Our new pigeon house

First and foremost, just in case you aren't familiar with the design standards, birds are complete idiots that shit all over everything.

We had to buy special feeders to try to keep them from shitting in their own food. (They work, as long as you stay on top of it).

I'm pretty sure there's a scene in "Fight Club" where they scatter bird seed on rooftops to get the pigeons to shit on executive vehicles.

I'm also pretty sure that some plants (like the jalapeno) evolved a neurotoxin that's supposed to discourage mammals from eating it because we destroy the seeds, while birds just pass it right through and shit it right back out.

Some companies actually make pigeon diapers that allow you to let them loose inside your home.

My teenager wants to do that. Despite the fact that we own 3 cats, and we *know* that 2 of them are bird-killers.

The kid thinks it'll all be cool.

So far, I'm in belligerent "Nope. They're staying outside" mode.

Well, sort-of outside. That's a different topic. I'll get there.

We've only had the birds about a week and a half. In another 2-3, they should have enough visual recognition to allow us to let them fly and expect them to come back.

We got "rollers" which means they'll do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZYFDhrc3J4 My wife claims that some of them will even roll across the ground. I haven't seen those videos, but it sounds hilarious.

I didn't want to get pigeons at all.

My kid's been asking for them since before I married their mom.

I wanted chickens.

I really like chickens.

They produce eggs you can eat. The feces leads to good compost. If you wind up with a rooster by accident, they taste great.

We bought a house in an area with no covenants specifically so we could have chickens.

We put in an order for a chicken house last year. Support your local business sort of thing.

$1700.

Holy shit.

But it's a really nice house that's solidly built out of cedar with lots of protection from things like the local raccoons.

We've had crazy issues with those raccoons. (We live in the middle of their habitat, and it's getting mowed down for
housing).

We bought a bottle of fox urine to try to scare them off.

They stole it.

Anyway.

We were committed to buying a $1700 chicken house. Yes. That's a lot of money. But, honestly, the last time I had chickens, they had a setup that was even nicer. And being able to walk in and scrub it down is a huge benefit. And keeping out the raccoons and fox and surviving the Texas heat and...blah, blah. It really wasn't terribly reasonable as a long-term investment.

Somebody looked up the local city ordinances and realized that we aren't allowed to own chickens.

When we moved here, a neighbor definitely had a rooster.

They don't any more.

But nothing says anything about birds like pigeons.

Now, personally, I feel like a pigeon would probably be happy in a cage for a Guinea pig. Let it out to fly around whenever it wants, and it'll probably come back.

Since I've been educated a bit more, I've learned that they're monogamous and need to pair up. You don't have to. I've seen a few videos of people who spend enough time with their pigeons to act as surrogate mates. But, really, homosexuality seems to be easier on them than any sort of cross-species bonding.

In general, pigeon love seems to be a pretty serious thing.

2 of them need more space than you'd give a Guinea pig.

But not much, right?

Well, we were coming from the perspective where spending $1700 on chickens seemed to make sense.

We floated that basic price point past a guy for a pigeon coop instead.

He told us that $2500 was more realistic.

For what he built, it was.

Actually, he hand-crafted this crazy thing out of cedar planks and 2x4s.

After he spent a week building it, I feel guilty about how little we actually paid him.

And then we wound up populating it with 4 pigeons (that normally cost around $10 each) that we got for free. (Props to the breeder who decided their positive traits didn't offset their negatives).

I think that's some pretty serious...I'm not sure what you'd call it.

What's the opposite of slum-lord?

Whichever. We now have a ridiculously beautiful pigeon loft that seems like a "forever" investment.