[Orinlooper]

Instead of chickens for meat and eggs we want to have a go at keeping pigeons

I don’t want to be tied down to not being able to go outa town without having someone to look after anything.

Doves/pigeons look after themselves don’t need any feeding or anything, and with a pole dove cote you can just lower it down when you want to take out squabs and eggs then raise it back up for them to replace them for you.

[vfr400boy]

I keep pigeons and they do need a fair bit of looking after feeding worming treating for lice etc if I just left mine in a dove cote the sparrow hawk would have a feild day

[Scarlet.Dragon]

Good luck with your venture!

I don't keep pigeons but I have several friends that do and they'd disagree with the idea that they're self sufficient!  They also have regular issues with them being picked off by buzzards, crows and sparrow hawks.

I'm also aware of someone in the locality (moved to the area a few years ago) that has taken a very different route of feeding the seagulls.  That made them unpopular with their immediate neighbours who couldn't understand them feeding "vermin".  The "vermin" became hand tame and fat... so hand tame that it wasn't difficult to catch and despatch (if I can put it that way).  Large enough to give a family the Sunday dinner and plentiful in supply...  Of course their neighbours then took exception to their "savagery" that having tamed them they then ate them.  There's no pleasing some people!  Anyway, long story short, they got reported by someone and now have to buy their table birds same as everyone else.

[doganjo]

Have you ever been invited for Sunday dinner?    Not sure i could eat seagull.  Mind you, like everything else I'm not sure about someone will say it just tastes like chicken 

[arobwk]

Have you ever been invited for Sunday dinner?    Not sure i could eat seagull.  Mind you, like everything else I'm not sure about someone will say it just tastes like chicken 

Once upon a time I imagine seagull meat would likely taste pretty fishy and oily, but I imagine it now tastes more like a McDonald's with ketchup!   

[Rupert the bear]

Have you ever been invited for Sunday dinner?    Not sure i could eat seagull.  Mind you, like everything else I'm not sure about someone will say it just tastes like chicken 

Once upon a time I imagine seagull meat would likely taste pretty fishy and oily, but I imagine it now tastes more like a McDonald's with ketchup!   

It is disgusting and like penguin you end up with some grey stuff in a sea of fat

[landroverroy]

Instead of chickens for meat and eggs we want to have a go at keeping pigeons

I don’t want to be tied down to not being able to go outa town without having someone to look after anything.

Doves/pigeons look after themselves don’t need any feeding or anything, and with a pole dove cote you can just lower it down when you want to take out squabs and eggs then raise it back up for them to replace them for you.

I would suggest that if you don't want to be tied down, nor have someone looking after the birds in your absence and you really believe that any form of livestock will look after themselves and not need feeding, that you'd be better sticking to your walnut and plum trees.

[doganjo]

I've read all of @Orinlooper 's posts and it does seem as if he is looking for something that takes little time and caring for it, and is an easy way of making money.  Not the way most smallholders think as far as I know

[LeeHambone]

I keep many breeds of pigeon including table breeds but they aren't low maintenance or cheap to keep and breed properly. Squabs from any old regular breed wouldn't be worth the effort and table breeds barely fly, they are more like chickens so need to be housed rather than a dovecote. Dovecotes themselves are not ideal pigeon accommodation anyway, they look nice but are totally impractical in my opinion. The birds are likely to disappear and use a neighbours barn to breed where you won't then find the squabs!

[SallyintNorth]

I've read all of @Orinlooper 's posts and it does seem as if he is looking for something that takes little time and caring for it, and is an easy way of making money.  Not the way most smallholders think as far as I know

Yup, definitely not a way to look at things that involve sentient creatures.

Orinlooper may be better to switch his/her thoughts to meeting the market demand for locally produced vegan foods.  No sentient beings there, you can neglect them to your heart's content...

(Edited to add that I did not mean to imply that vegans are not sentient, rather that they won't eat things which were sentient, or were produced from sentient beings.  But I decided to leave the wording as originally written, cos it made me giggle.)