This is today’s collection of free range, free in every way, eggs. Look a bit small to you? Well, yes, they are a little smaller than Bantam chicken eggs. They are pigeon eggs - perfectly edible, perfectly tasty, absolutely free range and raised on natural food which we do not provide. Other than gleaning a few tidbits of barley left from feeding our ewes every morning, “our” flock of pigeons forage nearby fields for their food (no city junk food for them!).We lived here on our farm for close to 40 years before the pigeons found us. We’ve always blamed the destruction of a wooden granary about 6 km away for making them homeless refugees. They were under a forced evacuation order! Upon arrival they moved into our house, inside the insulation of the roof. We were not pleased. After quite a lot of work and some renovations we convinced them to find more appropriate lodgings in our barn. Since then my husband has spent a fair amount of time training them to confine their residence to the loft, just so their droppings are more concentrated and we are not bombarded with frantic pigeons every time we open the barn door. This training, I am told, consists of grabbing any pigeons who try to reside within (they are fairly easy to net) and holding them directly in front of your face, staring directly into their eyes and having a serious talk with them, letting them know there are unpleasant consequences to their actions.
My husband grumbles a lot about the yearly pigeon poop clean-up before lambing begins, but we try to look on the bright side and enjoy the advantages of having them in residence. They are quite pretty; their cooing is a pleasant sound; it’s enjoyable to watch their helicopter flying in formation; and they provide us with a few eggs (resulting in a planned parenthood program which they most certainly need) and an occasional pigeon feast. (If you ever read “Watership Down” by Richard Adams you may see some similarities in our management policies.) We feel this is a small price to pay for a secure and cosy place to live. In any case this rental agreement seems to be acceptable as the pigeons are clearly not going away.
