Почему мы разводим кур, но почти не разводим голубей

Cities are full of pigeons, and people have raised them for meat for centuries. Yet the poultry aisle is packed with chicken, and squab is almost nowhere to be found. The surprising reason starts inside a pigeon nest, where both parents feed their naked, helpless chicks a rich substance made in their own crop. We follow one pigeon chick from egg to plate and one supermarket chicken through its supply chain, to see why a single biological detail matters so much once you try to scale up. 🔎 In this video: Why city pigeons are not wild birds, but descendants of domestic rock pigeons kept in dovecotes What crop milk is, how both male and female pigeons produce it, and why it is not real milk Why a pigeon pair lays two eggs, incubates them for about two and a half weeks and feeds the chicks for about a month Why a chicken hatchery can incubate eggs by the thousand while a squab farm still depends on its breeding pairs Why hand-rearing squabs or simply breeding bigger pigeons does not solve the problem How processing, packaging and shopper habits turned chicken into everyday meat and squab into a specialty Why squab never vanished from restaurants and food traditions that still value it If you enjoy discovering the hidden biology behind ordinary things, subscribe for more stories about animals, food and evolution. Would you ever order squab in a restaurant? 📚 References Horseman N.D., Buntin J.D. (1995). Regulation of pigeon cropmilk secretion and parental behaviors by prolactin. Annual Review of Nutrition, 15, 213–238. Gillespie M.J., Stanley D., Chen H., Donald J.A., Nicholas K.R., Moore R.J., Crowley T.M. (2012). Functional similarities between pigeon 'milk' and mammalian milk: induction of immune gene expression and modification of the microbiota. PLoS ONE, 7(10). Wang L., Zhu J., Xie P., Gong D. (2023). Pigeon during the Breeding Cycle: Behaviors, Composition and Formation of Crop Milk, and Physiological Adaptation. Life, 13(9). Sales J., Janssens G.P.J. (2003). Nutrition of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia domestica). World's Poultry Science Journal, 59, 221–232. Shapiro M.D., Domyan E.T. (2013). Domestic pigeons. Current Biology, 23(8). Johnston R.F., Janiga M. (1995). Feral Pigeons. Oxford University Press. Tallentire C.W., Leinonen I., Kyriazakis I. (2016). Breeding for efficiency in the broiler chicken: A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 36. ℹ️ Disclaimer This video is made for educational and informational purposes, and some details of farming and food economics are simplified for clarity. City pigeons are not a food source; catching or eating urban birds raises health and legal issues that depend on where you live. #Pigeon #Squab #CropMilk #AnimalBiology #PoultryFarming