a untapped resource. pigeons!

i have a friend of mine that lives in town.he lives on a fixed income. he asked me to borrow my pellet gun because he said the squirrels were getting into his bird feeder. a few weeks later i see him at the store and he pulls me off to the side and whispers to me"" is it illegal to shoot pigeons"? i tell him no. he then tells me he's been shooting the pigeons as well as the squirrels and he says the pigeons are delicious. these are just run of the mill birds you find in towns and cities. i had never thought of eating them before but they eat natural things and are similar to doves. why not eat them? the people in town hate them for the mess they make. theres no regulation or hunting limit on them. why not? and with the pellet gun , it makes no noise to disturb his neighbors or has the dangers of firing a high caliber firearm in town limits. needless to say i haven't got my pellet gun back yet! lol! anyone ever harvest them to eat? if not you should!

As a young child when I visited I one of my grandmothers, I ate squirrel and pigeon. Both were delicious. As I grew up in a big city, I realized that city people were repulsed by the idea of eating them and strongly derided those who did. Then as I got older yet, things just didn't make sense to me. The city had a big squirrel and pigeon overpopulation problem. But it was frowned upon to eat them. Anyone trapping them was harassed. Thus tens of thousands of taxpayers dollars were spent trying to eliminate the overpopulation. Dang. Why not just encourage people to eat them?

Pigeon has historically been a dinner plate item. It's still acceptable in many countries. Squirrel is a more localized dinner item, but acceptable and relished in those areas. I don't have either where I live, but I surely wouldn't mind having pigeons arrive some day. Currently we have a large dove here that some locals harvest. I've eaten it and it's ok. And yes, it was specifically imported as a feral food source.

Your neighbor is onto a good thing, in my opinion, although your other neighbors and local animal activists might have a fit and throw him into court, bankruptcy, and jail. Around my area, hunting is a local way of life, but animal activists would love to see it banned. They somehow feel that it is ok to poison pigeons with a slow, sickening death, then throw the carcass in a municipal dump than it is to shoot & kill them quickly then use it for food.

By the way, I see our large doves being caught using rat traps here. No need for a pellet gun. The trigger has a pile of bird seed glued to it. When the bird pecks, the trap springs. Kills the bird quick.

When we moved here, one of our neighbors across the street told us they used to get 40 lbs of pecans from their tree every year. At that point there was an agreement between some of the other neighbors. One of them was willing to trade for the squirrels that another one was willing to shoot. After they (either the hunter or the eater) moved away, my neighbor hasn't had a pecan from their tree since. And this neighborhood has some of the fattest squirrels I've ever seen. More than once I confused them with large cats.

Su Ba wrote:As a young child when I visited I one of my grandmothers, I ate squirrel and pigeon. Both were delicious. As I grew up in a big city, I realized that city people were repulsed by the idea of eating them and strongly derided those who did. Then as I got older yet, things just didn't make sense to me. The city had a big squirrel and pigeon overpopulation problem. But it was frowned upon to eat them. Anyone trapping them was harassed. Thus tens of thousands of taxpayers dollars were spent trying to eliminate the overpopulation. Dang. Why not just encourage people to eat them?

Pigeon has historically been a dinner plate item. It's still acceptable in many countries. Squirrel is a more localized dinner item, but acceptable and relished in those areas. I don't have either where I live, but I surely wouldn't mind having pigeons arrive some day. Currently we have a large dove here that some locals harvest. I've eaten it and it's ok. And yes, it was specifically imported as a feral food source.

Your neighbor is onto a good thing, in my opinion, although your other neighbors and local animal activists might have a fit and throw him into court, bankruptcy, and jail. Around my area, hunting is a local way of life, but animal activists would love to see it banned. They somehow feel that it is ok to poison pigeons with a slow, sickening death, then throw the carcass in a municipal dump than it is to shoot & kill them quickly then use it for food.

By the way, I see our large doves being caught using rat traps here. No need for a pellet gun. The trigger has a pile of bird seed glued to it. When the bird pecks, the trap springs. Kills the bird quick.

we don't have activists here. we are pro hunting / fishing . many people still live off the land here and will aggressively fight over a road kill! he just thought he was breaking the law. was funny how he asked me!

If you think the unwillingness of folks to hunt/eat pigeons is weird, you should see it here! We have a deer overpopulation issue, and of course you can't hunt them in the city/suburban areas, or really anywhere remotely near a city, cuz laws... but on the other hand, 'oh noes, they're eating our flowers!!'

