Breeding
Courtship Video clips available at the Alberta Classic website.
Once they are old enough to pair up, the male birds start acting " cocky ". The male bird, called a cock, woos a female with a fantastic display. He will puff up his throat, spread his tail, and drag it on the ground, literally strutting his stuff to impress the ladies.
When the pair is ready to settle down, the male fetches nesting materials and brings them to his mate. She builds a very modest nest (not much material) on a flat surface. In the wild, the nests are hidden somewhere on a ledge. In my barn, each pair has a two-room cubby.
The courtship behavior of our birds is fascinating. A mated pair does many things we recognize as pair behavior: the shy turn-the-head-away because he's flirting with me, kissing, stroking the other's head. Once you read about this courtship behavior you will understand why the term lovey-dove was coined.
True Partners
The female, called a hen, sometimes lays her first egg before the nest is completed. She doesn't appear too concerned about this first egg. She only partially incubates it, unless the temperature outside is freezing. Freezing? Yes, my birds will breed in January and here in northeast Iowa, that is often a bitterly cold month. Between 24 and 40 hours after the first egg is laid, the hen lays a second egg and starts incubating. The hen sits on the two eggs at night. The male will relieve his mate sometime around mid-morning and incubates the eggs for much of the day.
Eighteen days later, the young chick cracks the egg open with a little 'tooth' on its beak. It may take the entire day to crack a circle around the wide end of the egg so it can escape. Young birds are affectionately called peepers or squeakers, because of the calls they make when they are hungry. Which ever parent is brooding them (keeping them warm) feeds the youngsters pigeon 'milk'-- an incredibly rich liquid fairly similar to the milk of mammals (but no lactose). Both parents make this fluid in their esophagus. As the young birds get older, the parents put less milk and more seeds in the meal. «more»
Before the young birds are fully grown, the hen may lay and begin incubating a new set of eggs. (That is why they need a two room cubby.) The cock bird ends up doing quite a bit of the feeding, but at this stage of development, the youngsters can store enough food in their crop that they only need to be fed 3-4 times a day.