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Asked by bowss to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 26 Jun 2013.
Question: how do pigeons get babies
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Peter Balfe answered on 26 Jun 2013:
Eggs mi deario, like all birds. But pigeons grow amazingly fast and fledglings are near adult size when they leave the nest, so we don’t “spot” them in the same way as other juvenile birds.
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Ee Lyn Lim answered on 26 Jun 2013:
They get babies like all other animals – the mother has an egg cell, which is fertilised by sperm cells from the father. In birds, a hard shell forms around the egg before it is laid, and the baby bird grows in the egg until it hatches. Pigeons do exactly the same!
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Paul Waines answered on 26 Jun 2013:
Hi bowss- this is a great one, and I know it because my dad keeps pigeons!
Pigeons mate for life and the female (hen) lays 2 eggs at a time. These hatch after about 3 weeks, and the babies (called ‘squabs’) are really ugly and covered in yellow fluff. After a few days, the parents start to produce a type of ‘milk’ in their stomachs which they feed to their young.
T he young pigeons grow really fast and start to squeak after a while- now they’re called ‘ squeakers’ , and they do this to get mum and dads attention. When they are about a month old, they will be just about be ready to leave the nest and once they do they’re more or less on their own!
Sometimes if you in town in the spring, you can hear the babies squeaking but they’re pretty hard to find!
I could talk about pigeons for ages !
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Katy commented on :
Yep, they lay eggs! They make babies in much the same way we do (you sometimes see them doing this!) then lay an egg in a nest. 17 to 19 days later the baby pigeon comes out of the egg. Both parent pigeons feed the baby and 30 days later he is ready to leave the nest. Here are some pigeon babies, just because they are cute: http://biologylabs.utah.edu/shapiro/Shapiro_Lab/NewsArchive.html