One municipality paid a company tens of thousands to cull a handful of deer, and activists came out of the woodwork to protest and obstruct. The company was very good at avoiding the activists, but not very good at killing deer... they only got about a third of the number they were supposed to cull.

*sigh* Delicious hoof-rats everywhere, and not a venison sausage to eat...

If you're a fan of eating pigeons, you might enjoy the book 'Possum Living'. Lots of interesting suggestions like this.

Another major resource in Hawaii is the feral cat population. There are literally hundreds of thousands of unwanted feral cats here. The National Park system spends untold amount of taxpayer money trying to rid the parks of these cats. The State of Hawaii and the Counties spend even more. Right now there are behind closed doors discussions about a plan for controlling feral cats on Kaua'i. And Oahu is looking into a plan to exterminate tens of thousands of ferals along its coastline. And local homeowners and businesses often trap & drown these cats, discarding their bodies in the trash. The humane society claims to euthanize around 8000 feral cats per year, of course with the bodies going to our rapidly filling landfill.

Heck, there are cultures here that have no objection to serving cat for dinner. But are they allowed to harvest feral cats? No. The uproar about eating cats is deafening. The devil in me makes me bring up the subject of putting cat on the menu just to enjoy the uproar it causes at group gatherings and meetings. Rather than reduce the feral cat population via hunting, people would rather spend vast sums of money to dispose of them, often far less humanely.....and waste the meat. Funny, it's ok to kill and eat a farm animal (except horses), but not excess dogs and cats......and horses. I just don't get it.

While we're at it......would it be ok to trap and eat rats? Got an abundance of them, too.

Dillon Nichols wrote:If you think the unwillingness of folks to hunt/eat pigeons is weird, you should see it here! We have a deer overpopulation issue, and of course you can't hunt them in the city/suburban areas, or really anywhere remotely near a city, cuz laws... but on the other hand, 'oh noes, they're eating our flowers!!'

One municipality paid a company tens of thousands to cull a handful of deer, and activists came out of the woodwork to protest and obstruct. The company was very good at avoiding the activists, but not very good at killing deer... they only got about a third of the number they were supposed to cull.

*sigh* Delicious hoof-rats everywhere, and not a venison sausage to eat...

If you're a fan of eating pigeons, you might enjoy the book 'Possum Living'. Lots of interesting suggestions like this.

if i were living in your area i would be silently filling my freezer with a crossbow. what they don't know won't hurt them!

Su Ba wrote:Another major resource in Hawaii is the feral cat population. There are literally hundreds of thousands of unwanted feral cats here. The National Park system spends untold amount of taxpayer money trying to rid the parks of these cats. The State of Hawaii and the Counties spend even more. Right now there are behind closed doors discussions about a plan for controlling feral cats on Kaua'i. And Oahu is looking into a plan to exterminate tens of thousands of ferals along its coastline. And local homeowners and businesses often trap & drown these cats, discarding their bodies in the trash. The humane society claims to euthanize around 8000 feral cats per year, of course with the bodies going to our rapidly filling landfill.

Heck, there are cultures here that have no objection to serving cat for dinner. But are they allowed to harvest feral cats? No. The uproar about eating cats is deafening. The devil in me makes me bring up the subject of putting cat on the menu just to enjoy the uproar it causes at group gatherings and meetings. Rather than reduce the feral cat population via hunting, people would rather spend vast sums of money to dispose of them, often far less humanely.....and waste the meat. Funny, it's ok to kill and eat a farm animal (except horses), but not excess dogs and cats......and horses. I just don't get it.

While we're at it......would it be ok to trap and eat rats? Got an abundance of them, too.

hey to each his own. if they are there, use them! when i was stationed in korea, i ate dog. was good too!

Pigeons are a tapped resource here in France I admit I would not touch a town pigeon with a ten foot pole frankly but out here in countryside pass the pate .
We even have village festivals where pigeon is the menu
Also pigeons are still farmed here and there .
Not like in the past when there where in giant dovecotes some housing a thousand bird for meat and manure .
. Pigeons used to be kept here at La ravardier where they where an essential part of the spring menu usually eaten as sqabs ( young birds

The dovecotes filled with many pigeons for eating were (sometimes still are) part of noble estates in Europe. The idea was for the birds to go out and eat from the fields of others, then come home and be eaten by the lords / ladies / hangers-on. Free food! Maybe this could be reinstituted? But, like David, I'd hesitate to eat city pigeon... or scabrous city squirrel.

why not? at worst they're eating our scraps. they don't live in garbage. they live in trees. people feed them nutritious seed in the parks or they steal it from bird feeders. probably more well fed and healthy in the cities than in the country.its all in our perceptions!

