Anyone raise pigeons for meat?

[billooo2]

I only ate squab once.....many years ago, but it tasted great!!! There is a section on raising pigeons in the "Have More Plan." I don't know anyone around here who is raising them for meat. Is anyone on this site raising their own squab?

[TheMartianChick]

Nope...Just quail. I would imagine that it would be similar, though.

[beowoulf90]

We raised them as kids and some were for dinner and some were for display.. There are many Fancy pigeons out there..

I really never gave it a thought about raising them again, but might have to reconsider them..

[Sully]

My plans include rabbits, chickens, and pigeons. White or Silver Kings for squabs, and homers for another use.

What little available I've read about raising squab looks pretty straight forward. A squab is only a young pigeon just finished on its parents milk.

I've thought about selling to high end restruants locally. I used to deal with USDA inspectors and know what would be required.

Buy the best stock you can afford. Keep records that will make sense a year later. Expect only the best in your flock, cull any who don't produce to your expectations.
I have no idea what feed requirements would be. That seems to change with commodity prices.

Flying space would be less than with homers. Just a good stretch of the wings for the pairs and two nest boxes.

Let's keep this thread going if enough are interested. European ancestors lived on pigeons and squab because they were easy keepers.

Dan aka Sully.

[wyld thang]

How do you get milk from a pidgeon?

My son shot a wild pidgeon a few months ago and we ate it. It was super tasty, the look and texture like steak(really good steak). The amount of meat was like a chicken thigh. I would totally eat pidgeon.

[NickieL]

I've raised ringneck doves....wonderful and easy going birds to raise!!! I had a racing pigeon once, he actually came to live with us on his own free will. We tracked down the owner by the band, the bird had come from illinios. but when I released him to go back home, he kept coming back to our place so the owner told us just to keep him. He was very nice. The great thing about the doves...is they are ALWAYS making more of themselves LOL

[Bearfootfarm]

Pigeons are easy to raise. I bought 20 a couple of years ago, and I think I have about 50 now.

I'd have a LOT more if I didn't let the free range all the time, but I love to watch them fly around. They seldom go more then 1/4 mile from the barn, and spend a lot of time in my pastures "grazing" with the sheep

I feed them a mix of cheap bird seed, Flock Raiser, and whole corn.
You can buy "pigeon feed" but it tends to be VERY expensive

Mine are King Pigeons, which are a large meat breed.

[TedH71]

I remember hearing about a homeless man being arrested in Austin, Texas, for killing pigeons with frozen peas and a needle placed in the middle of the pea. He had made a homemade dart blower with a hollow bamboo stick and was killing them by blowing the homemade darts into the heads of the pigeons and he cooked them. Said they were very delicious.

[JasoninMN]

I used to raise kings. Make sure you go with a production type and not a show type if thats the breed you choose. The show birds do not breed well. I raised show kings and they have fertility problems because they are so larger. If I were going to look at squab production I would take a look at Texas Pioneers. They are an auto sexing breed so you can tell the males and females apart as soon as they start feathering out. That would make culling a lot easier. If you cannot find them I am sure a breeder will be able to ship them too you. Your initial investment might cost a bit more having them shipped but at least you will not have to wait around and keep birds longer then necessary figuring out which are males and females when its time to increase your breeding flock.

Here is some info on them and squab.

http://www.littlewolf.com/pigeons.html

[Patt]

Originally Posted by wyld thang

How do you get milk from a pidgeon?

My son shot a wild pidgeon a few months ago and we ate it. It was super tasty, the look and texture like steak(really good steak). The amount of meat was like a chicken thigh. I would totally eat pidgeon.

I wondered that too.....pigeons must be interesting birds!

My husband wants to raise some more just to have than to eat so I will be interested in a thread about them too. His grandfather raised all sorts of interesting pigeons.

[dheat]

Off topic.

Funny story...to me at least. The son of a family in the church I grew up in joined the Navy. He came home at the end of his stint and lived with his parents while looking for a job. The father worked near home and would come home every day for lunch. The son would often have lunch ready and they would eat together.

One day the father came home to a delicious aroma. He asked the son what was cooking. The son replied squab. The father's eye got real big and he asked where the son procured the birds.

The son said he was on the patio and these two pigeons came right up to him. So, he went in the house, got his BB pistol, came back out and shot them.

The father had been feeding those birds for a couple of years. The father didn't eat any squab that day.

[Bearfootfarm]

How do you get milk from a pidgeon?

I wondered that too.....pigeons must be interesting birds!

You don't get "milk" from pigeons. That's just what it's called.

They produce it in their crops, and it's what they feed their young for the first few weeks. That's why you never see pigeon eggs for hatching. They CAN be raised by hand on a formula, but it's very labor intensive, and really not worth the effort since pigeons do it so well on their own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_milk

[rowan57]

'Wood' Pigeon is very expensive to buy in restaurants here so it must taste pretty good.

Another pigeon related story. Once a year on average, a racing pigeon comes to live with us for a few days (a different racer everytime). We have a good size pond and we normally find them trying to drink from it, so we look after them for a couple of days while we trace the owner, then hand 'em back. I could actually really get into pigeon fancying, the expensive ones are such good looking birds!

[o&itw]

The utility (meat) pigeons are Kings, Mondains, Giant Homers, Runts, Carneux and a few other breeds. While one can eat any pigeon/dove most others breeds don't have that much meat on them. They are not an animal that is inexpensive to raise. The high protein feed the need to really grow them out well, is going to make the meat quite expensive. So if you are looking for good inexpensive home grown meat, stick with rabbits and chickens.

[TedH71]

Wonder where I could go and sample some squab meat?

[Bearfootfarm]

The high protein feed the need to really grow them out well, is going to make the meat quite expensive.

Mine seem to do quite well on the cheaper mix I feed them along with what they find on their own in the pastures.

I fed the high priced stuff at first, and didn't see any real difference in how they grew or performed

Flock Raiser is a 20% feed

[MrCalicoty]

Originally Posted by TedH71

Wonder where I could go and sample some squab meat?

You can buy it online. Ships frozen. http://www.squab.com/store/main.mv

Maybe you can get some locals to split the order with you if the minimum quantity is too much.

[KIT.S]

How many chicks will a pigeon raise at a time? How often do they breed? How long does the squab take to get to eating size?
My dad said he raised pigeons on the roof when he was a kid in Watts, LA, California to eat. We raise everything else, maybe it's time to try pigeon.
You can catch the blue ones in town with a handful of grain, but someone somewhere told me the wild ones were so likely to be diseased that it wasn't a good idea. I don't know if I would really believe that, because they certainly survive and reproduce themselves!
Kit

[pancho]

Originally Posted by wyld thang

How do you get milk from a pidgeon?

My son shot a wild pidgeon a few months ago and we ate it. It was super tasty, the look and texture like steak(really good steak). The amount of meat was like a chicken thigh. I would totally eat pidgeon.

Getting the milk from a pidgeon is easy. The hard part is finding a milkimg stool short enough to set on while you milk one.

[Ed Norman]

Originally Posted by TedH71

Wonder where I could go and sample some squab meat?

Go to a barn or cave or outbuilding and reach in the nests.