Acorn poisoning?

[Elma Fud]

Whilst I was out beating today, I encountered a number of pigeons either dead or nearly dead.

Could this be a disease, or overfeeding on Acorns.  I have been informed that overfeeding on acorns can poison the birds.  

Has anyone else encountered this problem.

[One shot wonder]

I have noticed a few pigeons on the ground  dead and alive but i hav never heard of acorn poisening.

[Cranfield]

Pigeons love acorns, but I have never heard of them dying from overeating them, or poisoned, by eating them.

 

Did you find them early in the morning and did it follow a freezing night ?

Pigeons that are weak (for various reasons), seem to have difficulty surviving extreme cold.

There have been a couple of very hard frost in our area this week.

 

Perhaps someone else has heard something about acorn poisoning.

[Hammergun]

As I mentioned in my posting on Rooks, acorn coffee was made before normal coffee became widely available, and also during the wars when coffee was in short supply.  

 

I did some research into this and found that acorns are toxic to humans unless roasted, which destroys the poison.

 

Perhaps this affects the pigeons if they eat too many of them?

[ernyha]

Have read several times in pigeon shooting articles that acorns are not good for a pigeons health and that in years when there is a bumper crop ,fatalities are common due to the toxic content of them.

[Elma Fud]

When I opened the crop of a couple of  pigeons I found  numerous acorns present as well as grain.  The food contents appeared to have gone off almost to the extent that they were moldy inappearance.  

The birds were lacking in body weight, but only just.

As mentioned by Cranfield, Yes, these birds were found in the morning, and Yes,  we have had a recent frost (two days running, but not this morning). As a result even the dying birds were despatched and left for the foxes.

 

Changing the subject slightly.

 

I was shown a new way to despatch pigeons and pheasants.

There is a soft spot between the breast bone and pelvic.

If you look at the back of a pigeon it has a grey shoulder at the point where its back feathers change to blue, place your thumb and fore finger either side of the bird and pinch, the bird was dead in a matter of seconds.  The advantage of this method is that your birds feathers are not ruffled and then could  be used for decoying.