Pigeon house

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Pigeon house in Löbau , Saxony
Hexagonal pigeon house with eight floors in Litoměřice

Pigeon houses are used to keep domestic pigeons . They were often set up in Saxony and beyond, especially on knight and farm estates . They are also known as pigeon posts , pigeon pillars or pigeon towers . In old Bavaria and Austria they are also called Taubenkobel .

In the north-eastern Bavarian region, pigeon wheels , woven pigeon houses made of straw and rotatable on a wagon wheel, were built.

description

Octagonal pigeon house with closed flight holes in the Bergisches Freilichtmuseum Lindlar

A pigeon house is a small house, mostly made of wood, which rests on a round three meter high column that can be shod with sheet metal to protect against predators ( martens , rats ). The shape of the house can be four, six, octagonal or round. The roofing consists of boards nailed with roofing felt, made of brick or slate. Pigeon houses have an entrance hole on each side with a drop board, which is used to open and close the entrance and exit. The flight boards attached under the entrance hole can also be used to close it, which the pigeons use as an approach and resting place. The entrance hole itself is square or round, similar to an arched window . Since it gets quite dark in the pigeon house when the entrance holes are closed, window panes are attached to each main side and covered with wire for protection. The interior of the pigeon houses is similar to that of the pigeon boxes .

disadvantage

Pigeon houses offer the domestic pigeons insufficient protection against the weather, hair-prey game ( martens , polecats , weasels , wild cats ), crows and magpies . They are difficult to clean and difficult to disinfect and are therefore good breeding grounds for vermin . Nests and pigeons are difficult to control. The care of sick pigeons is only possible to a limited extent. The owner of pigeons housed in pigeon houses must therefore accept insufficient breeding results and flight performance of his protégés as well as increased animal losses due to natural enemies and diseases, especially of the young.

Origin and forms

For the pigeon house, the often existing house shape was adopted: the wooden long house with a thatched pitched roof , which was placed on stakes to protect against cats, martens, polecats and weasels. In the statically simplest solution, the house was placed on four pillars. Later it was limited to two columns with side struts. If the longitudinal house was shortened to a square, another column could be saved and the pigeons' security against animal predators was even greater. The square floor plan was varied to form a hexagon or octagon. Cross shapes remained the exception.

Pigeon wheels

Simple pigeon wheel in the Franconian open air museum Bad Windsheim .

Pigeon wheels, also called pigeon wheel houses or wheel goblets , are a special form of the pigeon house, which a wagon wheel serves as the floor. This is connected horizontally with a stub shaft and, like the pigeon house, is placed on a post. Some are pivoted. The wagon wheel is connected to the base plate, into which vertical rods are inserted, around which a wickerwork of straw is wound. In traditional doves wheels was mostly rye used straw, modern pigeons wheels have a wattle from sisal . Two breeding niches are provided for each pair of pigeons, the entry openings of which have been left out. Their number varies according to the size of the house, which is specified with 55 centimeters to 1.3 meters in diameter. A coat of paint protects the mesh from the elements.

Small turned wooden bells, acorns or pine cones hang on some pigeon wheels for decoration. The roof is also used for individual decoration: some have bay windows with turrets and spheres or weather vanes. Stamped copper sheet strips also serve this purpose.

See also

literature

  • Rudolf Piemer: An ornament of the farms - pigeon houses. In: The Heimatbote. Issue 16. (no year, online (PDF; 118 kB), accessed on July 19, 2013)
  • The dwellings of the pigeons. In: Gottlob Neumeister: The whole of pigeon breeding. 3rd edition of the text revised up to date and edited by Gustav Prütz. In addition to 17 plates. BF Voigt, Weimar 1876, pp. 5-6, doi : 10.5962 / bhl.title.50691 .
  • From pigeon flats. In: Johann Paul Kolbeck: Treatise on pigeon breeding. Daisenberg: Regensburg 1821. P. 34–39, ( full text at Wikisource ).

Web links

Commons : Pigeon Houses  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Pigeon Wheels  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Taubenhaus  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The dwellings of the pigeons. In: Gottlob Neumeister: The whole of pigeon breeding. 3rd edition of the text revised up to date and edited by Gustav Prütz. In addition to 17 plates. B. F. Voigt, Weimar 1876, pp. 5-6, doi : 10.5962 / bhl.title.50691 .
  2. ↑ Pigeon houses or pigeon pillars. In: Bruno Dürigen : Poultry farming. Handbook and textbook on racial studies, breeding, care and keeping of domestic, farm and ornamental poultry. 2. Volume, keeping, breeding and use of the poultry. Fourth and fifth revised editions. Paul Parey, Berlin 1923–1927. P. 494f. ( Digitized at HathiTrust ).
  3. ↑ a b Alois Kammermeier: Taubenkobel in Old Bavaria. In: Folk Art. Journal for popular material culture. 2/1978, pp. 122-129.
  4. ↑ Karl Bedal: Pigeon houses in northeastern Bavaria and Egerland. In: Folk Art. Journal for popular material culture. 2/1978, pp. 130-136.
  5. ↑ Angelika Halama: Pigeon towers and poultry houses in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In: Frank Norbert Nagel (Ed.): Towers, chimneys, industrial mills, land art. Significance and evaluation of landmarks in the cultural landscape. ISBN 3-8334-5035-5 , pp. 97-120.
  6. ↑ Accommodation. In: Manfred Hartmann: The pigeon book. Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1986, p. 145.
  7. ↑ posture. In: Kurt Vogel: Biology, keeping, feeding. A specialist book for breeders and owners of domestic pigeons, wild pigeons, sport or carrier pigeons and other flying pigeons (= the pigeon). 3rd, unchanged. Edition. Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1984, p. 233, OCLC 246277835 .
  8. ↑ Halama, p. 105.
  9. ↑ Klaus Kahn: Unique: the Franconian pigeon wheels. In: Poultry Exchange. 6/2002, pp. 8-9.