The thing that puzzles beginners most: you bring a pair, and a month later there are no eggs — they turn out to be two cocks. Or two hens lay 4 eggs, all infertile. Pigeons have no obvious difference in shape like chickens do, so sexing is a set of signs together, not one sign.

1. Behaviour — the most accurate indicator

  • Cooing and turning: the cock puffs his neck, coos loudly, spins around and drags his tail on the ground. The hen coos more softly and rarely spins.
  • Bowing: an adult cock, on seeing a hen, lowers his head, raises his tail and circles. The hen replies with a head bob and moves away or sits.
  • Driving: the cock pushes the hen towards the nest around laying time ("driving" behaviour).
  • The nest: the cock sits on the eggs from mid-morning to afternoon roughly, and the hen the rest of the day and the night. To know which is which in a sitting pair, look at the nest at 12 noon.

Behaviour shows clearly from 4–6 months of age. Before that, young birds look alike.

2. Build — a supporting indicator, not a decisive one

  • The head: the cock usually has a broader head, a thicker beak and a more prominent forehead. The hen's head is finer and narrower.
  • The body: the cock is slightly bigger with a broader chest. But this varies between breeds — in the Ghuzar the difference is clearer than in homers.
  • The pelvic bones: feel under the tail and you find two bones. In an adult hen that has laid, the gap between them is wider (about a finger) and their tips are softer. In the cock they are narrower and harder. Not reliable in young birds or in a hen that has never laid.

3. Time — the sure verdict

The surest method: the eggs. A hen lays two eggs about a day and a half apart. If you put two birds together and:

  • they lay 4 eggs ⇒ two hens.
  • no eggs and no soft cooing ⇒ two cocks (and usually fights).
  • two eggs that hatch ⇒ a pair.

The myths

  • The string and ring spinning or swinging: nothing to do with sex — your hand's movement is what moves it.
  • Eye colour: unrelated to sex; related to breed and colour.
  • The number of tail feathers: the same in both sexes.
  • The cock has longer legs: an individual difference, not a sex difference.

Practical tips

  1. Buy from a breeder who registers their birds — on Ghuzar every bird has a recorded sex in its file, and if it changes after confirmation you can edit it from the app.
  2. If you are buying a young bird, ask for its parents — the difference shows later while you can still go back to the seller.
  3. Record the date of the first egg in the Pairs tab — the best permanent evidence.
A wrong sex is not the end of the world: a pair of two cocks is split and each is paired with a hen. But a lost breeding month is avoided with the behaviour signs above.