A young mother has taken two street pigeons as pets and even treats them to infrared therapy and air showers twice a day.
Zoe Thor keeps the two pampered pigeons in her apartment in Pyrmont, central Sydney, which she shares with her husband Jay and 12-year-old daughter Clarice.
Every day, Walter, a feral pigeon or rock pigeon, and Charlie, a mix of show pigeon breeds, are treated to more affection and attention than most house cats or dogs.
When the birds wake up around 7am, they bask under a special bird light for 30 minutes, before being dressed in their custom bird diapers or ‘kites’.
They cost up to $99 a pair and Ms. Thor owns about 50 sets.
The pigeons then jump into their ‘air shower’ machine which has settings to shower them with infrared and ionic treatments.
Zoe Thor says she never realized pigeons made such great pets. She is pictured with Charlie, a mix of fancy pigeon breeds
While pigeons don’t need to be walked, Walter and Charlie are walked most days in this custom pet backpack. Pictured, Zoe Thor with Charlie (left) and Walter (right)
Charlie (white) and Water (grey) relax during their morning air shower, which includes an infrared treatment designed to promote good health
Clarice, 12, with Walter, the pigeon she adopted after her pet mouse Tommy passed away
Ionic care is an alternative therapy that uses negative ions to cleanse the body of toxins, but in pigeons it helps to preen their feathers.
The infrared therapy is for good health to help reduce pain and inflammation.
The air shower removes their pigeon dandruff and disinfects them, treating the pigeons every morning and afternoon.
Ms Thor said the pigeons stay in the air shower for as long as they like, with Walter leaving after about 10 minutes and Charlie staying for up to 30 minutes.
The pigeons are then fed a handmade breakfast in different areas of the apartment to prevent them from pecking at each other while eating.
Walter eats seeds, pellets, lettuce and blackberries, while Charlie turns his beak up for veggies – he prefers pellets and pigeon seed mix.
One of the reasons pigeons make great pets, says Mrs. Thor, is their soft beaks.
The birds are also ‘really cute’, don’t need to move, recognize their owners and even play with them.
Walter, rescued last November by Mrs. Thor and Clarice as a wounded fledgling in Wynyard, likes to bury his beak between his adoptive mother’s fingers for fun.
‘They fly towards you, sometimes they stick to you. Charlie sits on my husband’s shoulder and Walter follows me everywhere, even when I go to the toilet,’ Mrs. Thor said.
“When I close the door, he stamps his feet or flies around noisily until I open the door.
“Walter is so close to me.”
While pigeons don’t need to be walked, Walter and Charlie are walked most days.
They are transported across Sydney in a ventilated perspex pet backpack, giving them unbridled views of the bustling CBD.
The pigeons can eat pigeon treats while remaining in the backpack and go with Mrs. Thor to her osteopath appointments three times a week.
They also go to her art and dance classes with Mrs. Thor’s daughter.
On the way home, Mrs. Thor stops to walk her pigeons on Pyrmont Bridge.
“They seem to have very good appetites when we get home, which I think means they’re happy,” she said.
Ms Thor said the family kept mice as pets, but the small mammals only live to be about two years old, meaning they’ve had several heartbreaking burials for them.
After their last pet rodent died – the family had ‘Tommy’ the mouse cremated – a distraught Clarice was comforted by a friend with the gift of a toy pigeon named Walter.
A few days later they saw the gray rock pigeon they now own wandering the tram tracks at Wynyard but unable to fly.
They adopted him, named him Walter, and spent $800 on a vet bill to nurse him back to health.
Mrs. Thor admits that the birds have become a temporary replacement for her daughter, who is about to turn 13, as she is busy with her own things.
Walter and Charlie’s wardrobe of imported fashionable “pigeon pants,” which cost between $15 and $99 a pair
Charlie wearing a bow tie and pigeon pants, known as “kites,” which contain liners to trap excrement. Pigeon poop may contain diseases
Walter was the first pigeon in the family. He is a common feral pigeon, also known as a rock pigeon
“I used to play dress up with my daughter but most days she locks herself in her room, she will be 13 soon,” said Ms Thor.
‘Now I can dress my pigeons. It’s like I have another daughter.’
After years of keeping mice and having to bury them every 18 months due to their short lifespan, the family has fallen in love with the pigeons.
Mrs. Thor thinks the nickname “rats with wings,” a term coined by Woody Allen in the 1980 film Stardust Memories, is unfair.
“I don’t think it’s just rats, pigeons are very clean,” she said.
‘If they have access to a bucket of water, pigeons wash themselves every day.’
Researchers at Murdoch University found that drug-resistant Escherichia coli (E. coli) is present in 10 percent of feral pigeons, which they believe receive the bacteria from seagulls.
The main problem with feral pigeons, according to Brisbane cases Peter The Possum and Birdman, is their droppings, which can contain serious illnesses, including cryptococcosis, a fungal infection of the lungs that is a cause of meningitis.
Histoplasmosis and Psittacosis are also potential problems and Campylobacter or Salmonella poisoning.
Ms Thor says her family has had ‘no problems’ with Walter and Charlie, but she is careful about how she collects their faeces.
‘I did a lot of research when I first got him, whether pigeons are suitable as pets. They are,’ she said.
‘Even when they coo, it’s not as loud as a parrot.
“Parrots are prettier, more colorful and you can teach them to talk, but if you don’t entertain them they will scream very loudly and disturb the neighbours.”
Pigeons are also deceptively smart because they recognize not only faces, but also patterns and words.
A Japanese study found they could be trained to distinguish a Picasso painting from a Monet one, while American researchers found they could detect cancer at a rate that would make most oncologists proud.
After two weeks of viewing microscope slide images of benign or malignant breast tissue, 16 pigeons achieved 85 percent accuracy in identifying malignancies.
Zoe Thor and her husband Jay Chiew sharing their home in Pyrmont with domestic pigeons Walter (left) and Charlie (right)
Clarice, 12, with Charlie and Walter, whom she helped save when he couldn’t fly
“The birds were remarkably adept at distinguishing benign from malignant breast cancer slides,” said lead author Prof. Richard Levenson of the University of California, Davis.
What is much more famous is that pigeons can be trained to successfully message and race, returning to the home loft with remarkable speed and accuracy.
Mrs. Thor’s research on pigeons was simpler. She wanted to know how to take care of them at home.
Her main sources of information came from pigeon groups on Facebook. Sydney Pigeon and Dove fanciers have 1,900 followers, but Melbourne’s pigeon community page is over 8,000.