a pet bird any harm, but that’s the VAST bulk of the food feral pigeons have access to.

It would be like a humans having to wander for miles every day to find food, but only being able to find potato chips, snack cakes, and the occasional slim jim.

That human would not have a long, or healthy life.

Now imagine that person ALSO had two different kinds of lice, mosquitos, and a parasitic fly sucking their blood from the outside, a painful cheesy growth in their throat that could block off their trachea or esophagus if it goes untreated long enough, two species of worms eating the nutrients they manage to find before their intestinal lining gets the chance to absorb it, and a protozoan eating their intestinal lining, with no hope of getting any of those things treated.

And you have a pretty accurate representation of what it’s like to be a feral pigeon living “free”.

I am all for wild animals living free in the environment for which they were adapted.

But pigeons are not wild life, and they were not adapted to cities.

ESPECIALLY not on the continent of North America.

The pigeons that were brought here as military messengers, meat, and entertainment had been domesticated for thousands of years already.

When homers were no longer faster and more reliable messengers than phone lines or radio waves, they were no longer profitable to keep, pigeons were released. This was common practice in the places they came from.

But in Europe, Africa, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, where Rock Doves are native, there WAS natural habitat for the exclusively cliff nesting birds to relocate to, as well as open lofts that would welcome the boon of free livestock. 

But there is nothing like their actual habitat: A high cliff near the sea, between desert and grass land, in north America. 

So, as lofts shut down and were (as they still are to this day by racers) habitually destroyed to discourage the birds no one would buy from returning, there was nowhere for the unwanted birds to go EXCEPT the tall, concrete buildings, and the metal structure under bridges and billboards.

The problem of feral pigeon mess, from the structural damage caused by the pure uric acid they excrete on an empty stomach to their potential as vectors for zoonotic disease is one of our own making.

That’s why I don’t re-abandon feral pigeons that come into rehab by releasing them.

I get them medical care. Heal their wounds, treat their infections, clean out their parasites…

And then I treat them like any good shelter would treat a stray dog:

I evaluate their temperament, and find them a permanent home where they can be well cared for and as happy as possible.

I fiercely love pigeons. 

And for the same reason that seeing mangy, thin stray dogs roam the street treated an invasive pest species; ignored at best and chased off or exterminated at worst, would horrify and haunt the average american…

My goals are to make hoards of feral pigeons a thing of the ignorant past by encouraging the development of shelters for them like we have for dogs, cats, parrots, and other exotic pets.

Wildlife, like Mourning Doves, should absolutely be returned to the wild if at all possible.

Urban wildlife, like raccoons, are natives that have willingly ventured into cities and found them a welcoming, supportive environment, for which that animal happened to be naturally well suited.

Invasive wildlife, like Collared Doves, happen to be well adapted to the new environment into which they were released. T hey can be a danger to natives, so culling is preferred over release in the event that they can’t be penned. But still being wild animals, being caged stresses them severely.

Pigeons fit NONE of these categories.

They are not wildlife.

They did not “invade” cities.

They were abandoned there the minute they ceased to be profitable, they had no where else to go, and we treat the mess like it’s their fault.

We have done pigeons a terrible disservice by having entirely forgotten that they are domestic livestock.

https://spirellity.tumblr.com/post/159193723109/thestadtaubenprojekt

@spirellity was kind enough to post this for me to spread after they told me about the Stadttauban (Street Pigeon) Project

The Stadttauben Projekt in Frankfurt Germany proved that the most humane and effective way to decrease the feral population was to take responsibility for their well being.

The researchers built them comfortable lofts with plenty of nesting spaces,  provided good quality feed at those locations, and most importantly swapped new eggs for fakes.

With more comfortable spaces now available to them, they left the building eves, attics, bridges, and signs on their own; no trapping, coercion, or manual relocation required.

Not having to fly miles to find enough to eat, they spent 80% of their time in or near the loft, only taking brief flights for exercise. 

Pigeons can, but usually don’t poop in flight. It’s more comfortable to poop from a perch.

So the spread of feces was limited from all over the city to just in and around the loft.

With consistent access to good quality food, they no longer excreted pure uric acid. 

What they were producing was the solid round poop of healthy pigeons, which is easier to clean up, and one of the most nutritious fertilizers known to man.

Fun fact! for most of our history with them, guano was one of the most valuable byproducts of keeping pigeons. People who were wealthy enough used to hire loft guards to keep it from being stolen.

And replacing the eggs laid in these safe, comfortable nests with fakes cut their reproductive rate by 95%.

