Peggy and Piper
Peggy and Piper
Khoke with Piper.

Peggy and Piper

by Ida Livingston of Davis City, IA

One day my husband walks in from the barn with a baby pigeon. The poor little guy was hungry, scared and so ugly he was cute. Well, cute may be stretching it. Khoke wondered aloud if we should try to save him or feed him to the cat. These questions were merely a formality, since the bird made it all the way into the house. Khoke knew my answer before he left the barn.

Feeding baby pigeons is no small learning curve. They don’t automatically open their mouths at the sight of food arriving. Pigeon mothers open their mouth, allowing their young to stick their head in the open mouth and eat the food that the mother regurgitates. Baby pigeons will not open their mouth voluntarily any other way.

So we somehow had to figure out how to trick the newly named Piper into opening his mouth. I figured out that if I curled my fingers to make an O shape and slipped it over his beak and head, my cupped hand covering his eyes – vwhalah! He opened his beak! Then I had to figure out how to aim the food into his little beak and quickly.

Peggy and Piper
A hungry baby pigeon.

At first I tried moistening cornmeal and feeding Piper that, but it was really difficult to figure out how to get it in his beak while it was open. He wore a lot of it. After much trial and error, I discovered that the easiest way to feed him was to take some of the whole grain bread I make and pinch off pieces, roll it into a pellet and pop it in when he opened his mouth. Much easier for us both!

Adult pigeons are really quite a pretty bird, but baby pigeons put the “h” in homely. They also can become loud and demanding. Thankfully they grow fast. I discovered a new joy when Piper was being loud but didn’t want to eat, and was big enough that I could take him to the door and toss him out. He’d fly to a perch on the porch.

As Piper matured through the year, he became aware that he was a bird and we were not. He still came to us for food but he began frequenting the chicken house. It was full of birds like him. Only the chickens had no such confusion and the only part they wanted of him involved pulled feathers. They also really did not like the idea of a large bird flying out of the sky, landing in the chicken run, scaring them half to death, and then wanting to be friends. Piper started coming home with missing tail feathers and some minor injuries.

Undeterred, he started roosting in the chicken house at night. I’d go looking for him when he didn’t come home. We let him roost there but we’d put him up in the chicken house trusses instead of the ladder-like chicken roost that he chose alongside his larger feathered peers.

Piper tried really hard to be a chicken. He did not find acceptance among them and we came home one day to find him lying dead in the chicken run. They had killed him.

Peggy and Piper
Khoke relaxing with Peggy on his knee.

Peggy

Piper’s passing was sad for both of us. Still, I was somehow surprised as the year returned to early summer when Khoke appeared in the house with another baby pigeon. There is a perennial nest in the cupola of our barn and it isn’t unusual for a fledgling to somehow find itself evicted from the nest. Often they are found after it is too late and they have already starved to death. Somehow, as this one fell, it hit a piece of machinery and injured its left leg.

As I gazed at the pathetic little bird, I was under no illusions as to how much work raising it would be and I’ll admit, it gave me pause. Feeding every hour or two all the daylight hours long. The noise and the messes…. I sighed, and then picked it up with the other hand. The hand that responds to save it just because I can, and it needs help. Khoke knew this too, despite all the work for really nothing in return, the love and loss, that I would do it again.

The routine began again with Peggy. She took a little extra care with her bad leg. When it was too late to save it, we realized it was dislocated at the hip, not broken. Her toes curled and atrophied, developing calluses where she limped on them. Her uneven gate did not affect her ability to fly, only where she could land. Her incomplete control of her leg made it difficult for her to land on branches and certainly not a telephone wire.

As a hungry baby, she only allowed me to feed her. Khoke couldn’t do it to suit her. But as she matured, and no longer needed me, she took a liking to Khoke instead. Liking is rather understated, obsession may be more accurate.

Peggy took no interest in the chicken house. She never minded our people-ness, and though she took wing with another pigeon once, she circled back around to come home to us. Somewhere along the way she has fallen in love with Khoke. When she hears him talk in the evening, she will coo to him. Outside, she will follow him around the farm on wing. In the house she will perch on his lap and nuzzle him affectionately. When he was building shelves in our upstairs this past winter, she’d fly or hop up the stairs to be with him, settling down somewhere to watch him work.

Does this affection extend to me? Oh no, I am the rival and she will bite me even as I feed her. If I sleep in after Khoke gets up and goes out to chore, I can hear her hop up the stairs one at a time, she comes up on my bed and looks for skin to pinch to get me up. When I would go up to look at the new shelves Khoke was putting in, she’d walk over to where I was and not-so-subtly pinch my ankles. The neighbor kids nicknamed her “ankle-biter” as it has become her unofficial duty to protect Khoke from all other human threats/rivals. Khoke doesn’t let her get too carried away.