And if you wouldn't eat one these pests with ten-foot chopsticks but if you're willing to kill it, you could compost them or bury under trees.

could do that too! depends how hungry you are at the moment!

steve bossie wrote: and with the pellet gun , it makes no noise to disturb his neighbors or has the dangers of firing a high caliber firearm in town limits. needless to say i haven't got my pellet gun back yet!

Since you like hunting you are probably a good enough aim with a decent sling shot using rocks

Or will enjoy such a new hobby if you missed out on such a wonderful childhood past time

You might want to bake them breasts and chuck the rest just to ensure you kill whatever they might be carrying

Ra Kenworth wrote:

steve bossie wrote: and with the pellet gun , it makes no noise to disturb his neighbors or has the dangers of firing a high caliber firearm in town limits. needless to say i haven't got my pellet gun back yet!

Since you like hunting you are probably a good enough aim with a decent sling shot using rocks

Or will enjoy such a new hobby if you missed out on such a wonderful childhood past time

You might want to bake them breasts and chuck the rest just to ensure you kill whatever they might be carrying

  hes been harvesting and eating them since i started this tread in 2014. no problems.

I looked into raising pigeons a few years ago. I was put off by the insight that the gain to me - in young birds for the table - was offset by the damage that they do to farmers crops. There is a reason why dovecotes were traditionally only owned by the landowners, and why scarecrows need to exist!

I would - and occasionally do - eat will woodpigeon, which is hunted here where they damage crops.

Su Ba,

Earlier, you mentioned cats.  I grew up in a rural area where some people raised rabbits for meat production.  My own grandmother would have 500 at a time & supplied the local markets with a daily supply of dressed rabbits to sell.  It was tradition to always leave one furred foot on the dressed rabbit carcass.  Not so the buyer could have a "lucky rabbits foot", but so that you & they know it's a rabbit carcass & not a cat that was dressed & sold as a rabbit.  

Pigeon used to commonly be eaten as "squab" here.  If you were a farmer with an old silo, you had your own dovecote of sorts.  Generation after generation lived there.  I want to say they could have 6 clutches of eggs a year.  The squab would be harvested as needed when they were full grown in size, but just before they could fly.  At that point, they yielded the most tender meat that they ever could since they had been fed only pigeon milk & didn't use their muscles for flying yet.

As far as legality of hunting wild pigeons, some states do count them as part of your daily bag limit (how many you can take) if you take them during dove season.  They call them "Rock Doves".

For anyone interested in looking further into pigeons as food, there are a handful of specialty breeds called "Utility" or "King" that approach small chicken size.  

Cy Cobb wrote:Su Ba,

For anyone interested in looking further into pigeons as food, there are a handful of specialty breeds called "Utility" or "King" that approach small chicken size.  

I have been breeding them now for 7 or 8 years.
I breed for meat pigeons as well as some Homer types.

Here is my experience on them.

I planned a few posts on pigeons, this favorite subject of mine but a couple of words here:

Giant Runts are by far the biggest. Can be a couple pounds or more. Often really stupid. Reputed to bed the oldest domesticated breed, for feeding Roman soldiers.

There are show Runts and Utility Runts which are getting really rare. I have one pair and some utility-show Runt crosses which you can't tell from show Runts by looking at them. My female utility Runts has never successfully bred in 5 years.

Show Runts are prettier. My Runts that resemble giant tea pots are considered less show quality but are often better flyers and more robust so does that means they are 7/8-15/16 Runt? Perhaps. Not necessarily according to breeders.

As with royalty, purebred anything, not as robust, maybe not as strong an instinct for nest making, parenting, immune system, endurance, avoiding falcons, etc

Homers (think The Postman)
Generally the size of a wild pigeon, sometimes bigger, smart, will round up nesting material and make their own nests, smart, hard to relocate

Kings:
There are 2 kinds of king breeds

Show kings look like small soccer balls, and look a lot like Modenas, another common meat bird
The ball shape gives them big breasts on a compact bird.
They are bigger than utility Kings and have much bigger breasts.

(Honestly I rarely bother doing more than pulling all the skin off the breast by pulling the skin over the beheaded bird like pulling off a sweater.
I can do and average of 14 birds an hour that way.
I lost 35 in one fowl swoop to a persistent weasle this Spring...
Baked a cauldron full, sitting on a bed of squash, for a month of protein for Constable Tonto, our 90lb euthanasia rescue.)