After the initial cost of building the loft and getting fake eggs, it was SO much cheaper to just pay for feed and straw than to keep paying people to trap, or shoot, or poison the endless hoards of stray pigeons.

All that killing ferals does is open up more nest spaces and free up more resources, encouraging more breeding.

And with homers and rollers, and other aerial performers being bred by the hundreds to make up for training losses, there is no real preventing more lost birds from moving in.

Imagine community gardens fertilized by the byproduct of cleaning pigeon shelters.

Harvested eggs going to feed wildlife in rehab clinics.

Less pigeons being hatched essentially stray, and the ones that did having a safe place to go for the rest of their lives.

Performers who get lost during training or show birds or pets that escape by accident following the ferals to these safe havens, making it easier for owners who want them back to come find them.

Ferals and foundlings having the opportunity to bond with volunteers or people looking to adopt like a modified dog shelter.

Pigeons being appreciated for the partnerships they provided in the past and the companionship they are still so innately inclined to offer us now.

This is Medusa givin me some smooches! He’s currently in his “don’t touch me! >:(“ teenage stage, but hopefully once he grows out of it he’ll be my snuggly boy again. I’m actually considering him as an ESA he’s really that lovely. He’s chillin with me as I type this

Some domesticated birds can be less affectionate than others, but you see the same thing in dogs and cats. It's all about respecting them and understanding that, especially if they're a rescue, they may have a lot to work through.

But often times it's not as simple as telling someone a chicken or pigeon is a better match than a parrot. A lot of the time people subconsciously (or even perfectly aware) really want to have a parrot because they're "cooler." Well, tell me that when you go half deaf because your parrot won't stop screaming, or when they make a massive mess and destroy your house, or when they emotionally drain you to your wits end.

My blog has a lot of cute chicken photos on it, and sometimes I get comments such as “wow I want a chicken like that!” Which is lovely! I’m glad to spread the chicken love! However I want to take a second to address this. Just like with dogs, there are many breeds of chicken which are unhealthy and have health consequences because of this. I have a couple of birds like this. I just want to make people aware that if they seriously want a bird like this, to take into account what health issues may come with them.

Sooty - Frizzle feathers

Sooty is a fan favourite, and one of my favourites too. I do admit that I love the frizzle feather gene, it just looks so cool! However frizzle feathering causes some issues and I didn’t intentionally get a frizzle, Sooty hatched from a mystery egg. Her Dad was the only frizzle in the flock, with 13 other roosters, so she was a surprise to say the least!

Weather intolerance: Due to the feathers sticking out like that, birds can’t warm up in the cold since their feathers don’t provide a protective barrier and body heat escapes. This also means they have no natural shelter from rain and wind. Sooty doesn’t have to worry about any of this, it’s never cold where I live and she lives inside. She really struggles in the heat, however that’s likely due to her leg and foot feathering which I’ll discuss later, rather than the frizzle feathering.

Flight: Birds can’t fly well, since their primary wing feathers are curled or brittle. This puts them at risk of leg and spinal injuries if they try to fly from too large a height. Sooty did severe nervous damage to her spine when she was 8 weeks old, causing her to become paralysed in the legs for 3 months. Thankfully, she fully recovered after 5 months of physiotherapy.

Sooty’s wings look like this. Not all frizzle feathered birds have flights this poor, however it is a potential consequence of the feather type.

Communication: Another issue frizzle feathers cause is communication within a flock. Sooty used to get pecked a lot by her top hen Kath, because Kath thinks Sooty is always challenging her to fight! Chickens use their neck feathers, called hackle feathers, to communicate a whole bunch of things. From fear, to aggression, to even asking another flock member to clean their feathers. Since frizzle feathers stick out like that, the bird struggles to move them into the positions used for communication so can’t talk to their flock very well. Sooty’s curled hackle feathers make it look like she’s always challenging another hen to a fight

You can see how those raised hackles kinda look like Sooty’s ‘mane’ of curled neck feathers! Thankfully, Sooty is second in command and her head hen, Kath, seems to have learnt that Sooty just looks like that! So she doesn’t get attacked very frequently anymore.

Unethical breeding: The gene which causes frizzle feathers in homozygous form (two copies of the gene) also causes serious issues. These birds are called Frazzles or ‘over frizzled’ and their feathers are very weak, often falling out and leaving the bird naked. It can be painful for them, and if they’re left outside, they certainly wouldn’t survive. Therefore frizzles should never be bred together. To breed frizzles you should use a frizzle feathered bird with a smooth feathered bird. However, this means you hatch only 50% frizzles, so some unethical breeders breed frizzle x frizzle to reduce the amount of smooth feathered birds they get.

