I think the most common question we get when we tell someone we have pigeons living in our flat is “Don’t they poo everywhere?”
The answer is “Yes”, of course. One of the most frequent complaints against feral pigeons is that they damage buildings with their droppings, so it’s only fair to assume that they’d do the same indoors. But we’re talking about two pigeons, not a hundred. Once you’ve wiped the poo away (with the help of a carpet cleaner spray) there is no stain left and our floors and furniture remain clean. I have to admit it does take a bit of energy to be on constant ‘poo patrol’. Nothing gets on my nerves more than stepping onto a poo booby trap, however, to us it is a small price to pay to have two wonderful animals living with us. Having pets always has drawbacks (e.g. less free time, more expense during holiday time, vet bills, death) but we cannot imagine living without animals – they are such an important part of our lives.
Anyway, back to pigeon poo. After surfing the net for pigeon related things I stumbled across a website that has pigeon and chicken nappies (a.k.a. diapers). I had heard about nappies for parrots but I didn’t think anyone had made any for pigeons. The website advertise an array of nappy designs and boasts success in their use, but I’m a bit sceptical. Why you ask? Well because we previously bought a bird harness with a lead so we could take Georgie and Elmo out for a ‘walk’ without them flying off and getting lost or injured, however, neither pigeon would co-operate with it on.
First we tried Georgie. After figuring out which wing goes through which strap we fitted the harness and stood back to admire it. It’s bright blue, fits around the wings and under the body and not that intrusive, but Georgie just laid on her side like dead wood. She didn’t move for a while and when she eventually did she flopped about like a fish out of water – a very strange behaviour to us but it was clear that she was not happy with the harness. So we took it off and didn’t try again till a few months later, however, with the same results.
Elmo had a similar reaction. First he was stock still, then he looked down at the harness and tried to run away from it. Hard to do when the thing was strapped to him but he made a good attempt. We then put the harness on Dora. She wasn’t impressed either and kept getting her foot stuck as she tried to wriggle out of it.
So the harness was a huge failure much to our disappointment. Since Elmo cannot fly properly we can take him out for a while but have to watch him carefully. Georgie can fly up in the air but not intentionally forward, however, we have to put her in a wire run just in case (Georgie is known to take off suddenly and very quickly so we cannot risk it).
With the harness scenario in mind my thoughts on the pigeon nappy aren’t hugely optimistic. It would be great if Elmo and Georgie didn’t mind having one on for a few hours a day but somehow I doubt that’ll be the case. We may order a pigeon nappy just to satisfy our ‘what if?’ thoughts. More on this if we do.
Ps. For those of you who are curious about the pigeon nappy, the website I found is: http://www.birdwearonline.net/index.html