greens for them

do you give the birds greens? I've been giving them spinach and they demolish it, cheap enough from supermarket. tried lettuce, carrot other stuff but they don't look at it, love the spinach though. Lidl and Aldi do bags of leaves cheap as can be.

water cress Colin they love it

barnie wrote:

do you give the birds greens? I've been giving them spinach and they demolish it, cheap enough from supermarket. tried lettuce, carrot other stuff but they don't look at it, love the spinach though. Lidl and Aldi do bags of leaves cheap as can be.

Only greens I ever gave them was watercress straight from stream near the loft when on Oliver's Mount, water from same stream, when moved to home after vandals ruined the loft and stole all the pigeons, never bothered again and just used garlic every day in the water, but have no idea what they picked up all day having open loft, they had the chance to drink from the pond but I had to top the garlic water containers every day, or change them.

Woodies eat greens in the Winter and never seen an ill one.

Regards.

yes same as you colin spinach and watercress ,watercress was given to ybs day of basketing i would buy the stuff in the containers and lodge them inside a small clay pot and all would be eaten just stumps left ,the cress holds water was my reasoning to give to ybs day before basketing ...dont know if it helped but it made me feel i was doing all i could lettuce was hit and miss and carrot was a non starter as they just messed about with it

anyone heard of giving birds rice before basketing, and syringing water down the beak ...supposed to stop them getting de hydrated during the race .....

David wrote:

anyone heard of giving birds rice before basketing, and syringing water down the beak ...supposed to stop them getting de hydrated during the race .....

Not the syringing bit but already said I new fanciers who fed rice before the race
and then gave them water, think anyone using a syring should not keep pigeons or any other animal.

Disgusting.

Regards.

i used a syringe last year to clean a birds crop out misty, it had sour crop so i turned it upside down and massages all the crap out of its crop, then syringed bicarb i think it was, mixed with water to clean the crop out, seemed to do the trick .

i think it was bi carb im not sure, but it was a mix it did to clean it out .

David wrote:

 i used a syringe last year to clean a birds crop out misty, it had sour crop so i turned it upside down and massages all the crap out of its crop, then syringed bicarb i think it was, mixed with water to clean the crop out, seemed to do the trick .

i think it was bi carb im not sure, but it was a mix it did to clean it out .

Big difference in medication and dealing with illness David as opposed to subjecting a pigeon to forced feeding water.

Regards.

yes thats true misty, ive found my birds are better just giving food and fresh water daily, plus grit, pink and black minerals with vitamins in the water twice a week .....gone are the days i pay for expensive products with a picture of a pigeon on the bottle ........

David wrote:

yes thats true misty, ive found my birds are better just giving food and fresh water daily, plus grit, pink and black minerals with vitamins in the water twice a week .....gone are the days i pay for expensive products with a picture of a pigeon on the bottle ........

Grit and minerals basic requirements David, never gave any other of the commercial boys products.

Think you will find all that they have done is put elements in basic feed into posh containers.

As far as I am concerned garlic is the best long term benefit for good health in the pigeons and as cheap as chips ( sorry they have gone up now) or as one top fancier does grow your own. (was in the BHW not too long ago).

Roman soldiers had to have a clove a day and they were tough blighters.

Think experience outdoes theories.

The OLs are an example of pigeons from many different backgrounds dealing with all being (hopefully) treated the same.

Regards.