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Paul: When we get back to basics, urban pigeons are not that different to rural pigeons, they will feed in large flocks, and once one pigeon is on the ground, it will attract other pigeons. The major difference between these birds, though, is their diet. Rural pigeons are looking for large seeds or cereal grains like rapeseed which are high in energy and can actually fill them. Whereas urban pigeons are just looking for any food that's available and will test out anything.
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Yes. Pigeons aren't carnivorous but they've come across this potential food, they've checked it out, and if it's edible, they'll eat it.Is it possible that the way fried or marinaded chicken is cooked; in flour and batter and sauces makes it less like chicken and more appealing to the pigeon?
I think the big thing making this chicken appealing to the pigeon is that it's cooked. Lots of birds aren't specifically carnivorous but if they come across a dead bird they'll have a peck at it and take some of the meat. I've seen it in footage of coal tits in Northern Scotland, pecking at a deer carcass. They can do it because, ostensibly they're insectivorous [vegetarian except for insects], so they do have this element of a carnivorous diet. But pigeons are granivorous [grain-eating] so their beak is designed for grains. If they come across a corpse they just can't deal with it; the skin's too tough to peck through. But if the corpse has been cooked then the texture is soft. So they can peck at it and bits come away. They're probably not even thinking of it as meat if they're thinking at all. It's just food.Let's say a pigeon managed to eat a chicken nugget's worth of chicken, though. Is that any good for its digestion?
I'm not particularly sure there would be a negative impact. Really? But it sounds so gross.
Birds, by their very physiology, won't eat more than they should eat. Pigeons can't afford to be fat because it affects their weight and then they can't fly. And when they can't fly it makes them vulnerable to predation.
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It's just nature for them to stop when they're full. You could give a blackbird a bucket of worms and it will only eat the amount it needs to survive in that moment and still make a quick escape if needs be. Same goes for a pigeon.
Female pigeons will be looking for a source of calcium and calcium is hard to come by. They do eat grit and small stones so they probably get a little bit of calcium that way. It's not impossible that they could eat bones too. I have a wildebeest skull on the shed at the bottom of my garden and over time, the bone has started to break down and become porous and soft inside. Now the blue tits are coming and taking bits of that skull as a source of calcium. I've never seen pigeons on that skull, but it's probably because they're not agile enough to get up to it. They have to find sources of calcium somewhere, so it could be that the small pieces of bone on the chicken provide that.So they're not gross for eating chicken, just resourceful?
All a bird does all day every day is search for food because they can't have a big breakfast and be done with it. They have to eat small amounts throughout the day. So they're spending all day every day looking for food and that includes checking out bits of chicken.
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