This may seem an odd post here but: I have noticed a LOT of mourning doves in my neighborhood, ( I live in a rural area and while my front
yard is in 'suburbia' my back yard is about 12 to 13 acres of country). They eat bugs so they are welcome of
course. They also eat seeds and grain and I've noted a large number of young looking ones hanging about my
chicken coop this winter. I do not begrudge them the
chicken feed my chickens do not eat because: I'm considering trying to build, if I can find out how, a wattle and daub, dovecote (or is it dove cote?) that would allow me to have yet another source of food on my
land.
Why not just hunt them like everyone else here in Texas? Guns are loud noisy things that send killing projectiles very far afield if you miss and not only am I 65 I'm to lazy to hunt! I'd rather walk into a dove cote and snatch one I've half tamed off a roost.
Besides needing to know how to build a dove cote out of wattle and daub (there are willows near my
pond out in the pasture and the soil here is mostly clay anyway) I need to know what would doves, specifically mourning doves, need to be all nice and comfy
enough to settle into the trap, uhm, I mean their new house.
So the questions are 1) how to build a wattle and daub dove cote (dovecote?) 2) what would these birds find irresistible as housing?
I
think they would be easily satisfied as they seem to be spending nights or at least hanging out in my rather primitive chicken coop. Said coop I am also tempted to replace with wattle and daub.
Which brings me to question 3) what would I need to do to keep wattle and daub constructions from being wiped out by the occasional gully washer we can have here or the more frequent ones caused by El Nino's.
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