A Frazzle chicken

Heart failure: These feathers have also been linked with enlarged hearts, increasing risk of heart failure. Since the feathers cause loss of body heat, it causes an increase in metabolism and other physiological functions to keep the body temperature at the appropriate level. This means the heart has to work harder, increasing its size and putting more strain on it. Sooty tires out easier, and when she used to be out ranging she’d frequently come inside to sleep on the couch while her flock was still outside having fun. I could see this putting them more at risk of predation, since if they’re already tired they don’t have the same stamina of another bird to flee a predator.

Solo - Heavy foot/leg feathering

Not the most flattering photo of her but the best one I have to show her foot feathering! As you can see she was quite cranky with me! She’s a Silkie X Pekin, which are both breeds known to have heavily feathered legs. There are many breeds with healthy foot feathering, such as Langshans

But some like the show-type Pekin bantam, have a number of issues associated with their foot feathering. Here’s a Pekin in comparison to the Langshan above

As you can see the feathering is much much heavier!

Mobility: Very heavy leg and foot feathering significantly reduces mobility. The large feathers make it harder to move toes, making perching more difficult, and are a tripping hazard. Solo is always tripping over, stumbling, and ‘shuffling’ when she walks since her feet impair her movement a significant amount. I’m probably going to cut her foot feathers off so she can move about easier. They’d never hindered her movement until now, this molt they grew in humongous for some reason. Obviously having a built in tripping hazard isn’t a good idea, since it predisposes the bird to a higher risk of leg injuries.

Thermotegulation: As mentioned above, legs and feet are very important in helping a bird regulate their temperature. Lightly feathered legs like the Langshan has don’t have this issue, since the bird has majority of its foot free to cool down with. Heavily feathered legs like the pekin provide little surface area to cool down with, so the birds can really struggle in hot weather. Solo is one of our least heat tolerant birds, and she thankfully has wattles and a comb unlike poor Silkies!

Cleanliness: Heavily feathered feet get disgusting! They’re more prone to getting dirty and are harder for the birds to keep clean. Solo always has poop, sticks, food, mud, and all sorts of other gunk crusted into her foot feathering. I have to clean them quite frequently so that she doesn’t get bacterial build up.

Other health ailments: In my experience, heavily feathered feet tend to be a beacon for related leg and foot health issues. We don’t have to worry about this where I live, but foot feathers can get wet in snow and heighten frostbite risk for toes. Although I don’t have to worry about the cold, sadly these foot feathers also have heat related issues! I live in a sub-tropical environment, so humidity levels get pretty high here. Bacteria loves humidity. Solo has had a bad case of Bumblefoot which was really hard to treat due to this humidity. Sweep, another bird with heavy foot feathering, has had 2 cases of bumblefoot now. I’ve never had a clean-legged bird get bumblefoot, so it’s definitely linked to trapping bacteria and humidity. I haven’t had to deal with this parasite myself, but apparently feather-legged breeds are more prone to Scaly-leg mite too.

Cujo - Heavy layer breeds

Cujo is a Hamburg, sometimes referrred to as ‘Everlayers’ since they have a reputation for reliably laying an egg every day. They rarely go broody, and if they do are very easy to dissuade. I am very against production breeds since it tragically shortens their lives so much. I had a pet utility Leghorn many years ago who passed away after only 2 years from heart failure. The Hamburgs lay on average 200 eggs annually, which isn’t too bad and makes them a healthier layer breed, but it’s certainly heavier laying than most of the other breeds I have. Cujo is actually very healthy, I took great care in picking a breeder to get her from and most of his birds are lighter layers than they ‘should’ be. Cujo was laying 3-4 eggs a week before her current molt, much better than the 5-7 her breed has a reputation for.

Heart failure: One of the most frequent ends to laying birds is heart failure. Their bodies are under so much stress to make an egg every day that their bodies eventually just give up, usually from heart failure.

They don’t go broody: A lot of people don’t like broody hens, since they stop laying and sit on their nest all day, however I really like them. A broody hen gets a much needed break from laying eggs! Some breeds continue to lay eggs over winter, and some birds don’t stop laying when they molt if it’s a light one. So broodies give the bird a choice to stop laying and sit on eggs when she wants, if she didn’t get a break over winter or molt. Breeding this behaviour out of production breeds contributes to their issues, since they can’t take that break.

