I have no idea. @theramseyloft would be able to weigh in.
I’m not sure if this tags them again, so i screenshotted the ask, but they should get a notif with the tag!
Pigeons are cliff nesters, not perching-type birds like raptors and songbirds.
As long as they can balance, all the perches provided are flat, and the stump is not painful to bear weight on, amputee pigeons can have good quality of life.
The city pigeons you see “missing a foot” are not actually missing the foot. Just the toes.
The toes connect to a very small sole, but the sole can still safely and comfortably bear the weight of a bird the size of a feral or smaller.
Larger birds than homers will struggle with that mich weight on such a small surface with no padding or distribution.
The most common cause of toe loss in ferals is string or human hair getting tangled around their toes.
Pigeons are dextrous the way mobile tweezers with a very fine tip are.
They can pick up something very small, but when they pick up a strand of hair or string that was tangled around their toes and tug to remove it, the rest of the length constricts.
Human hair in particular fits perfectly between the scales on their toes, and once tugged tight, even those dexterous little tweezer beaks can’t reach it any more.
The circulation to the rest of the toe is neatly cut off, and if not untangled in a few hours, the toe will die and break off after it hardens in a few days.
Pigeons usually get tangled in passively shed hair (as they do not line their nests with fur and thus don’t seek it out), but it’s common for misinformed humans to leave gifts if hair for songbirds to nest in.
Human hair is as dangerous for songbirds as it is for pigeons. Do not leave what you have cleaned from your brush for the birds.
Leave what’s cleaned from your pet’s brushes.
Dog and rabbit fur are the best nest material gifts for the songbird species who fur line, though horse and cat fur are also generally accepted.
