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Pigeon Facts!!! Pigeons mate for life and rear their broods together, although if one dies the other will take a new mate. Once the simple nest is built, the female lays an egg and then another a day or so later. The incubation period for common pigeons is 17 to 19 days. The female sits on the egg from late afternoon through the night until about 10AM. The male then takes over and does the day shift. Once the eggs hatch, both parents feed the young squabs. The first food is pigeon milk or crop milk, a cheesy substance that appears in the crops of the parents at hatching time and is fed for a week or so. Then the adults start regurgitating partially digested grains for the young. By the time the squabs are ready to fly, about 4 weeks, the father is doing most of the feeding. The squabs are fed for another week to 10 days after they are free-flying. Origins: Pigeons and doves have been around for a long time—long before humans. Rock Doves are thought to have originated in southern Asia several million years ago. Compare this to modern humans that first appeared about 120,000 years ago. Size and weight: A pigeon is about 13 inches (32 cm) in length from bill to tail and weighs a little less than a pound (0.35 kg). Males are slightly bigger than females.
Unique drinking behavior: Most birds take a sip of water and throw back their heads to let the water trickle down their throats. But pigeons (and all of their relatives in the family Columbidae) suck up water, using their beaks like straws. Locomotion: On the ground, pigeons don’t hop the way many birds do. They walk or run with their heads bobbing back and forth. Pigeons are strong fliers and can fly up to 40 or 50 miles per hour. Some pigeons are raised for their exceptional abilities to fly fast and find their ways home. These pigeons may fly as far as 600 miles in a day. Although feral pigeons are good fliers too, most of these birds seem to stay close to their regular feeding sites.
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