Acceptable Loss

Jack Prescott
(Internet Published) Apr 2001

Throughout the time that I have kept pigeons, I have often come across loss and learned to accept it. However, there are certain types of losses that I can accept better than others.

• When two pigeon eggs have been produced and incubated for four days I can hold them against a strong light and perceive filaments and traces of embryonic life if it exists. Otherwise if there is no such sign of life I can discard such eggs.
• When squabs fail to hatch and are found to be dead inside the shell after 18 days of incubation.
• When squabs hatch and die within a few hours is also not a serious problem.
• When squabs die from chill at about 1 week old due to parent's neglects and lack of overnight incubation. I accept these losses especially when breeding in winter or with pairs that are not really mature. For this reason I am most reluctant to breed from pigeons that are less then 2 years old.

In all of the above examples, I can accept the loss with confident knowledge that two more eggs will appear in about 10 days time. The loss does not represent a vast waste of time.

Next, I come to unacceptable losses, such as when squabs get out of nest boxes and on to the floor to be savaged by non-parent cocks. Some sort of escape shelter must be made under which such squabs can escape.

Yet, the most despicable losses are when under trained and under imprinted young ones get up on the wing even at 6 weeks old. It takes time and patience to imprint young pigeon before their maiden flight and no pigeon under the age of 8 weeks should be caused to fly. There should be 3 weeks of loft training and general imprinting before their crucial first fly under strict control. Losses at this time are unacceptable because death by starvation is almost inevitable - The alternative being eaten alive by a cat or a hawk. Not very clever is it!

[Internet Published Apr 2001 at http://www.tipplers.com/jack/]