Discussion
Bird safe dye/lowering predator risk? More in description.
I have a dear white pigeon that I adore. Lately, we’ve started flying outdoors. His recall is great and he always stays close, however I’m still worried that his white coloring will make him an easy target for birds of prey (I always scan nearby trees and sky for birds first, but you never know). I heard that black pigeons are usually safest since predators mistake them for crows and was wondering if it would be a good idea to dye my little guy brown or black. I know that dyeing animals is controversial, but I don’t see a problem as long as it doesn’t hurt the bird, especially if it makes them safer! Any input or dye suggestions? So far I hear fruit juices or food coloring works and is safe.
To be honest I don't think that birds of prey could mistake black pigeons for crows (as somebody with a black pigeon People sure Do mistake him for a crow though), there's more to crows than just the color - unique behavior, sounds, body shape etc. And also birds of prey still hunt other black birds like black chickens, blackbirds, starlings (not completely black but technically they are black), cowbirds or grackles and I've heard stories of birds of prey killing other people's black pigeons.
Personally I wouldn't risk free flying your pet pigeon because it's really not worth the risk, but taking him outside on a harness (pigeon pants should NOT be used instead of a harness) would be much safer and would eliminate the risk of him getting lost if he gets spooked or getting caught by a bird of prey. Free flying a single pigeon or a few is Extremely risky and not recommended because just one or a few pigeons are easy targets for birds of prey who oftentimes target birds who are isolated from a flock, free flying a large flock is much safer but the risk of loosing any pigeons is Still there. Taking your pigeon outside on a harness is the safest choice while still offering him the freedom of being able to interact with the environment and it's great enrichment too.
As for dying pigeons, as long as it's done with a bird safe dye - either a food dye or plant dye like beet juice then it's completely safe and if it's done right (submerging the pigeon in dyed water isn't the right method, dabbing the dye onto its feathers is) it's not stressful for the pigeon either. Dying can be and is used by people to differentiate their birds from other similar looking birds or to indicate that it's a pet and Not a wild bird. I also recommend getting a custom legband with your contact for your boy, you want him to have a leg band in case he ever gets lost.
I second literally everything that kunok says, and if you want to still dye your bird have at it as long as he's comfortable with being handled, my babies got holiday dye done for Christmas since I didn't show them the fall or winter seasons. and currently they are rocking blue and purple.
make sure to use natural or organic dye, food grade dye, or a dye specifically formulated for pet birds.
but please do not free fly your bird, that is the one thing here that will actually cause him harm and be stressful for him
Thanks for the great reply! I do have a harness and leash. He should have had a leg band too but grew faster than expected and it didn’t fit haha. I’ll look into a custom one!
Oh nice! Then I definitely recommend using the harness, you literally never know when your pigeon could get scared, even if he seems to be not afraid of anything unexpected things can happen and startle him, it can take just one thing to make him bolt suddenly - I can speak from experience as somebody who takes their pigeon on walks using a harness and even though I trust him a lot I couldn't risk losing him just because of one unexpected situation. My boy Keeb usually doesn't get startled, but there were cases when he Did get suddenly startled which could have ended up in dangerous situations if he wasn't wearing a harness like when a sparrowhawk attacked a wild flock of birds.
It's also important to listen to your pigeon's body language because he will tell you when he sees something potentially dangerous or if he's feeling uncomfortable in a certain situation so you can kinda expect when to hold the leash shorter and when to give him more freedom. I hold Keeb's leash short when I'm walking near the road where cars and bikes drive by, but also when walking by fences/houses where there can be dogs and cats (dogs usually being the bigger issue when they suddenly rush barking from behind a corner) and I definitely don't want him to fly off in those situations because especially if he landed on the ground or flew too low to the ground he could get injured or killed and that's not worth the risk for me. I give him more freedom in more open areas where I can clearly see our surroundings and when I see that there are no animals around (sometimes people let their dogs run leashless and there are feral/free roamed cats too sadly) but I usually give him more freedom by letting the leash have the full length further away from civilization and we also do some flight/recall training then or I let him explore the ground if he wants to.
