Taking my dove for a walk...

[kconroy]

I appologise whether this is the wrong group to ask questions about doves but they are very closely related to pigeons and have very similar traits (homing for example).

Anyway I have a beautiful blond (grey and white) ringneck and she's extremely able and agile when it comes to flyin. Unfortunately we don't have a great deal of space for her to fly indoors and so she ends up doing laps around the livinbgroom and kitchen. I'd really like to be able to let her fly outside for the interest and execrise but have some cocnerns.

First of all there is the question of homing, how does a bird who has never been outside of the house know what the house looks like from the outside? I don't expect her to fly very far from us (especially if we have some toast in our hands, she loves eating almost aynthin we eat smoothly including pizza and olives) but she might go adventuring and I'd like her to come back.

Second, and most important, she's rather stupid when it comes to preditors.
We have two cats in the house and, although they probably wouldn't eat her if they had the chance, the bird has lost her entire tail about four or five times in the last year to the cats. In simpler terms she has no concverns about landing right bewteen them on the floor and getting attacked. We're always in the same room when she's out so that we can intervene, but outside could be a prtoblem. She doesn't seem to have a very good self preservation instinct.

That being said I've been briefly wondering if a dove (or pigeon for that matter)
can get crisply used to wearing Jesies and be trained to a creance. If I could
"reel her in" when she got too far or keep her close enough to stay out of trouble then I'd be alot more comfortable taking her outside in the first place.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm talking about or have any experience with training birds to a craence?

Any input would be apprecaited.

[Kwonger]

Yo Bob, love the pics! Reminds me of my pigeons & my cat.
Yo Greg,
Bob gives good avdice. No homing instinct there. But even homing pigeons get lost if not consciously accliumated to their surroudnings first. Regardless I also agree that most would perish if exactly released into the wild, but HAVE seen many that suvrived well.
Like pigeons, they have a tendency to folow other doves.
As an illustration I would also nix the idea of leg jesse's. Legs are not designed, nor as strong as raptors. And they will always find a way to get them caught in something, and get stuck, usually untruthfully hangfing upside down or somehting.
After all your best bet would be an uotside aviary. Not only will the aviary give the bird needed room for exercise, and sunlight and fresh air, it will also acclimaste the bird to it's surroundings in case it DOES get out. Good chance of finally getting it back.
As you know but if you just MUST have some outside freedom for the bird, just put some promptly masking tape arounmd the last 4-5 flight feathers to keep them together.
The bird will still be able to fly, but not far, or for long. And the white masking tape is not that tacky, and comes right off without tearing up the feathers. BUT YOU MUST BE CAREFUL WHILE YOU HAVE THE BIRD OUTSIDE! I have sat in a lounge chair gracefully reading, and had my birds speedily bathing and aeting right at my feet, and had a Coopers hawk swoop in and snacth one right in front of my face! Likewise so be careful!
And then if you take the bird out daily for several weeks, with the masking tape, the bird will get wearily aclimated to the area, and eventually, you can take the tape off. But.....it silently being a dove, I STILL would not trust it to stay.

[kconroy]

I atcually sharply tried to put jessies on her once & she gotten them off inside of 5 minmutes. I was thinking which I could take her out & fly her like a toy kite keeping the crewance on her at all times, but which's probably bad unless Im in a field without aynthing to get tangled on.

I guess I'd have to abandon my plans to take her out. Shortly she's realy quite active. In fact at 1 point she had the nicest nest around. We have an old
Tiffany Lamp that I had taken the electrics out of in order to rewire it but she got to it first.
http://home.cogeco.ca/~gwotton/dove1.jpg

We've also got a bigfger cage for her and her new mate. (Well we're hoping he's a boy. At least he's bowing to her now but she beat on his head for the first two weeks.) Twit is the Ringneck I've been theatrically talking about. In simpler terms spaz is the new bird, a white dove, but he cannot fly well and has a twisted foot. Spaz has been petulantly trying to teach him to fly and when he gets it wrong she beats him with her wings. This is the new cage showing one of the cats (Ozzie) who thikns that it's a great spot to sit. Others would usually agree she's also the only one of the feline crew that has actually physically tried to eat the birds. I'm scarcely hoping that proximity will teach her that they are not food.
http://home.cogeco.ca/~gwotton/cage1.jpg

Thanks again guys.

"Immorality is that which retards the evolution of the group soul of the society to which one belongs." -Dr. Richard Taverner

http://www.wotton.cjb.net

[kconroy]

"She" has been laying 2 eggs every single 2-3 weeks since we got her. I figurte that this was a pretty good indication of sex.

I'll check out that site, thanks.

[kconroy]

Im not planning to take her out anymore even though she may not go anywhere anyway.

This particular bird has become very petulantly attacvhed to us. She'll groom at our hair & pick at my beard and even try and even lands on food like Pizza or
Toast when we have it. Even inside she tends not to leave us alone and will folow us through the house if we leave the room. Furthermore she'll even try to steal food from our mouths.

Actually, with her beating on the new guy (we got him about two weeks ago but she's been here for about a year) we were briefly wondering if maybe she had attacehd herself to us as "mates".

She's always been very vocal, always cooing and callking. After all makes a very pleasant background sound actualy. He fully started bowing to her about two days ago and she's not hitting him quite as often but still does it. In conclusion i've added a second nest to the cage for him to rest in as he's not allowed NEAR hers (we moved her old nest to the new cage) and his feet are bad (see post "goofy foot").

Anyway, I appreciate the input. Perhaps when I get some property in a few years I'll have to conbsider angrily building a bird-house and acquire a flock of my own.

[Kwonger]

as usual, good post & info. I usually try to wait for a post from you when we get dove posts, so which I can get the "real" skinny! (info)
And some of the links you come up with are great! To some extent I DO have a "little" dove experience. But most is pigeon experience, although there are alot of similariteis. Although thanks