Advice for Pigeon Behavior?

[Nightstar]

Hey guys, I'm actually asking for advice for a best friend. He raises pigeons and gifted his girlfriend a male squab around 8 months ago. She quickly fell in love with him so hard, they are together 24/7 as if attached to the hip. My friend is concerned that she may be overstimulating the pigeon with her affection and wanted opinions.

In his words:
''I let her take over after the first week or so, only stepping in for medical things that I knew how to handle. Now he is like velcro for her and pretty much shuts down when she isn't around. Most of the time he is a clingy, anxious wreck, and every day it seems like her level of duty to him increases incrementally. Now she spends like 4-6 hrs upstairs, petting him, just sitting with her hands in his nest, talking to him or very commonly letting him feed her or even mate to her hand. That can't be good for him, but every time I bring up my concerns she shuts me down, saying I need some soul searching to do.''

To me, this is eerily similar to the behavior I see in clueless parrot owners. They find behaviors like having the parrot trying to feed them ''cute'' and end up putting the birds in a constant reproductive mode, which isn't good at all for them. My friend and I couldn't help but wonder if the same counts for pigeons, though whenever we try to search this up, it's hard to find good results. Most of the pages we find are things like ''10 ways to get rid of pigeons!'' since keeping them as pets isn't very common -.-'. I'd love to see what others think about it.

 

[expressmailtome]

@Birdbabe is extremely knowledgeable about pigeons and doves, and may be able to offer some advice.

 

[Birdbabe]

She needs to teach him to have his own time, he sees her as Mom,,and Mate,,though 8 months is young to try to mate,..I think the freind, not the pidge is over attached...pidgies are very sensitive and loving, but to become so dependent on the caregiver isnt good either..Pidgies do better in a pair,,not saying to do this! He can and will be fine alone,,but needs loving, not so much loving that he shuts down when shes not there,,My advice would be to lessen his time with her by 5 or 10 minutes a day, weekly,,so he can be alone for a few hours a day..but also give him stimulation of other means, music, TV..maybe even a stuffed animal that he can cuddle and feel safe,.and if he wants to get jiggy with it....and do discouage hand mating. ,,only leads to agression,, when the hand tires or dosent want it anymore. When freind tires of it, the pidge is the one that suffers...its not cute anymore..is it? You, created this,,not you @Nightstar .. but your friend. .Thankfully hes a boy and wont be laying tons of eggs..