Need Advise/Help Troubleshooting My Homing Pigeon Coop

[Would Rather Be Fishing]

Ok I need some advise from those experienced breeding homing pigeons.

My pigeons won't breed. While not an expert, I am pretty sure I have both male and female pigeons, 4 total. Pictures of the coop below, it is 8ft wide and 5ft high. They get fed regularly, water is always clean. 1 of the pigeons I have had for 16 months, one for 9, and two for 4 months.

Any idea what I can do to encourage breeding?

[adriaticum]

I have seen only a few pigeon flocks in BC that appear to be domestic.
But in Europe, this is a thing.
I would check Youtube.

[ACB]

Maybe they just need some privacy, LOL. There has to be something online, there has to be people doing it in N.America.

[mastercaster]

If you take a female and a male and put them in a small enclosure about the size of an apple crate they will pair up. They might beat the $hit out of each other for a day or so especially if the female already feels she already has a mate but pairing up will eventually happen. Takes 2-3 days. By now you should have figured out which are the males and females just by their behavior but you can also determine their gender by the spacing of their pelvic (vent) bones. There's more space between the bones on females needed for egg laying, about a baby finger width. The male's are quite narrow,,,,almost touching.

[huntingfamily]

What are the bowls in the nesting boxes for?
I'd take them out and put clean dry straw in there. I feed whole wheat and black oil sunflower seeds. They free feed on oyster shell for grit and the calcium helps the integrity of the egg shells. Do they get sunlight in the coop for part of the day at least?

[mastercaster]

What are the bowls in the nesting boxes for?I'd take them out and put clean dry straw in there. I feed whole wheat and black oil sunflower seeds. They free feed on oyster shell for grit and the calcium helps the integrity of the egg shells. Do they get sunlight in the coop for part of the day at least?

I used to use clay bowls for nests all the time. They worked great! They had edges that were only about 1 1/2" high, though,,,,not near as high as those dog feeding bowls and flat bottom. Never needed to worry about the eggs. As the squabs grew up they used to hang their butts over the edge to poop so they stayed quite clean. I don't raise pigeons anymore but I'd use them again in a heart beat.

[huntingfamily]

I just tack a 1"×4" board to the front of the boxes to keep the contents in. I use homers for training regularly in the off-season. Always have...

[Would Rather Be Fishing]

The bowls were recommended to me, I used to put in straw but the birds just hang out in the boxes and push the straw out. Ok I will try the "confinement method" suggested by mastercaster above and see what happens. So you leave them in there for say 5 days and then put them back in the coop? I have an old cast iron parrot cage I sometimes use to put the birds in when I have to work on the coop. Is that too big? In other words, does it have to ba a "small confined space"?

I feed pellets and oyster shells (in separate feeders)

What are the bowls in the nesting boxes for?
I'd take them out and put clean dry straw in there. I feed whole wheat and black oil sunflower seeds. They free feed on oyster shell for grit and the calcium helps the integrity of the egg shells. Do they get sunlight in the coop for part of the day at least?

[huntingfamily]

You shouldn't need to "confine" 2 pigeons together to get them to breed. Something doesn't seem right with your coop design, diet, lack of sunshine or the bird(s) aren't mature enough to breed yet. Male birds are easy to notice in a coop as they are often prancing and cooing to attract a mate. I've been doing this for a long time and sometimes wish they would stop laying.

[mastercaster]

I wish I could keep a coop in the backyard of my townhouse but it's against strata rules. That said, I've netted a few and trapped a bunch of feral ones,,,,probably over 60 birds in total the last couple of months. A buddy kept 28 of them to keep/raise to train his DD puppy and I've used the rest out in the field. Even keeping them over night in a cage has had some the neighbours wondering about them. They seem to have a nasty habit of cooing at first light. lol Unfortunately, I've cleaned the farm out of them and need to find another farm who is being plagued with them which I haven't been able to find. Still on the look out so if anybody knows of a farm or two close to Surrey that has pigeon issues I'll gladly take the info.