Shortened life span: Due to the strain mass egg production puts on their bodies, average lifespan is 3-4 years compared to the 6-10+ of healthy heritage breeds. I had a utility leghorn as a pet many years ago, her heart tragically gave out on her one day while I wasn’t home. She was dirtbathing in her favourite spot when it happened, so I hope to think it was a peaceful end. She was only 2 years old.

Reproductive complications: Heavy layer breeds are more prone to experiencing issues with their reproductive tract. This includes cancers, tumours, prolapses, egg binding, and egg yolk peritonitis (infection). They’re also more prone to nutrient deficiencies, especially with calcium, since it takes so much out of them to lay eggs. This is easily preventable with a balanced diet, however if calcium deficiency does occur the hen can suffer from brittle bones.

Sweep - Aggressive breeds

Now Sweep isn’t nearly as bad as this title frames her to be, but it’s still worth a mention. We can only guess what her parentage is since she came from mystery eggs, but we think Sweep is an Old English Game cross Pekin. In Australia, Old English Game are a hyper aggressive breed. They were bred for the cruel sport of cockfighting, where two roosters are forced to fight to the death. Thankfully this sport is now criminalised, but nobody bred the aggressiveness out of this breed.

Injury risk: hyper aggressive breeds pose a greater risk of injury mainly to other flock mates, but also to themselves. These birds often antagonise others despite there not really being a reason to, resulting in more fighting, disharmony, and injury within a flock. If another bird is stronger than them and gets sick of their shit, they themselves could be seriously hurt since they often don’t know when to back down from a fight like non-aggressive birds do. Sweep has to be housed separate from my main flock with her mother, Solo for company. She has tried many times to outrank birds in my main flock but her fighting is very brutal compared to the normal pecking order fights. She aims for the eyes, and came close to blinding a bird once before, I can’t risk that sort of injury.

Mortality risk: continuing on from that first point, some individuals will take their aggressiveness too far and kill fellow flock mates. What might start out as a simple pecking order fight can turn very bloody and very brutal with these breeds fast. Roosters can kill hens and hens can kill hens. This obviously should never happen in well bred, good tempered birds. I do not say this jokingly when I say that Sweep and Sooty would kill each other if I let them. They’re both Pekin X Old English, and although Sooty is good with other birds, she’s terrible with Sweep. I’m hoping Sweep will mellow with age (she’s currently 2) and I can integrate her and Solo as part of Blossom’s flock.

Social interaction: I think this is something a lot of people don’t seem to consider, but having hyper aggressive birds which have to be housed seperate will obviously hugely impact upon their social needs. It doesn’t matter how aggressive the bird is, a chicken is, and always will be, a social animal. They need companionship, and while this can be provided by us, it’s easiest to provide it with other chickens. Keeping a social animal by itself, never letting it interact with others, and not providing that companionship yourself is incredibly inhumane in my opinion. It doesn’t matter if that bird is incapable of interacting without trying to kill the others, the fact is that this animal is still hardwired to live in a social group. By breeding such aggressive animals, it’s very cruel since it deprives them of such a basic need.

Now this post isn’t to say people can’t get a breed if they like it but it has health consequences, because something like those heavy foot feathers don’t cause the bird any harm or pain in itself, it’s just a consequence of poor management. So if you’re willing to do the work to ensure those features don’t hinder the animals quality of life, then excellent! Go ahead and get those basketball-shaped Pekin lads! This post was merely a reminder to think critically and research any animal/breed before you get them, and to make sure you’re prepared for any future consequences or adjustments for that animal/breed. Sooty and Solo need fans set up on their pens during the Summer, Sweep needs a seperate coop, and all three need adjusted perches and weekly foot health checks because of their heavily feathered feet. Once again, the importance of you screening for ethical, responsible breeders is crucial when deciding to bring a new family member home.

hey everybody, im sorry i sound so desperate here, but my landlord and my roomate want danny gone. hes disabled (his leg is deformed) and hand raised, so he wont survive on his own outside, and i desperately need to find a home for him. i live in philadelphia and cannot drive but i am willing to take the busses wherever i need to! if you can come pick him up yourself though he comes with a cage and a diaper (just the diaper is coming w him if i have to drop hom off though, as im disabled and bringing such a huge cage on the busses and trains would be impossible.

it has more in it now, but im at work and i cant take a picture of it right this second. ill be updating this post with pictures of his current setup that he would be coming with, but because this situation is so desperate hes literally free. the cage cost like 150$ off craigslist, and buying it new would be close to 400$ just because its so large. it’s a little old because its double used, but its better than nothing