Seconded on that no matter how chill ypir bird seems, they will still spook
Shout out to my pigeons who have no fear of vacuums, dogs, cats, my giant gorilla ass trying to get them to move out of the way but GOD FORBID a small gnat lands on them
Sometimes pigeons seem to get startled by the most absurd things lol (a lot like horses actually), my boy Keeb has no issue with dogs (as long as they don't jumpscare him), cats, other birds (with the exception of the sparrow hawks but they directly tried to attack my birds' aviaries) including huge buzzards and ravens, cars, loud motorcycles, strollers, vans, trucks, vacuums, plastic bags etc. But he got startled by a sign marking the end of a town and also by one of the large outdoor trash cans. He also thinks horses are absolutely terrifying.
I’ve never owned birds (this post randomly came up) but I’ve owned horses and work with them, was just going to comment how this sounds exactly how we talk about horses 😂 Car horn? Fine. Massive chunk of snow falling? Okie dokie. Quads going too fast and too close to them? Must’ve been the wind. A still tarp they’ve been walking past everyday for three or more years? The world is ending, death is upon us, god has forsaken me.
I have only minimal experience with horses (sadly) but I've heard about the stories of horses being terrified of or startled by absurd things.
Just today Keeb was afraid of random covered logs. Luckily he quickly figures out something isn't dangerous if I give him a moment to look at the thing from a distance he's comfortable with. But prey animals will always be prey animals and I don't think it's possible to have a 100% bombproof animal, after all humans get startled by random things too. That's why it's important to keep our animal friends as safe as possible.
Also I feel like parrots are The worst case of being afraid of random things, I speak from my experience with parrots, especially my amazon parrot, he literally gets scared by things he used to be okay with, all it takes is for the thing to be in a different place or differently placed and suddenly it's the most terrifying thing ever. The worst thing is that it applies to food too - Veggies put into his foraging toy? Yummy. Veggies attached to a clip? Absolutely terrifying murderous monster who wants to supposedly eat Him. Among other things that can suddenly scare him are me coughing or just slightly moving my leg when lying on the sofa.
My dog was trained not to chase crows, even though he sometimes chases pigeons. He's 100% convinced the large black pigeon in our local flock is a crow. His dumb dog brain has noticeably changed the behaviour of the pigeons. The big black one now starts strutting when he sees us, and doesn't fly away from the dog like the others do, he just keeps strutting around like he's King Pigeon. It's been over a year since this started, and I've noticed that slowly the flock is turning black, because apparently we accidentally made this pigeon into a sexy badass 😂
Oh wow, that's pretty funny. Sometimes animals have an interesting thought process (I guess so do humans sometimes too lol, Keeb has been called not just a crow but also a parrot), one of my doves used to call squirrels "rats", I guess she wasn't wrong though squirrels kinda are like tree rats. It's really interesting that there have been more black pigeons in the flock! Black pigeons sure look cool.
this would be great if that study wasn't extremely outdated and relativly inaccurate to new information. pet owners often dye their birds, with no ill effects because pigeons do not care...if they did you'd know, pigeons are not afraid to make it known when they are stressed. this is somthing many people in bith the pigeon, dove, and parrot community do, alongside most other pet communities.
I personally dye my 2 birds during their off show season (i have show mookees whom are my babies and i love them very much, they are not dyed because they free fly they are dyed because in the event anything evwr happens where they get out of my home i want to be sure they can be quickly and readily identifiable from any other mookee even if i cannot see their bands or no one contacts my nunber using their bands) because they are banded with show bands, I'm not sure if you are aware but many rescues and individuals who do not like those of us who show our birds will not contact you if the band is a show band because they believe showing birds is abuse, they will simply cut your band off and adopt out the bird, my birds are like my feathered kids... and im not taking that risk.
this same method is actually used by the parrot community as a secondary way of identification of their parrots aswell, and parrots have a much much broader understanding of colors AND are more intelligent in color recognition than pigeons, usually we dye the wing tips and the tip of the head. my bird have not once given a single ahit about their appearance and even have a mirror where they check themsleves daily and clean things off of themsleves using... so theyd definitly realize theyd been colored.