Utility kings typically aren't round, have the shape of an average pigeon, maybe smaller than the biggest homers; Different opinions on whether they must be all white to be purebred. Who cares if they are for food?

They make really great breeders (females popping out 2 eggs every 3-4 weeks for most of the year and they are very hardy, more likely to settle down for life, and the males don't waste their time flirting or fighting. They are not too dumb.

I have some excellent utility King - Homer crosses. Cross them with Runt and your can start naming them Ratatouille, Casserole, Thanksgiving, GreedyGuts, Shadow, etc. Once they get to know you well they will follow you around. I hand feed sometimes.

I highly recommend crosses but keep a few purebred for boosting size for crossing.

I protect my pure Runts in oversize cages from time to time like winter, early spring predator time, or when away up in Iqaluit like I am right now.

Below is a pic of one of my biggest female Giant Runts who is inbred, with her mate, a Homer, sitting on the ledge to her right, with their new baby out of the nest day two, at 4 weeks, just starting to hop around but not flying yet, on the ground to the left. Probably a male, but I won't know for another 4-8 months or more since she laid one egg. He is already bigger than dear papa, and may get bigger than mama.

Don't think papa isn't watching this kids like a hawk, but kiddo is stuffed full.

I watch them as closely as papa is doing when the squeakers aren't flying yet.

Even activists see a problems with too many pigeons in towns and on statues. I have eaten pigeons and they are really delicious. They are small, so a pigeon is only one portion. They can carry diseases, and I suspect that's why some folks look at them askance. They consider pigeons to be quite dirty,
A young pigeon is a real treat. but to be tender, it must be cooked medium rare, and in this country especially, folks don't like their meat medium rare, especially if it is wild. [The meat is dense, so over cooking it won't give good results]. The same applies to deer heart, BTW.
The bigger and crustier the waddle, and the ring around the eye, the older the pigeon is. I prefer to skin it altogether, then bake it in a cast iron pan upside down and covered with bacon. with some mushrooms and add a bit of red wine to the cooking juices. Yum!
Better yet is a squab and some folks raise pigeons so they can eat their squabs. Maybe that practice is what activists object to?
[A squab is a young pigeon that has never flown. You raid the nest just before their first flight. The parent pigeons secrete the food for the squab who can't fly yet. By the time a squab is ready to make their maiden flight, they are almost as big as their parents].

I am an animal activist in the sense that I don't want an animal to suffer, but I eat meat. If you look at our teeth, we are omnivores, so eating meat comes naturally; but I do get angry when dogs are placed in a pen or a kennel that doesn't have all the comforts or get brutalized. and I insist that the animals we eat get killed quickly and as humanely as possible.
If I lived in town, I would encourage my neighbors to eat pigeons, both as a way to supplement their protein and as a public service: Cleaning statues and monuments is a very onerous and dangerous task: their poop contains all sorts of things that go up in dust and can make humans quite sick. If you can't beat them, eat them. That's transforming a problem into a solution.

I’ve never eaten Pigeon, but I would in a pinch. Many a dove has entered my cast iron pan, and they are exceptional.. I don’t see why Pigeon would be much different? (Except for city scavenger pigeons.. you ARE what you eat!)

Ted Abbey wrote:I’ve never eaten Pigeon, but I would in a pinch. Many a dove has entered my cast iron pan, and they are exceptional.. I don’t see why Pigeon would be much different? (Except for city scavenger pigeons.. you ARE what you eat!)

Tastes like partridge.

It is even more important what they drink in my opinion. I would not hesitate to put a lifestraw in that rubber feed dish and drink it -- or in a pinch just drink it. The water gets changed every time I see poo, so many times a day, and of course the water is free of chlorine etc.

(Published documents state under weight associated with chlorine in poultry -- so one might assume that advice follows for pigeons and people.)

I’ve recently started to connect with some local hunters who do crop protection in the area. Mostly pigeons, but also deer. We got our first deer a few weeks ago, and this weekend took our first load of pigeons. 17 birds, breasted out in about 90 minutes (we’ll be faster next time).

Two breasts is about a portion size. Three breasts each would probably be better.

These were pan fried, medium rare, on a bed of onions and cabbage. Served with a blackberry and apple cider vinegar jus. Absolutely heavenly.

If you are based in the UK and interested in getting game meat (pigeons, deer, duck, goose, etc…) look for the Facebook group “Giving Up the Game” which connects hunters with eaters.