Ideally, the pigeon keeper will try to emulate the wild birds' diet as best he/she can, but obviously there are restrictions as to how effectively this can be achieved. Domestic birds do not have access to all of Mother Nature's gifts, so we must improvise somewhat to give our pets the best possible diet.
Grains make up the bulk of a pigeon's diet. In fact, pigeons simply like their grain better than anything else, and will take a wide variety of most things on offer. However, some grains are better than others and some should be avoided altogether. Dried field peas make an excellent staple food and pigeons will do nearly anything to get them. They will usually pick all the peas out of a mix before eating anything else, and they sure do well on them too. Peas are high in protein and promote strong muscles, bones and plumage. Probably the second favourite grain to a pigeon is corn. Corn is an excellent winter feed as it is readily stored in the pigeon's body as fat. For this reason however, corn should be fed wisely and never more than thirty per cent of the diet, particularly if your pigeons have limited access to flying areas. Pigeons will happily eat sorghum (sometimes called kafir) and this is another good staple grain. Pigeons like sorghum because it is a small round grain, which is easy to eat. Wheat is a common grain found in pigeon mixes, but the birds tend to not like the soft white kinds of wheat, but prefer the darker red wheats which are much harder. If barley is available, this can be added to the mix also, but the four grains, peas, corn, sorghum and wheat will keep pigeons happy forever. A good all-round mix would be 30% peas, 30% corn, 30% sorghum and 10% hard wheat.