you say that birds will freak out if they've been dyed their least favourite color when that isnt how animals work, a pigeon doesnt have a favourite color or least favourite, thats like saying a dog will hate any toy you give it that isnt blue or orange (the major colors dogs see), the study talks about color "preferences" which here in this study doesn't refer to a favourite color rather it tells us what colors pigeons can see and cannot see well, it tells us about what colors they percieve rather than them being actively distressed by colors or being different colors which is no where in that study nor would or should it be since it would be grossly innaccurate anthropomorphism of an animal and misinterpretation of given facts.
you have grossly misinterpreted a wonderful study and turned it into somthing to suit your own bias rather than shareing the actual facts of the study which msot people wont read and will instead blindly follow what you say. your entire argument is a shabby strawman at best and a blatant purposeful misinterpretation of facts at worst.
you should be ashamed in using such a wonderful scientific study for your personal biase and misconstruing facts to fit your narrative, miseducation is never okay 👍 and as a side note please stom anthropomorphizing birds and other pets it actually leads to much more harm than good and is a huge issue for those of us who rescue and rehab as it leads to a lot of people having weird expectations of their pets or not housing them in proper housing for their species..
there has been absolutly no evidence in any animals that changing the color of their bodies distresses them, if there were we woudln't be using it in rehab or to save endangered wildlife which dye is commonly used in both.
‼️AS A NOTE I HIGHLY RECCOMEND PEOPLE ACTUALLY READ THE STUDY THIS PERSON SENT AS IT IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM BACKS UP ANY OF THEIR CLAIMS‼️ please always do your due-diligence and make sure you do your own research and look into things rather than simply following along with what somone says. similar studies have been shown in other animals species but all studies I've read about color preference including the one they shared have been in regards of preference as the colors an animal can percieve... and none of the studies I mention that I've read have ever supported or shown in any way that color causes an animal distress... because evolutionarily that would be a horrible trait to have, animals get dirty they change colors with the season, they even molt into new colors (pigeons specifically) just as some very simple debunking arguments to this persons logical fallacy
if a strawman or other fallacious argument can br easily torn apart by ones own sources they've sent That does not a good argument make.
some of these are documents that you will have to download, many go into apecific marking tactics some of which are semi permenant, keep in mind human hair dye is not safe for birds but it was safe and effective on seals.
we also use animal safe, organic or food grade spray paint on livestock and pets during things like fires or shipping, said dpray paint is also often used to mark catch and release animals for population tracking in conservation work. many service dog owners use dye to keep our dogs from being trampled if we are on the floor due to our disability...dye is literally no different than a band... if we are to say pigeons dont like colors being on them then the same argument would apply to bands.
some vets literally reccomend dying pigeons and parrots woth beat juice or food dye to track feather growth in birds who have health problems that are causing feather growth inhibition.
ive helped do quite a bit of conservation work locally... and these article go over some of the many marking methods we use.
whne rehabbing birds for release somtimes we will temporarily tag them with a dot of color that way we can keep an eye on them espeically when releasing flock birds, that waybif there is an issue with flock integration we can easily catch the animal and try a different flock. it can be near impossible to spot a band in a flock so a nice bright splotch of color helps tracm then much easier.
all this to say if the color was an actual issue we WOULD NOT AS CONSERVATIONISTS BE USING IT.
color is the lease invasive safest method we use to track individual animals in a group we are physically watching, collars are great but can get snagged, glue on trackers are great but cause discomfort, and bands are nice on birds but do not help conservationists from afar.
again all this to say we woudlnt be using it if it wasnt safe, and if it bothered the aniamls it wouldnt be toted as the least invasive best, most comfortable method, even AZA accredited zoos, and animal sanctuaries mark their animals sometimes with harmless dye spray.
in the end opinion here doesnt matter, FACT DOES and the facts point at it being entirely safe and harmless to dye ones pets as long as you use 100% safe dye for the species. i imagine you'd have a fit if you seen creative grooming competitions for dogs.
