Pigeon is a very common bird. Some live in pets as pets, others live free. Many are interested in how much they live. Let's figure it out.
How old and how doves live?
The life of pigeons varies greatly depending on whether they live on their own or next to a person.
Life at home and on the street is also very different - domesticated birds always have access to feed, while those living on the street must decide on their own.
In wild nature
Outside, pigeons prefer to settle in wide open spaces, because they love freedom - the exception is birds, whose range is mountains. Since the likelihood of becoming a victim of a predator is very high, the birds behave very carefully, sometimes almost paranoid. If possible, they settle on the coast to have unhindered access to water.
Insects and earthworms go to food. The average life expectancy is 5 years.
Did you know? Most pigeons live on the Eurasian continent.
Street
It is already easier for pigeons living in urban conditions to survive: far fewer predators live in the city, and food waste is a good source of food. Water often remains from people - as an alternative, birds can use fountains and lakes in parks as drinking bowls.
Due to lighter conditions in comparison with wild individuals, city pigeons are much less cautious and not so afraid of people. They prefer to nest on the roofs of high-rise buildings and in abandoned buildings. They live on average about 12 years.
In addition, urban pigeons, thanks to their long-term residence in megacities, develop resistance to many diseases and harmful emissions, such as exhaust fumes - wild birds in similar conditions will immediately experience a deterioration in their health.
Did you know? A fairly common occurrence is the mating of street animals with domestic ones. The former, after such contacts, increase life expectancy.
Homemade
At home, the life of birds is as simple as possible. A person watches them, providing food and water. The diet usually consists of feed, which makes it balanced both in terms of nutrients and in terms of uniform food intake all day. In the house you should not be afraid of predators, but because the birds behave very calmly and are open to interaction with humans. Their health is little threatened, and in case of illness, the bird receives help from the owner or veterinarian.
Moreover, many domestic breeds are the result of breeding, during which the health and survival of birds gradually increased. They live up to 20 years.
What affects the life span of a pigeon?
The life span of a pigeon is determined by a number of factors:
- climatic conditions;
- the availability of food and water;
- features of the bird;
- breed of pigeon;
- vaccination;
- genetic predisposition or resistance to diseases and environmental influences;
- the presence of predators in the habitat.
Important! Individuals living on the street can carry diseases, and therefore contact with them is undesirable.
How to determine the age of a pigeon?
The easiest way to determine age is to hang a bird with a date and time stamp on the paw right after birth.
If such an event is impossible to conduct, ornithologists resort to several tricks:
- at the age of 2.5 months, the bird may burst into squealing or cooing;
- at 5 months of age, sexual desire first appears;
- at 6, less often 7 months of age, the first molt occurs;
- by 4 years of age, coarsening of the wax and ocular rings occurs;
- at the age of 5 years, a color change occurs, and pigmentation on the legs becomes weaker.
Did you know? Pigeons were used to transmit news by Caesar and Genghis Khan.
Centrifugal pigeons
Despite their relatively modest life expectancy (5 years for wild individuals, 12 for urban and 17 for domestic ones), some pigeon representatives showed really impressive results. For example, Valerie Wittingham at different times kept birds that lived to be 22, 23 and 25 years old (the age of the latter has not been checked since 2013, which means that the bird can still be alive). According to unconfirmed reports, some breeders of some individuals survived to 35 years.
For a free bird, life is full of difficulties and therefore fleeting. For urban, and even more so domestic, it is much longer, thanks to the departure of a person.
