UK Law: Can You Kill And Eat Pigeons From Your Garden? 

Food and fuel prices are increasing dramatically, inflation is climbing, supply chains are still broken. Wages have failed to keep pace with inflation for years and record numbers of families are struggling to make ends meet and now rely on food banks. If you need to put a square meal on the table is there a tasty pie sitting on your fence? The Caveman investigates.

With wood pigeons, you can get two little breast meat morsels which can be removed quickly at the kill site. Leave all the rest for other hungry wildlife 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧

UK has liscenses for everything just left a liscense to breath

The birds on the fence feeder are WOODPIGEONS and not FERAL PIGEONS. Ferals are descendants of RACING (homing) pigeons (or actual racers) which have 'gone wild' (gone feral) and these mostly live around buildings but do feed on farmland / gardens as well as town environments. They can taste delicious. WOODPIGEONS can also taste delicious if cooked properly. If a woodpigeon is causing 'serious damage' to crops growing in your garden then it is not against the General Licence to kill and eat it. STOCK DOVES are a different subspecies and are protected. These are slightly smaller, without the white markings, and can often be seen singly or in pairs gritting on quiet roadsides.

The price spiral in the UK currently is terrible. I cannot afford enough protein to fulfill myself consistently throughout the month. I'm looking to supplement my diet with squirrel , wood pigeon, duck , rabbit , etc. I'm learning to hunt with a high powered slingshot. I'm also learning foraging, meat isn't my only goal. Thanks for the video! Very informative.

These are wood pigeons. Get your facts right

but you can kill and eat little pigs and lambs and cows and fish. Madness that you cant shoot a wood pigeon in your garden, scoffing all your crops, red hawthorn flowers.. I van understand the need to prevent cruelty but to save a pig being served up on my table I would sooner shoot a few pigeons as they are storming my garden and seen not to predated by anything. We in UK are MAD.

Thank you for your video buddy 👏🏻👍🏻

My Terrier grabs the occasional pigeon in our garden. Since he often injures them, the humane thing to do is to quickly put them out of their misery, field-dress and stick them in the frying pan. A little less meat than a proper wood pigeon, but just as tasty. We also eat any squirrels that our cat catches too. Why waste good free food? At least these animals are free range and "processed" quickly.

wood pigeons are not riddled with disease,they are rather majestic ,pigeons and doves pair for life . They do a thing called kissing where they tilt their heads and then the bonded pair sort of snog . I see pigeons and collard dove pairs snogging on top of my aviary . Get room birds😂

We’ll all be fighting to eat pigeon….swan…..rat and bugs soon …… boom 💥

You are talking nonsense,as these are wood pigeons.

absurd you even have to look up the legality of food landing in your own yard I sincerely don't even believe something like that would even be enforced, much less sought after

I have friends in France who shoot pigeons on private land. When cooked it is delicious. Like small chickens.

Wood Pigeons can be bought from online wild meat companies. Even Squarells. What I don't understand is how come all household pets and farm animals need to be de-wormed,flea-treated or medicated otherwise while there wild meat companies out there? How can we shoot, butcher & eat wild meat with "stalk-to-fork" days, while the farm animals are going through so much "medication" in some cases, but presuming minimum standard requirements are in place. And our pets. Is it because they live near us but if we only eat their meat it's irrelevant?

What are you using for the bird feeder

. Lots of old properties have pigeon cotes to rear pigeons for the table.

Those are Wood Pigeons, not Feral Pigeons. Apparently they're the ones actually worth eating. I have them in my garden too, and they breed OFTEN. I like them but their song is so dull and repetitive. It's the worst thing ever if you're trying to go back to sleep! If they'd at least learn a new song it'd help me stop picturing them in a pie ;)

Do you have to apply for a license?

I think you are wrong, from my understanding of it you can, one of the conditions is that the pest birds are causing a hazard to yourself and your family by shitting everywhere whilst nesting in your gutters which also causes damage to your property, as far as trapping is concerned there are specific regulations regarding the how's, obviously shooting (air rifles or shotguns) in a residential area is most likely a no unless there is a sufficient backstop behind the target to contain the round within your property boundary, but from my understanding, with a slingshot, in your own garden, with the pigeons shitting on door handles and steps, or causing water damage from nesting, its perfectly lawful.

A goose would fill the plate a lot quicker Des, lol. There is very little meat on even a woody, let alone a feral. The famous Kestrel killer is partly responsible for the latest legislation on controlling larger bird populations and it is not doing any favours for our garden birds. I had a pigeon with a broken leg in my garage for a few days. The waste that came out of it far exceeded the corn it ate. Trust you are all good, we are. Atb.

Let us all hope we have to never find out if we can eat pigeons! (sure we could but I prefer to stay in my supermarket nichue) (Im much more interested to FEED pigeons rather than feed ON them!) Love me some pigeon love! Nice video!

Shoot the bloody pigeons u big girl!

Come on folks, we're in hard times but pigeons have always been in hard times - theyre domesticated birds that were abandoned by us. There's so much wonderful food we csn grow ourselves cheaply (I'm not vegan)

Lol as if anyone will find out if you eat one from your garden

Themes wood pigeon

What about if I’m raising meat rabbits in my back garden could they be argued as livestock ? And would that then allow me to “protect” them by dealing with any pigeons that come in my garden ?

Does it say how you should dispose of said pigeon? After I have hunted down and exicuted the offending cabbage eater, can I dispose of it down the kneck of my dog? Luckily for our local flying rat population I can build pigeon proof cages to keep my cabbages safe :)

I can still stamp on spiders though right ? lol. I would never hurt a wild bird of any species personally. Thanks for the video Des as always very interesting.

You can shoot and foal pigeons in the UK

you can eat anything you want just don't tell anyone under the mums the word act of 1972

Could it not be argued that you are protecting livestock foodstuffs, seeing as the pigeons are plundering the bird table? As previously pointed out, the licence doesn't stipulate how the quarry should be disposed of?

How about a bit of common sense, pigeons are not a rare bird that need protection are they?

So you would need to grow corn for human consumption and find that the feral pigeons were stealing it. And you would need to demonstrate that you had considered other non-lethal methods.Probably better to get a cat. They can't read licences! LOL.

It's stupid law,

This whole video is absolute BS, I shoot wood pigeon for crop protection. Feral pigeons are totally different to wood pigeons, The GL says you can kill WPs if they are causing a lose in revenue so i'd say you can't kill in your garden/allotment (legally). So you can't eat them if killed in your garden cause you've killed them illegally, but you can if you conducting pest control(which believe me they are). X