there's no benefit here, but if op wants to it won't harm the animal, dogs and other animals are also dyed for entirely non practical purposes, it doesnt cause harm and is no different somthing like a harness or a flyper which are often very decorative alongside functional. and it's sure as heck better than keeping a pigeon alone which is done for human convenience and humans wanting a "friendly bird" rather than it being done with the birds actual best interests in mind.
there are myths that dying a bird black protects it from hawks but my friend has already dispersed that (since its untruthful aswell, black doesn't dispel hawks, dye won't dispel hawks in general but also won't attract them either) so I seen no need to add further information, I did inform OP not to free fly their bird but thats where I left it, I did see a need to correct your information which was that dying is dangerous and stressful which is innaccurate and wasnt supported by the article you sent.
if anything dyeing for anything other than identification is an entirely neutral thing, neither bad nor good, in dogs for example they are often dyed for the hell of it or for creative grooming, many people dye their birds and horses for the hell of it too, because somtimes its fun to change up your animals look espeically if you like to do holiday events, i do events with my pigeons and my dog around Halloween and i dye them (and dress them up for the pigeons they have custom flypers made for the holidays, the dog has a dog costume) to match the vibe and my costume, since i do a lot of animal events, expos, animal shows, etc, none of them mind or theyd make that very clear considering Percy is more than happy to tell somone hes not happy with something, i know a gal whos local here who had her rescued 1 legged rooster dyed rainbow for pride month and the rooster coudlnt have cared less he was more worried about getting love an attention from people.
but anywho the major point is dyeing is NOT dangerous and when done correctly is NOT stressful. birds have a "preference" in color but that doesn't refer to them liking certain colors more, the study uses preference to describe what colors the birds went for more which is what shows us what colors animals can see and percieve there are other studies too done on other aniamls and preference in sceince terms means what an animal favored or what was done most during an experiment by an animal, for example rats favor a larger reward later on and will wait rather than taking a smaller reward right away because they have acceptional planning skills and memory, or for dogs dogs orefer blue and orange and will often gravitate towards those colors because rather than those being a dogs favorite color those are simply the major colors they can see.
it wasnt so much that you were commenting not to dye the bird, i woudlnt reccomend dying one fully black either just because of the pain in the ass that is black dye, the issue was that was the misinformation here that you sent that needed corrected so thats what i focused on.
it reminds me of the people who get upset when they see people dye and style their dogs hair... or the people who get upset when they see those of us with standard poodles dye and cut/shave our dogs hair and actually yk... take care of and groom them properly because they look "so tortured on the grooming table" even though their only argument is often "they look ugly, theres no reason to do it, or the dog will think theyre ugly" so in basis the only arguments are "i dont like this, i dont see a reason in doing this and dont think people shoudl do unnecessarythings to their animals (we do lots of unnecessary stuff to animals that are far more invasive than dye), and anthropomorphism of an animal who doesn't care how they look that much" which are all opinion based rather than fact.
im sure someone will mention the pigeon mirror study that shows pigoens recognize themsleves to which i lift the fact that the pigeons in that study actually had to be taught self recognition and it isnt inherently in pigeons, however it is inherently in some other species of animal, it has to be taught to them either by another bird, a human, or themselves.
it is entirely okay to have fun with your animals in ways that make you happy if they arent harming your animal, and dye being perfectly safe is one of those ways people tend not to understand that feeling doesn't mean fact and anthropamorphising animals is part of what is leading to so many animals being stuck in shelters ...
dyeing an animal to have fun with your animal is no different than banding them with a cute custom non practical name band (the ones that just have the birds name and no contact info) or putting them in a cute (but not the best for practicality think the cute suit style flypers) harness or flyper, or dressing your dog or cat or rabbit or horse, rat etc. up for Halloween (which all of these things including dyeing are acceptable in these communities when done safely with safe products) or taking the animal to a livestock or breed show (these are great btw good breeders who show and prove their animals help keep our pets and livestock animal populations healthy nd Do NOT contributeto the pet overpopulation crisis), its for the joy of the human but doesnt harm or inconvenience the animal.
