Mary Allen
Many street pigeons are missing a toe or whole limbs. However, they still manage quite well. This also applies to breeders with disabilities.
Anyone who carefully observes a flock of street pigeons will notice a few things. There are the different colorings that they exhibit. There is the most interesting behavior of these cultural followers. But if you look very closely, you will often notice disabilities. A surprising number of pigeons are missing individual limbs such as toes. Sometimes a pigeon is missing all its toes and limps across the streets on its shin stump.
As a rule, these handicaps are caused by accidents. The pigeons either get entangled in thin threads that tie off their limbs, or they are severed directly. Since street pigeons are repeatedly exposed to attacks by birds of prey, it is surprising that they can cope so well with such disabilities. Because the pigeons themselves seem to be hardly affected in their movement and even in their reproduction.
Now one might think that such disabilities only occur in street pigeons; in regulated pigeon breeds, the animals are protected and protected. But far from it: Again and again you see isolated pigeons, some of which have been living with disabilities for years. I saw a Silesian pouter with a breeder whose eyeball was completely destroyed and dented. The pigeon was completely blind in the right eye.
One Eye is Enough for Rearing
The breeder could not explain how the injury had happened. He only noticed it when the eyeball had more or less dried up. Until then, the pigeon had behaved completely normally, moved freely in the loft, and even continued to raise its young. Now one could accuse the breeder of not controlling his pigeons properly. But this is not the case: the pigeon always turned its healthy, seeing eye to the breeder. So she quickly came to terms with her handicap.
Since it is a high-quality breeding pigeon, it was allowed to remain in the loft and has been raising its young reliably and with various partners for several years now. I can also confirm this from my own experience. From a breeder colleague, I received a pigeon with an eye defect, which was able to find its way without any problems right from the start, even in the new, unfamiliar surroundings. She also always asserted herself in arguments with conspecifics.
Although handicapped pigeons are handicapped, this does not prevent them from providing valuable services inbreeding. And while street pigeons are constantly being attacked by birds of prey, they are still allowed to live in the protected space of their breeder.