Keeping Ringneck-doves at home/in an aviary

 

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/!\ First thing you need to know and remember, either dogs, cats, birds : Pets are NOT dolls. /!\

Birds, especially the little ones, have fragile bones. You can hurt them without knowing it by holding them too tightly.

You also need to know that you can't force doves to "behave correctly" like dogs can.

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Ringneck-doves are exclusively turned towards reproduction.

Even if they can show you love (probably because seeing you as their mate if they are alone in their environment), all their behaviours are turned towards reproduction. Therefore, a male can coo all day long, just to find a mate.

So if you want a calm and quiet house, I highly recommend you to create an outside aviary if you want Ringneck-doves, because your home is going to be very noisy (not as much as with parrots, but it can still get on your nerves and get really heady if you're with them during all the time).

If you have a big house, give them an entire room, away from your bedroom and kitchen to avoid allergies and accidents.

Males can coo all the day to find a mate. Or to signal his female he found a nest to seduce her... and reproduce.

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About reproduction: Ringneck-doves reproduce VERY quickly.

You can rapidly find your aviary/room overcrowded, which generates fights between males because of lack of space, and diseases.

Some columbidae's diseases are transmissible to humans, so be very careful about cleanliness and clean the aviary/cage/house at least once a week.
To avoid overcrowding, you can replace the real eggs by fake eggs (easy to buy on the internet).

Doves will not be affected by not having squabs, but will feel bad if they don't nest. However, females can become very tried (sometime even to death) if you let them reproduce during all the year.
On the other side, a Ringneck-dove can be really sad and can even become depressed if left alone all the day for a long period of time.

So remember that if you want a <ringneck-dove, either be with it all the day, or give it a mate.

 

The best thing to do, if you can't be at home and/or have a little house/flat, and don't want to be overcrowded is to buy two females. Homosexual females couples are very common in this species, but homosexual male couples are rarer: They tends to don't like each other (because of territory battle).

To find out if your bird is a male or a female, ask the breeder to do a DNA test in an approved laboratory (they do this with feathers, you can also send them feathers by ordering a test online). It's the easiest and safest way to know it, if the doves you want are juveniles.
Recognizing the sex of this animal is impossible with naked eye, and if your seller claims otherwise when the bird is juvenile: he is lying to you, don't trust him/her.
If the birds are already adults and a couple: it's safe, but they'll probably never bond with you.

So if you want your Ringneck-dove to love you the same way a cat or a dog would, the best way is having it really young (before 5-6 months), and be with it very very often. Working from home is the best.
There are exceptions of course, you can bond with older doves. It just takes longer time and requires a lot of patience and presence with the bird.

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