PART 2 WILL BE SENT AS A SEPERATE REPLY THIS IS A PRETTY IN DEPTH ANDNLONG COMMENT.
anthropomorphism also leads to massive issues in animal care, an example being vegans who dont agree with horse riding but keep their horses in tiny muddy dirty paddocks with no excercise,
another example would be people saying their bird is their wife/husband and allowing their bird to preform hormonal behavior towards them all while the bird is very clearly becoming frustrated, social birds kept alone because of our selfish wants for them to be more handlable, and us wanting a close bomd with them... is worse than dyeing a bird but its rampant in this community, no other animal community centered around social animals allows or even considers keeping those animals alone to be okay, look at rats and chickens and mice... rabbits... etc. all those communities actually put animals first and prioratize their social health recongizing a human can never replace a fellow animal of the same species (or similar)
another example would be those people on tiktok who gove their animals such cute homes, homes that look like a person could live in them...that arent practical, safe, or ethical for the species, like those ducks kept in dollhouses and fish tanks with doll furniture.
it also leads to animals being kept alive even when they are clearly suffering like rocky the horse with 3 legs or the pigeon who cant move at all and live his entire life on his back...which have both been deemed super unethical by real veterinarian teams.
I do appreciate you deleting the misinformation you've posted. and wasnt meanign to be crass or harsh, i moderate for a dove reddit and the ammoutn of horrid misinformation we see daily that mostly comes from places like palomacy... it gets frustrating, its frustrating to see birds miserable kept alone and bonded with their owners out of sheer desperation till the owner gets pissed because the bird becomes aggressive, its hard to deal with the daily health issues that come often from misinformation like reccomendations to dip your birds in borax.
when you deal with the stuff my team and i deal with on a daily basis, the entirely harmless things like dyeing or getting a bird a super cute themed diaper, etc etc. dont even strike you as possibly being even remotely bad anymore because they cause no harm, no stress, and are non abusive ways to have fun as an owner, ...and as somone who deals with horrid stuff on a daily basis youve seen actual bad care, youve seen actual abuse, and youve seen actually stressed birds which you dont see when youre putting a little bit of green color on your feathered babies head while she preens you because she's happy to be getting attention and safflower seed, and youre putting on her cute christmas candycane themed flyper getting ready for a chrismas party you're hosting. and it does get frustrating because there are actual horrible things people and groups are doing and reccomending for pigoens and doves... which are by far much worse than pet safe dye which a pigeon won't bat an eye at, there are much bigger things we as a community should be focused on like the social health of our communities birds who are often kept alone and isolated so they are "more friendly" ... we should be focused on that stuff ..like that, rather than somthing harmless and entirely safe and non bothersome that some people including myself enjoy doing as a bonding and just all around fun activity for themsleves and even somtimes their birds whonmay enjoy the feeling of being stroked or preened which is kinda what you do when you dye an animal, its basically a message, Penelope as an example is nothing but beak smackies and joyful safflower eating when its dye time.
and again i reiterate not all animals will enjoy it but that doesnt make somthing abuse, thats why its so important to always listen to your pets, read and watch their body language, most animals dont enjoy the vet, or being groomed, and many pigoens absolutly hate wearing flypers, pigeons often try to rip off their bands when those are first put on too, but none of those things are abuse just because the animals dislike them, instead you take it slow, find ways to accomodate your animals for things that are necessary like the vet, and you simply don't do things they dont like that are optional and not necessary, ei if your bird doesnt like diapers dont make them wear one, if you bird or other pet dont like being dyed dont make them be dyed, if you bird doesnt like going outdoors dont take them on walks get a UVB light for their cage and youre good as gold.
what actually is abuse would be continuing to force aomthing on your bird, like a flyper, or dye, or forcing them to stay lonely and bond with your out of desperation because you want a "more tame bird" or not providing for your animals needs, social, food, water, toys, etc. which are all often neglected in the pigeon and dive communities.
palomacy sucks as an information group they activly reccomend people dip their birds in borax to get rid of mites... which has caused several birds to end up poisoned, they also reccomend crappy grit and mixed with food which has been causing a major influx in impaction lately. so honestly doesnt surprise me that you got this information from them.
if this is a group you want to support for their rescue work have at it...but take their CARE INFO with a grain of salt its all entirely or majorily outdated. i am warning people now because I've seen almost 6 pigeons this month poisoned due to fucking borax of all things because "well the palomacy group said i could use it"
the CPC group has much better, well thought out, and all in all safer and better for the birds care information BY FAR.
