Topic: Breeding Is Near
We are in the second week of breeding preparation and the birds are looking great. The down feathers are dropping, and birds are full of life. The dropping look solid in the nest drawers.
The nest drawers are made for easy cleaning, with no possible disturbance to the birds in the nest. If someone would want to clean up daily, it is possible. The Idea was to reduce as much odours as possible, and to observe the droppings for treatment purposes.
As soon as I brought the birds in from the holding loft, the birds looked healthy with powder wattles, and smooth silky feathers. These pigeons were having an oxygen treatment from the time that the breeding was finished, and until the time of mating time in Feb.
The first thing that I observed that day was when the cocks were placed in the Stock Loft, every pigeon showed their own personality of dominance. I transformed the nest fronts to open door concept. No bi
rds can be trapped in a nest during the settling time, and before you knew it the birds settled into their own nests without any problems.
The second day after settling I noticed that these pigeons started to drop the down feathers.
Now we are in the second faze of medicating the stock birds. We have finished using the Emtyrl and Altabactine treatment, and continued with just Altabactine for an additional 5 days, and then followed with vitamins and good bacteria.
The nest box has a 1"x 1" screen flooring to have the dropping pass through and collect into the drawer. The nest bowl sits in the cut out so air passes under the bowl to keep the nest material dry and the baby healthier .
I'm using the same concept for the floor, still using 14 gauge 1x1 screen netting to let the droppings pass to the floor, so I can keep a close eye on the droppings for health purposes.
The Lights are kept on from 11pm till 8:am for a period of three weeks. This is more than plenty of time to get the breeders ready for egg laying. In the bowls I use nest pads and combined with fresh hay.
