What Do Pigeons Eat? Diet, Feeding and the Bread Question

Pigeons live on seeds, grain and fruit, and in towns on whatever people leave them. This page covers what feral pigeons eat in the wild and in cities, how they feed and drink, what the young eat, and the bread question. It is about the town pigeon (a Rock Dove); the Woodpigeon has its own page: what Woodpigeons eat.

Seeds, fruits and, rarely, invertebrates make up a pigeon's diet.¹ In Europe the main foods are grains such as wheat, barley and oats; peas, beans and vetches; and the seeds of weeds such as dock, knotweed, goosefoot, chickweed and buttercup. Snails, slugs and moth larvae and pupae are taken now and then. In the United States, corn (maize) made up 92% by volume of 144 feral pigeons' crops in one semi-rural study,¹ with oats, cherries, wheat and barley; berries and acorns are taken too.²

Pigeons are adaptable. Some live for long spells on a single food such as corn or barley, and in experiments they ate every kind of seed offered, though individuals had their own preferences. In the Algerian Sahara, wild Rock Doves depend on desert melons for food and water.¹

In towns pigeons eat bread, popcorn, peanuts, cake and other food people drop or put out; city pigeons may live largely on such food.² A 1960s study comparing crops shows how far this goes. At Leeds, bread and similar food was in 80% of feral pigeons' crops in November to February, 55% in March to May, 91% in June to August and 62% in September and October. In the birds the study called wild Rock Doves, at Flamborough Head, it was in none: their crops held barley, wheat, chickweed and other weed seeds, peas and beans, and in winter and spring earthworms (the wild samples were small, as few as 10 birds).¹

Pigeons feed mostly on open ground, walking and pecking, chiefly in the early morning and the middle of the afternoon. They are clumsy in trees and shrubs,¹ though they will climb about awkwardly for berries.² Some feed close to the nest; others fly several kilometres: Kansas pigeons travelled 6 km to cattle feedlots, and wild Sardinian Rock Doves up to 26 km. In a flock, some birds find food and others take their share.

Pigeons that rely on people keep to people's hours, gathering at midday in cities, and may seek out the people who feed them.

Pigeons drink by suction, using the bill like a straw: the tongue works like a piston.¹

For their first four days squabs live on crop milk, a fat- and protein-rich¹ mass of cells shed from the lining of their parents' crops and brought up for them.³ Seeds are mixed in from day 4 and adult food from about day 9.¹ More: baby pigeons.

They can and do, as the Leeds crops show, but it is a poor food for them: bread, while not immediately harmful, lacks nutrients, so seeds and grains are better.⁴

If you feed pigeons, offer seeds and grains such as oats, wheat, millet and sunflower seed, from November to April only and not as their only food, along with clean water changed daily. It lists foods to avoid, including chocolate, onion and garlic, salt, avocado and mouldy food. The RSPB's current guidance for garden birds is to use hanging rather than flat feeders and, from May to October, to put out only small amounts of mealworms, fat balls or suet; it notes that the disease trichomonosis spreads where birds gather.⁵

Some cities ban feeding pigeons,⁶ so check the local rules before feeding them in a park or square.

1. Lowther, P. E., Johnston, R. F. (2020). Rock Pigeon (Columba livia), version 1.0. Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.rocpig.01
2. National Audubon Society. Rock Pigeon. Audubon Guide to North American Birds (text adapted from Kaufman, Lives of North American Birds, 1996). Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
3. Gillespie, M. J., Crowley, T. M., Haring, V. R., Wilson, S. L. et al. (2013). Transcriptome analysis of pigeon milk production - role of cornification and triglyceride synthesis genes. BMC Genomics 14: 169. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-14-169
4. RSPCA. Living with pigeons. RSPCA Advice and welfare. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source
5. RSPB (2026). Our latest guidance on feeding garden birds. RSPB news. Accessed 8 October 2026. Source
6. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Rock Pigeon overview and life history. All About Birds. Accessed 26 October 2026. Source