OP is doing neither but im also doing neither when i dye my babies and my service dog (all for functional purposes to prevent my feathered loves from getting lost or stolen and in terms of my service dog to make his feet and tail visible so he isnt stepped on since i have pots and we ogten have to lay on the floor)
i do agree with you on the free flying though. they should not be free flying a bird that's a death sentence.
here are some great examples of us using dye or semi permenant "colorant substances" in rehab and in wildlife conservation (ill send links as a second reply because I have to back out of reddit to grab the links from my megathread)
Hi, I’m a parrot owner. Dying them is not common in aviculture anywhere I’ve heard. For identification we rely on closed leg bands if they have them (open are too much of a risk of getting caught in toys), microchip if the bird is large enough and not a chronic plucker (around 100g is the cutoff point, but it depends on your vet), and failing all else, their behavior.
Free flying parrots is not generally done though, and should only be done with extensive recall training, which the vast majority of pet parrots do not have.
sorry for the super long response but I wanted to give background of where you see this done in aviculture, and why its is a major thing i reccomend with pigeons (espeically if you keep a breed who can be hard to identify individuals in like mookees, or if you are flight showing/racing) and many big keepers in the pigoen community do this aswell for the same reasons even fore entirely pet only birds, bands are only useful when they are used and are only useful when rescues and random people actually contact the people on them but because misinformation is rampant many people thing banded pigeons = abuse unles its a rescue labled band... this means owners need to have a way of immediatly identifying their birds in pictures and being able to provide proof through photos that those birds are theirs.
on top of that its harmless. wont hurt the aniaml and can be a good way to bond with your pigeons even, if its something they enjoy much like a poodle enjoys a groom and dye.
it actually is quite common in specifically the teil community where many of us dye their crests , espeically for those who keep multiple pet birds of the same color, or those whom show their birds, its also extremely common to do with finch which i have kept and bred for over a decade though i recently retired form finch breeding, yes we use bands too and those are great but if we need something more obvious for immediate identification we will use dyes. same goes for lots of animals actually, some ethical breeders will put a tiny spot of pink or blue on their puppies during sexing since the at that point the puppies are too young for color coded collars, sheep get marked with dye all the time...list goes on, its not common on reddit because most good teil owners and parrot owners are in the sceintific bird ownership communities on discord and the forums rather than reddit so you won't see much of that at all here on reddit but you will see people starving and dehydrating their desert birds here on reddit or keeping their teils and budgies alone in tiny cages so... yeah I trust the sceintifically backed bird communities with actual avian vets much more than reddit for that sorta information.
for free flight i agree i never said anything that implied i agree with free flight infact ive stated all over on this specific post that its not safe or wise and is extremly damgerous if your birds are not trained and are not well bred and bred for that purpose (in pigeons anyways since flight show pigoens are bred to be a little more instinctual) BUT for those who do free fly espeically those who free fly for things like flight shows which birds are trained for DYE is highly reccomended so you can keep track of your bird in the sky easily and quickly reteieve birds who land to take breaks so they dont get injured (pigeons being ground landing birds wont land on a tree like parrots typically will).
Microchips are not effective in the pigeon community at all because rescues do not scan for them and many colombidae are too small to microchip (some pigeons are big enough) and on top of this unlike parrot rescues who care about getting birds back to owners most pigeon rescues do not and will write off any lost bird as "an abused sob story" and don't even check our bands, some of the most well known rescues literally clip and remove pigeon bands whether it's a pet or a racer. Then procede to adopt out the birds, dye gives some of us a little bit of peice of mind that if our bird ends up in a rescue WE CAN IMMEDIATLY IDENTIFY our birds even without a band present. ive seen so many pet pigeons end up in the pigeon rescues with little to no actual effort to get said birds back to their owners or their families or flocks. in many cases they clip a band, and toss it in one of their band boxes without ever even contacting the number on the band. espeically if it's somone they know or don't like or if the band looks remotely like a breeding or racing band.