Peggy never fails to turn heads when we have guests at the house. She tells on every person who walks in the door and their heads turn first at the sound and then in amazement. Everyone wants to hold the free-roaming house bird. They are rewarded with a peck, and she is a pro at the pinch and twist. It doesn’t hurt enough to lose her charm but people do usually make an effort to keep their hands and other skin out of her reach.

Peggy and Piper
Peggy getting lap time with Khoke.

Mothering

This spring we noticed Peggy becoming broody. After a while we found she had laid an egg on our bed and later another. This was not going to work. First of all, nesting on our bed was just going to be a no go. On top of that her eggs were not fertilized and so they would never hatch.

Khoke began to feel bad for her and wondered if he could get her some eggs. One day he went to our barn, climbed up the side of the barn up to the hay track. Once there, he took a rope and tied himself to the trolley and pulled himself hand over hand along the track to the cupola. There are always pigeon nests there. Sure enough, he found a couple eggs there which he took. He trolleyed back to the barn wall, scaled down again and took the eggs to her. That’s love.

Khoke put these eggs in his sock bin and Peggy resigned herself to the new location. She hatched these eggs off, fed and raised the little squab. One had something wrong with it and did not survive, but the other one came all the way through the ugly phase and turned into a beautiful smoky colored pigeon, lighter than Peggy. We shall see if Smoky sticks around or not.

Feathered Friends

What does Peggy’s future with us look like? Likely more of the same. Khoke and I share an outlook and history of unusual pets. Khoke had a pet crow for 10 years. Elmo was a crow who could not fly. I have rescued and raised orphaned squirrels, one year I raised a couple baby woodpeckers. The hollow tree they were hatched in fell across the road in a storm. My father had brought them home in his hat. Who knew baby woodpeckers smell so bad?! I raised them anyway until they grew up and flew away. We cage nothing. If they want to return to the wild, they can at any time.

Last winter we had an arctic blast that took our mild 30 degree winter down to nearly -20 degrees within a week. The wildlife, particularly the birds, really struggled. In the milkbarn, there was a juvenile white crowned sparrow who was having a really hard time of it. While all the other sparrows flew away when Khoke came in, this little guy only hopped around half-heartedly and didn’t resist when Khoke’s hand closed gently around him. Instead he tucked his head in his wing as though going to sleep.

Khoke tucked him in his pocket while he milked. The little bird refused to lift his head from his wing so he was brought to the house. He stood on my counter all fluffed out with his eyes closed as he warmed up for nearly an hour. Cute little guy. I sprinkled out some sorghum seed for him to find when he snapped out of it. Once fully warmed up he was anxious to go back out and we sent him on his way. We were glad to see him safely go as our cat is very fond of sparrows.

Not Cat Food

Our cat, who is well known for being a good hunter, shares our house with Peggy. Emma learned with Piper that pigeons were off limits to her and when Peggy showed up, Emma needed no reminder. She never cast a second glance at Peggy.

Peggy and Emma walk around each other. That said, Peggy is shameless about teasing all the neighbor cats. She is fully aware that they all want to eat her and she flies over there on purpose to taunt them. If she doesn’t reach a ripe old age, it won’t be the chickens fault.

Bird Brat

Peggy is no homing pigeon. She can and has gotten lost. She is oriented to about a mile from home and can find her way back. Further than a mile and we have to be sure she is following when we start home. Home is where she roosts, outside in the summer and inside in the winter. Home has food. She still eats crumbled bread or wheat berries from dishes in the house. She shows little to no sign of foraging her own food.

A social bird, even my company is better than none. She will follow me to the garden and walk up and down the rows or make herself comfortable on my bent back. When Khoke was gone for a few days helping his parents, she noticeably missed him and looked for him. She even flew to and sat on my shoulder companionably without pecking. Though I think it did cross her mind.

No doubt about it we have raised a feathered bird-brat. She is sassy, sometimes impolite, and definitely has an attitude. We both get a chuckle out of this even as we scold her. Her unasked for love for Khoke is a marvel to behold. It does demonstrate that she is capable of choosing good behavior if she wants to.

Peggy and Piper
Piper hanging out in the yard.

Love For No Reason

Pigeons are considered a nuisance bird, so why would we have one? Perhaps we love too easily. At least she is not as loud as a crow or smelly like the woodpeckers. She isn’t going to bankrupt us and she doesn’t make any more mess than a parrot would. So we pick up the papers that are constantly blown off the table onto the floor from her wings, put up with her commentary and back talk, and love her because we can.