# City Pigeons



## RUBEN_CO (Sep 1, 2013)

Hi all,

How far away from the city do your kills have to be for you to consider them "safe" to eat? I have heard people say that meat from the city can be poisoned or ill.

Thanks


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## D.Nelson (Feb 20, 2014)

I would eat them, but I live in a very small town and they are farm field fed. But yes, they could be poisoned or Ill. Anything you shoot could be.


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## slingshooterPT (Feb 22, 2014)

Don´t worry about it...if the pigeon looks helthy eat him  no prob at all, I´ve eat and I know that many people eat city pigeons! anyway with all the trash and polution that we have today everthing could be poisoned...


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## RUBEN_CO (Sep 1, 2013)

slingshooterPT said:


> Don´t worry about it...if the pigeon looks helthy eat him  no prob at all, I´ve eat and I know that many people eat city pigeons! anyway with all the trash and polution that we have today everthing could be poisoned...


Fair enough, thanks!


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## SlingshotBill (May 29, 2014)

Ok i got a gross Pigeon story few years ago me and my coworkers go to texas roadhouse and i ordered the green beans which you should never do. so the next day im bad sick but still make it to work its like a 100 degrees out in the lot and im steering a line of carts in and i threw up (lake mead) in the middle of the lot i keep moving like nothing happend and bring them inside and i look out and theres pigeons all around it and the next trip of carts i took (20mins tops) it was gone...


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## RUBEN_CO (Sep 1, 2013)

SlingshotBill said:


> Ok i got a gross Pigeon story few years ago me and my coworkers go to texas roadhouse and i ordered the green beans which you should never do. so the next day im bad sick but still make it to work its like a 100 degrees out in the lot and im steering a line of carts in and i threw up (lake mead) in the middle of the lot i keep moving like nothing happend and bring them inside and i look out and theres pigeons all around it and the next trip of carts i took (20mins tops) it was gone...


Ugghhh...

Your making me want to leave pigeons all together...


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## wll (Oct 4, 2014)

SlingshotBill said:


> Ok i got a gross Pigeon story few years ago me and my coworkers go to texas roadhouse and i ordered the green beans which you should never do. so the next day im bad sick but still make it to work its like a 100 degrees out in the lot and im steering a line of carts in and i threw up (lake mead) in the middle of the lot i keep moving like nothing happend and bring them inside and i look out and theres pigeons all around it and the next trip of carts i took (20mins tops) it was gone...


OK, I'm puking now because of your story ;- )

wll


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## Barky Bow (Jun 14, 2014)

Hey guys pigeons got to eat too hahahaha

The thing is do you guys eat prawns, find out what they eat and you will never look at them again. We call them the cockroaches of the sea!!!

Pigeons are the cockroaches of the sky ??????(possibly)

But the truth is as slingshooterPT says. If it looks healthy and not skinny and dying or excessively obese then eat it. They are good food just like prawns hahaha


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## Viper010 (Apr 21, 2012)

Check the liver heart and kidneys and take a good close look at the meat. If you see no parasites, deformities, discoloration or other abnormalities you're good go. Just cook it thoroughly, use a meat thermometer if you're inexperienced. If the inside of the meat had been at >65deg C (150F) for ten minutes, all micro organisms including e.coli and salmonella are dead.

You should not be paranoid of germs, just mind kitchen hygiene and cook thoroughly. Over 90% of commercially available chicken is salmonella infected. But so long as you cook it well, you will never notice.

Enjoy your pigeon. It's perfectly safe.


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## Chuck Daehler (Mar 17, 2015)

Although pigeons are cute and down right gorgeous birds they are as much a forager as a buzzard or possum. People eat possums. On the coast here some even eat buzzards. Geez I can think of many OTHER vittles to cram down my gullet that foragers.

In the countryside pigeons eat grain and seeds from grasses and other plants so in that environment they seem like they'd be safe to eat. I used to raise pigeons (homers) and my brother raised tumblers. The man who gave us some birds to start out with and let them bread had a variety of pigeon that I swear as as big as a chicken...and they were meat birds. The French raise them domestically and call them served in restaurants, "squab". I've had it, delicious if you cook it right (like anything else). I wouldn't eat a city pigeon but that's mostly psychological hang ups talking here...even eating vomit the birds aren't different from range chickens which eat rabbit poo and just about anything in a garbage sack yet we eat their eggs and the range chickens as well here on the farm. What's the diff between that and a city pigeon? Not much if anything so again, it's my psychosis about what city pigeons eat that is talking here.


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## Something0riginal (Dec 30, 2014)

Hang on, hang on now. I'm hardly scared of germs, but nobody has yet acknowledged that population density increases disease transmission in any carrier animal. That is to say best way to get sick is to be around sick people, same goes for birds, lotta people lotta birds, more chance they catch stuff from each other. On the flip side, more birds is more birds, when i see a woodpidgeon with the yellow feet i always take a shot, but I live in the rural suburbs.


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## Viper010 (Apr 21, 2012)

Something0riginal said:


> Hang on, hang on now. I'm hardly scared of germs, but nobody has yet acknowledged that population density increases disease transmission in any carrier animal. That is to say best way to get sick is to be around sick people, same goes for birds, lotta people lotta birds, more chance they catch stuff from each other. On the flip side, more birds is more birds, when i see a woodpidgeon with the yellow feet i always take a shot, but I live in the rural suburbs.


Fair enough, but like I said earlier, most animals will carry germs (add in upward of 90%). 
So long as the animal and its internal organs look healthy, and you cook the meat thoroughly, all the germs will die during cooking and it will be perfectly safe to eat.

Commercially bred chickens are often housed in barns with upto a million of their kin and countless pest rodents that make the most of the easily available chicken feed.

In those commercial chicken barns disease is rampant, so much so, that these birds are constantly fed medicine with their food to prevent them dying on mass. As stated earlier, almost all these birds carry nasty germs but cooked thoroughly are deemed perfectly safe to eat.

Personally, I'd worry more about the antibiotics we ingest on a daily bases via our commercially available meats (we have those to thank for things like MRSA) than about the germs.

To make a long story short, if it looks healthy, I'd deem a city pigeon a healthier food source than a mass bred chicken.


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## Something0riginal (Dec 30, 2014)

Commercial chicken farms are like dorm rooms where nobody needs a bunk, they just pile in on top of each other. Since chickens eat off the ground, which is always covered in poop, unlike in the city, so there is almost a 100% transmission rate, which is why when h1n1 comes around or blackhead for turkeys, people gotta kill their birds. I like how you said it though, the antibiotics are alarming enough. However, I wouldn't handle a city pigeon without gloves, or cook it to any under 195 degrees internal, they carry both meningitis and encephalitis not to mention the various influenza and listeria strains. Again, it's really a judgement call and it depends where you live.


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## Barky Bow (Jun 14, 2014)

I don't think I ever want to eat any type of bid again!!!!!! 
Well maybe after this chicken sandwich I'll start??? 
(HAHAHAHA)


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## Barky Bow (Jun 14, 2014)

I don't think I ever want to eat any type of bid again!!!!!! 
Well maybe after this chicken sandwich I'll start??? 
(HAHAHAHA)


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