Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Squeaky

Meet "Squeaky", the newest member of our Jacobin pigeon family. He's in a phase where he's so ugly that he's almost cute right now....

I've been calling Squeaky a "he", but he could also be a "she" very easily. Jacobins are notoriously difficult to sex - so I have no idea what gender Squeaky is right now. It will be interesting to see if my first hunch for a "he" turns out to be right, or if he ends up as a "she". Either way, Squeaky is a good name. =:)

I've been hand raising Squeaky for about a week now. In the past year, we've had some bad luck in our pigeon loft with the older Jacobin males killing the young hatchlings - (it is because I don't have enough room in our tiny loft to separate everybody into individual breeding pens.) So this has become a bit of a problem when it comes to brooding the youngsters out. I will eventually need to make the difficult decision to cull out the big adult aggressive males and just keep the younger more docile ones. I hate to do that, because but there are so few birds in our little loft and I have a soft spot for each one..... But reputable breeders like Clint Robertson have some good articles and insights on raising and weaning Jacobins on their websites:

http://www.jacobins4sale.com/jacobinlinks.html


This year I'm bound and determined to raise a young healthy chick into adulthood - so Squeaky has his own little straw box and is being hand fed every day. Squeaky's parents are a white hen and an almond splash male. He is starting show a tiny bit of color on a few of his baby feathers as he develops them.


A picture of our tiny "micro" loft. It's a real mess right now with the pigeons molting out (shedding) due to the hot weather, and I need to rake the floor and clean the boards up again.


We have seven adults in various colors - white, red, splash red, splash almond, and splash kite. I'd like to eventually find a yellow, opal, dun, silver, blue bar, or a black to add to the flock - (but I'll definitely have to build a bigger and nicer loft first.....) There are some great pictures with some of the different colors of Jacobins on the Australian fanciers site:

http://austjacobins.homestead.com/Jacobinphotopage2.html


And some beautiful pictures of a professional breeders loft in Clarkston, Washington: http://www.jacobins4sale.com/ourlofts.html


The white one on the top is Squeaky's mother. The almond splash that is right behind her is his father, hiding from the camera. They are sitting next to Squeaky's box. The red splash is an unmated bachelor male.


None of our Jacobins that we have are national show quality birds, but I like them very much as pets and really enjoy the breed. They are tons of fun to have around!



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