A funny thing happened in my loft the other day...

I normally keep just four breeding pairs but decided to go with five pairs this year. Lack of available space made it necessary to place the additional nest box in a different part of the loft from the other four nest boxes but still accessible by all birds. I have one breeding pair which for three years now has occupied the same nest box. They are the type of breeders all fanciers hope for, never an infertile or broken egg and all their youngsters raised successfully.

This year, since I had an extra breeding pair and only so much available space for young birds, I decided to remove the eggs from this pair on their second round. When I removed the first egg both birds were puzzled and looked around the nest box a bit, which I considered a normal reaction to something they hadn’t experienced before. However I was surprised when two days later I went to remove the second egg and the nest box was empty. I continued cleaning the loft and didn’t give it much thought until I came to the additional nest box, occupied by a pair with eggs close to hatching, and noticed a third egg in that nest. Since all other pairs were incubating eggs of their own, this third egg had to come from the pair from which I removed the first egg.

The question is, why would a pair that has used the same nest box for three years suddenly lay their second egg in a nest as far away as possible from their nest box?

The only conclusion I can come to is that they were hiding the egg to prevent it from being removed! This is a level of reasoning I don’t normally attribute to pigeons. It could be instinct I suppose, or maybe I’m just reading too much into it.

David Williamson

Avian Influenza - again In our December 2005 bulletin we reported on the impact of avian influenza in South East Asia and China. This year so far its been all about Europe and Africa. Every year millions of wild birds, including waterfowl, migrate from Scandinavia and Northern Europe down across the Mediterranean region to the Middle East and Africa. Scientists warned last year that this migration would spread avian flu and they have been proven correct. To date the highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 avian flu has been detected in domestic poultry flocks in Turkey, Iraq and the African countries of Nigeria, Niger and Egypt. Six human fatalities have been reported, four in Turkey and 2 in Kurdish Iraq. Similar to the outbreaks in S.E. Asia , these deaths have been people closely associated with poultry in rural environments. The European Union has confirmed highly pathogenic H5N1 outbreaks in wild bird populations in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. The EU has gone on high alert instituting 3 km. protection zones and 10 km. surveillance zones around each outbreak. Government mandated regulations enforced by special army and police units require all domestic poultry and tame birds be kept indoors and “buffer zones” have been established to restrict the transportation of poultry. So far this year there has been only one outbreak of avian flu reported in domestic poultry, a turkey farm in France. The EU’s real fear however, is the spring migration of wild birds which have congregated together over the winter and will now return and disperse across Europe. To be continued....

NEXT MEETING Mar. 19, 2006 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM David Williamson 5465 Chamber Layne Delta, BC Please join us at our March meeting! More Events QUICK LINKS CPFA NPA Feather Fancier More Links... ABOUT US The Vancouver Poultry & Fancy Pigeon Association is dedicated to the promotion and facilitation of the breeding and exhibition of fancy pigeons in the Pacific Northwest.

For Sale A North Road Racing Club member, who has left the hobby due to illness, has about 40 proven racing homers for sale. These birds are from known strains and could be a good start to establish a racing loft. Conact Ed Zeller at 604-463-1251