Bathing Racing Homer Pigeons: When, Why & How Guide…

Bathing your birds is a vital part of raising and caring for pigeons.  It’s essential to their overall health.  Birds and other animals are really no different than humans when it comes to cleanliness.  Everyone likes to be clean.  Use a tin pan, or you could use a plastic tub of some sort, but be sure to wash it out after to prevent bacteria growth.  Fill it with roughly 2-3 inches of water.  Pigeons really like taking baths and will try to bathe in their water dish or a water puddle of some sort if you don’t give them bath water.

Birds in general dislike dirty feet and dirty or dusty feathers.  As I mentioned above, all animals, to some degree, like how they feel when they get the itchy dander, loose hair, and stinky odor off of themselves.  Funny story, I have 4 large Labrador hunting dogs, and when I ask if any of them want a bath or tubby, let me tell you, they head straight down to the tub.  If I don’t ask soon enough, then I get the message loud and clear when I see them pulling all their blankets off their beds and flipping their pillows around.  I guess the Downey smell faded. LoL…  They know I bathe them every week and wash their bedding.  Speaking of bathing, who says cats don’t like water?  When I get out of the shower, my cats will jump in and wash themselves in the wet tub.  So, it only seems natural that the birds should want to bathe just as often.

WHEN should you Bathe your Pigeons:

1. Hot summer months – At the very least once or twice a week.  On those 90°–100°F days, I will offer my birds the option of bathing every other day, at which point they tend to just sit in the water to cool off.
2. Spring and Fall months – I will give my pigeons a bathe once a week.
3. Winter months – I will only bathe them on sunny, calm, warmer days and use warm water.  If the weather is frigid (below 0°F) or colder, I do not bathe pigeons.  Instead, I will wait for a break in the temperatures, such as a sunny 25°F or 35°F late morning day.  If you live anywhere cold like we do in MN then you know that feels like spring…lol.  So, in essence, you really need to gauge the weather in the winter to determine when you should put out bath pans.  If it’s too cold and windy, the pigeons will most likely not want to bathe.  They like to sit in the warm winter sun to dry off and then head back into the loft, especially in the late mornings.

WHY do Pigeons Need to Bathe:

1. Birds like to preen their feathers, but when they molt, they exert a fine white dust, almost like a chalky substance, that makes them itchy.   Bathing helps remove this and allows them to pick and preen while new feathers grow in.  Watching them is quite entertaining.
2. Birds walk around inside and outside and tend to step in poop, dirt, or muddy surfaces.  Clean feet equal a healthy bird.  Maybe they have poop on their feathers from walking below another pigeon.  Needless to say, they should always be clean.
3. Birds can get bugs or mites in their feathers if their coop/loft is dirty or the weather is hot and humid.  Lift the pigeon’s wing and look underneath for little black specks or dashes in their flight feathers.  Then you know if they have bugs or not. If one has them, then it’s more likely they all do. Pigeons will also alert you to their bug problem by constantly picking at their feathers and scratching themselves with their feet.  Use the “Raid Flying Insect” blue can of spray.  Lift the wing and spray underneath.  This is a quick way to kill them on contact.

The HOW to Guide—WHAT to Put in Bath Water:

1. Wazine – Comes in a bottle; 20 oz is what I buy.  Just a few squirts in a 5 gallon bucket should suffice.  Then just pour roughly 2 inches of water in each bath pan. You should have at least one bath pan per 20 birds, and be sure to dump out the water and replace it with new water if you see the water getting dirty while they are bathing.  Basically, it’s simply using common sense.
2. Borax – This is the one I use most often.  It’s a box of powder you will find in the laundry soap department of a store.  I just sprinkle this in the bucket while I am running the water.  You don’t need that much.  Just a few shakes will do.
3. Ivermec – If you have any kind of issue with your birds, this will kill most everything.  You only need a little bit in the water bucket.  If your birds come down with any kind of internal or external parasite, this will kill anything on the feathers, and if the birds drink it, it will kill anything internally that’s plaguing them.  I am really fortunate; my birds have not needed to use this.
4. Plain Water – I just use plain water when it’s really hot and humid as I am just offering my birds a way to stay cool.

In Conclusion:

If you are keeping a close eye on your pigeons, giving them clean, fresh drinking water and nutritious food, bathing them regularly, and having a strict regimen for keeping the coops and lofts clean, then your birds should stay just as strong and healthy as ours.   That’s all for now; drop us a line if you have any questions.

Until Next Time … Keep Up the Training!