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w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m
Though it's not the lactose-containing mammalian milk that
we may pour on our morning cereal, pigeon "milk" is still a nu-
trient-rich food source that contains antibodies. It looks (ew)
like a pale yellow cottage cheese. Whatever your definition of
milk, pigeons "nurse" their young. But they need more calories
to make the crop milk, so called because it is produced in the
animal's crop, a pouch near the gullet that stores food until it
is ready. Newborn pigeons can't digest seeds, so the mother (or
father, since both sexes produce crop milk) has to stop eating for
a couple of days before the chicks are hatched so as not to poison
their milk.
The pigeon parent then gradually adds adult food, softened in
the crop, until the juvenile can digest their own. This takes about
two weeks, provided the chicks survive, which in Butte is by no
means certain. For one thing, despite all their fastidiousness in
preparing to produce milk, they are abysmal builders. Their nests
are usually little more than a few sticks splattered with dung.
Sometimes a newly laid egg simply rolls off of an uptown Butte
ledge and plummets onto the sidewalk or asphalt.
And lots of other things besides gravity want to kill Butte pi-
geons. Not the least of which are people. That they can be a hassle
is undeniable; the average adult pigeon produces 25 pounds of shit
a year, most of which seems to end up on my car or winter coat.
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