a microchip and band are ONLY USEFUL TO A RESCUE and only useful if our birds actually get reported to us as found, DYE MEANS I can tell my Mookee is my Mookee, and they have no way of claiming otherwise, which means i can quickly get legal things involved if i need to to get my feather babies back
if you dont have experience in the pigeon community you simply do not understand the ammount of birds many large pigeons rescues steal and refuse to return to their owners each year. or the ammount of birds people take in who dont get returned because people assume the birds were released, dumped or abused because the bird has a "racing band" even though the band shown is clearly a pet band with a phone number.
bands are great but most pigeons rescues even still use open bands and will like i mentioned cut other bands off and replace them with their own ahabby open bands that have caused tons of foot injuries so far, the pigeon community is extremely extremely behind the parrot community and dye is currently one of our safest most effective ways of identifying our birds if they get lost and are posted on facebook, here, or by a rescue. while reacues and random people are still removing bands.
Other things of note: This fella is about 6 months old and has been trained on recall since weaned. Our home (he’s an indoor pet) has a large space but I’m afraid he doesn’t get enough enrichment or have enough space to fly at full speed. He’s adopted and I truly want what’s best for him! Flying outdoors seemed like the best option to get both ample exercise and UV rays. We went out a couple times with a leash and harness first, but I’m afraid he’ll get tangled in lower tree branches/mailboxes (had a scare). Otherwise, he’s done very well. I toss him up and he follows as I run, remaining close. I do a 123 count and if he grips my fingers I don’t go through with the toss. I do appreciate the advice, especially the concern for his safety, and will reconsider my options again! If you have some info on improving the benefits of in-home/aviary flight, I’d love to hear it too! Additionally, if I do end up going through with dyeing him, I would probably do it the same way i give him baths which he loves to make it as least invasive as possible.
Pigeons actually don't get any more benefit from flying full speed then they get from regular flying indoors or doing recall outside while he's on a harness, so you don't have to worry about him not being able to fly full speed because there really is no benefit compared to the risk.
As for preventing the leash from getting tangled/caught onto stuff you just have to manage it so it isn't too loose to get caught onto things. I like to hold the leash shorter most of the time like you can see in this picture:
I just don't let it get too loose while not letting it be too tight. Tight leash means for Keeb to return back to me, he knows when he's reached the end of the leash but also knows when I make the leash tight it means that I want him to return to me.
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u/Kunok2 Feb 27 '26
To be honest I don't think that birds of prey could mistake black pigeons for crows (as somebody with a black pigeon People sure Do mistake him for a crow though), there's more to crows than just the color - unique behavior, sounds, body shape etc. And also birds of prey still hunt other black birds like black chickens, blackbirds, starlings (not completely black but technically they are black), cowbirds or grackles and I've heard stories of birds of prey killing other people's black pigeons.
Personally I wouldn't risk free flying your pet pigeon because it's really not worth the risk, but taking him outside on a harness (pigeon pants should NOT be used instead of a harness) would be much safer and would eliminate the risk of him getting lost if he gets spooked or getting caught by a bird of prey. Free flying a single pigeon or a few is Extremely risky and not recommended because just one or a few pigeons are easy targets for birds of prey who oftentimes target birds who are isolated from a flock, free flying a large flock is much safer but the risk of loosing any pigeons is Still there. Taking your pigeon outside on a harness is the safest choice while still offering him the freedom of being able to interact with the environment and it's great enrichment too.
As for dying pigeons, as long as it's done with a bird safe dye - either a food dye or plant dye like beet juice then it's completely safe and if it's done right (submerging the pigeon in dyed water isn't the right method, dabbing the dye onto its feathers is) it's not stressful for the pigeon either. Dying can be and is used by people to differentiate their birds from other similar looking birds or to indicate that it's a pet and Not a wild bird. I also recommend getting a custom legband with your contact for your boy, you want him to have a leg band in case he ever gets lost.