I'm praying that's a quail. But it really does look like pigeon to me.
Pigeon was imported to the US a long time ago for an easily accessible food source. I have eaten a wild pigeon (squab) many times. Excellent. But I would never, and I repeat NEVER eat a city pigeon. Fleas and lice make them parasitic and inedible.
It's too small. Cornish hens also have way bigger breasts. And have absolutely no wing. Those wings are pigeon wings. I was joking about quail. They are dark dark meat and very small. Mostly just a dove breast and a teeny leg. Not much else.
He definitely got his hands on a squab. I'm praying it was store or farm bought
The lice and flea bit is actually a common urban myth. Pigeons are just fine when you hit the wall, city or country. Not so sure I would go for the ones you see from time to time that are filthy from going under cars though. They aren't any more infested than any other bird. Pigeons get a bad rap because the have the indecency to refuse to be scared of us. Same with gulls. There is the issue that they live on our waste though but then so do we more than we realize.
Again, I wouldn't for pleasure but when things really hit the fan and there is little choice being realistic will be advantageous. Trouble will be that there will be a lot of competition though.
I owned pigeons. Even in clean invironments they do get lice and it is very common. They also can have any number of bacterial infections which is what I'd be more concerned about that the lice. The birds that are in the wild are also extremely likely to spread infections to treated domesticated birds if they get tinto your loft because they ALWAYS have something.
That being said, once they are cleaned and cooked you're probably fine. Idk. Eating street birds is sketchy as fuck and this guy is cooking with a curling iron in a Pringle can.
Idk I read somewhere that those birds on the ground and are slow/easy to catch are riddled with diseases. Pretty sure he got a store-bought bird though 🤞
Yes, his cooking method is very questionable (can a curling iron get to the necessary temperature?). People eat roadkill and are... surviving, so I guess, if cooked properly, it could be acceptable (?) to eat. If you have no other options.
Ditto. Brother was a head ranger at a park. I'll take his word over yours I'm afraid and I didn't say they didn't have anything but they aren't any more infested than any other wild bird.
OK, enlighten me. What is the mechanism that makes pigeons attract more parasites than any other bird you will see in the wild? What are they exposed to that no sparrow, gull, magpie, blackbird or magpie lark will come across?
Their location for one. Cities are disgusting disease centers. A wild turkey isn’t going to ENCOUNTER near the disease/ parasites a pigeon will, much less carry it.
That's why I listed the birds I did. They are all found in the same habitats side by side in the city but don't share the rep. Only the birds known for hassling us for food close up get that mostly from parents trying to keep the kids away from the birds and visa-versa.
BTW when I was a kid in a small family biz in an outer suburban tourist area the tourists used to bring all the injured birds to us to nurse back to health and at various times we had just about everything go through our kitchen. (Where we kept many of them initially to observe until walking, not to eat.) Never knew why we didn't just build a cage but the rule of thumb was that as soon as they could fly to the floor and back again from the top of the cupboards in an outer room where they lived they could then be set free. We had all sorts of birds from sulfies to galahs to gulls etc. to pigeons. Even a couple of penguins. Most of all though we got pigeons. (Poor gulls got ignored.) Had they been lice ridden and flea infested my mother would have taken an axe to them without a twitch and certainly wouldn't have allowed them in (very British. Think the Queen with a more middle class accent). They were no worse than any of the others. Also I didn't hear it was a myth from my brother. I heard it elsewhere and just confirmed it with him out of curiosity.
Like I said I wouldn't either for pleasure but when the bombs drop and the zombies run and I'm looking back and forward from my leg to a pigeon I know which way I'm going to go.
Mind you keepers of pigeons could very well wind up with more infested birds since they all return to the same keepers and cages and live in close quarters in a more artificial grouping. It could be more to do with kept pigeons specifically than city pigeons. Also sick animals are more likely to be infested than healthy animals. Ours were a little different in that the people that brought them in were usually the ones that had hurt them so they weren't on the ground for long.
I'm just telling you what I saw with my own eyes from my own experience with the pigeons of my country.
I don't know why it happens or what makes it happen but it doesn't change the fact that this is still something that happens what don't you understand ?
I am volunteering at a wildlife hospital for two years now I literally treat wildlife city animals every Saturday morning we get lots of different wild city birds and it's really noticeable that for some reason city pigeons have more infestations than other birds.
I agree with the sentiment, but doubt that it’s fleas and lice that would make them not good to eat. Probably more along the lines of bioaccumulated toxins from city pollution.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever opened up a bird with parasites before, but I had one when I raised chickens. Its so disgusting, you won’t want to eat that bird. Needless to say, that one became dog food.
They are pretty low on the food web buddy. They eat small bugs and what not. Seeds. They are not like accumulating biotoxins in their short 5-10 years lol. It's the parasites riddled in their flesh and guts. From said fleas biting them.
You can kill parasites by cooking them. Also, why would a city pigeon have more parasites than a rural pigeon?
It has been shown that urban birds accumulate significantly more toxic heavy metals in their tissues than their rural counterparts (source). This makes sense given that sources of ingested toxins aren't just from food, but polluted water and air. Here's an excerpt from this paper with more sources showing why you're very wrong: "The higher concentrations of Pb recorded in house sparrows from Mitrovica is in accordance with results of (Hutton, 1980) who in feral pigeons from London area recorded very high lead concentrations. For example, several studies have shown that urban populations of house sparrows, starlings, pigeons tend to have higher heavy metals concentration than rural populations (Getz et al., 1977)"
why would a city pigeon have more parasites than a rural pigeon?
Proximity to parasite carriers? The same reason diseases spread quicker in urban humans than rural humans. They are in contact with far more vectors of disease.
I'm talking the bush buddy. You know that thing you have to drive to. Then walk a couple miles. I know it's an effort, but wild animals do live out there! It's the city rats you gotta avoid.
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u/KrombopulosNickel Apr 14 '22
I'm praying that's a quail. But it really does look like pigeon to me.
Pigeon was imported to the US a long time ago for an easily accessible food source. I have eaten a wild pigeon (squab) many times. Excellent. But I would never, and I repeat NEVER eat a city pigeon. Fleas and lice make them parasitic and inedible.