When Bimini Wright, a 38-year-old Brooklyn author and performer, launched into a routine subway experience again in September 2025, she didn’t count on to return dwelling with a pigeon.
Wright first discovered the then-squab, which she has since named Smidgen, “stumbling round” a subway platform off the Q line throughout a Monday morning rush hour.
“I used to be about to step onto the prepare, and this little ball of feathers mainly bumped into my foot,” Wright instructed The Submit.
“I used to be, like, ‘Wait, the place do you suppose you’re going?’” she recalled. ”It was about to topple onto the subway tracks … It had completely zero survival abilities.”
Initially naming the squab “Birdie Sanders,” Wright determined to take the chicken again to her residence and organized a cardboard field for it to remain throughout her workday.
After calling the rescue and schooling group NYC Wild Hen Fund — which suggested placing the pigeon again the place she’d discovered it — Wright tried to return it to the identical subway platform, inserting it on a coated electrical field to maintain it secure from hurt’s approach.
However when she returned the subsequent day to test the chicken’s standing — and located it scrunched behind the field, “peeping and flapping” — Wright knew she’d discovered her new feathered companion.
“I’d missed having an animal for a very long time, however I’d by no means pulled the set off on getting one as a result of it appeared irresponsible,” stated Wright, citing her “very cool” roommate as a big think about holding the squawking squab. “However when a child chicken actually runs into your fingers such as you’re a gritty Disney princess, you type of (really feel) it was meant to be.”
And, apparently, the general public is fascinated with tales like hers.
Wright joked to The Submit that after all of the burlesque movies she’s posted over time, she’s finest identified for the content material that includes Smidgen. In actual fact, her hottest pigeon TikTok rings in at 2.4 million views and options Smidgen’s “commencement” from “seed faculty,” a socialization method that makes use of video or visible tapping to show the birds eat complete grains and seeds.
Wright and Smidgen — whom Wright decided to be feminine after she laid her first egg on Worldwide Ladies’s Day — should not the one pigeon-woman duo to strut across the Huge Apple, to not point out doc their journeys.
Abby Jardine, a 28-year-old content material creator/pigeon proprietor who spoke with The Submit again in 2024, continues to submit movies of her beloved Pidge, a potty-trained chicken that she totes round Gotham in a cream-colored purse.
Wright and Jardine are among the many rising variety of pigeon-human pairs — chicken mother and father of a feather, primarily that includes millennial and Gen-Z girls — who’re flocking in NYC, and past.
Whereas there aren’t any set stats on how many individuals preserve the divisive birds as pets, most of the fowl fanatics might be positioned with a easy social media search; #pigeonlove has 593,000 posts on Instagram, whereas #pigeonlife is tagged to 221,000 posts on the platform.
“Pigeons are so ubiquitous in cities that most individuals don’t even take into consideration them, not to mention know that they will make nice pets,” Jardine lately instructed The Submit, who rescued Pidge in Williamsburg and posted pigeon content material shortly thereafter in July of 2023.
“As creators submit about pet pigeons, an increasing number of individuals are discovering out that having a pigeon is an possibility,” she continued. “I feel it is going to snowball from there.”
Izzie Soto and Kedle
Izzie Soto — a 23-year-old Chicago-based content material creator who posts below the username @flatwavelength — began sharing movies of her rehomed chicken Kedle together with her 549,400 TikTok and 189,000 Instagram followers in 2021.
Soto, who sometimes sports activities a crocheted pigeon hat in her vids, covers each the tutorial and entertaining features of holding a pet pigeon — with captions that vary from “Revealing what my pigeon’s nest really seems like” to “Holding my pet pigeon like a Costco hotdog.”
Having beforehand cared for and centered her content material round a chicken — her now-deceased morning dove, Lemin — Soto instructed The Submit that she turned serious about proudly owning a pigeon after seeing one within the native chicken retailer the place she used to purchase the chicken’s meals.
“As soon as Lemin handed away, I took a break from (posting content material) for some time — however finally was, like, ‘OK, I’ll submit Kedle, too,’” stated Soto, including that she’s at all times appreciated birds, planes and something that has to do with being up excessive. “It’s good to share an animal for different folks to take pleasure in, as a result of I get to take pleasure in her day-after-day.”
Soto’s each day routine with Kedle, whose identify comes from the ornamental tea kettle she loved perching on as a squab, includes most of the trappings of normal chicken care — i.e., cleansing up cage droppings — together with using two air purifiers for the fowl’s delicate respiratory system.
Soto additionally describes Kedle as a “little diva” who loudly coos and flaps her wings, enjoys heat baths, wears “pigeon pants” (basically a chicken diaper), and behaves with the fair-weather friendliness of a cat — hopping between Soto’s head and shoulders each time she’s within the temper for affection.
“I wouldn’t say I depend on her for any type of consolation — I’ve my human family and friends for that,” Soto clarified. “However she’s good firm.”
Hanna Lemoine and Monet
Hanna Lemoine, a 33-year-old Louisiana-based painter, is the proprietor of a equally intelligent, “very pampered” pigeon — a white-and-brown Basic Previous Frill named Monet.
“I had no thought how sensible pigeons have been till I obtained her,” Lemoine instructed The Submit, having grown up with extra conventional family birds. “I used to be simply observing her and was, like, ‘Oh, my God — that could be a completely sentient being in my room. Each pigeon you see on the road is a completely clever, sentient being. It’s type of loopy to consider.”
Lemoine, who purchased Monet from an Ohio breeder in July 2025 for $180 after being “bit with the pigeon bug” on a visit to Eire, stated that it initially took time to bond together with her avian pal, who struggled by an anxious, awkward teenage part — or, as she describes it, “pigeon puberty.”
Nevertheless, Lemoine — who nonetheless refers back to the chicken by she/her pronouns, regardless of suspecting it could be male as a result of its frequent dancing and puffing of its crop — finally turned thick as thieves with Monet, taking her alongside on errands and even touring collectively to outside artwork festivals, the place the chicken perches fortunately on Lemoine’s shoulder as she paints.
“She’ll actually sit there, watch all people, and never make a noise,” stated Lemoine. “It’s wonderful.”
Pigeons might not be everybody’s chicken of alternative, however she disagrees with those that name them “rats with wings,” quipping that rats make “nice pets,” too.
“Some folks wish to say (Monet’s) not a gross pigeon just like the wild ones, and I’m, like, she’s precisely just like the wild ones — she simply has fairly privilege,” Lemoine stated. “She acts precisely the best way a wild pigeon would in case you raised them from a child …They’re wonderful creatures.”
Nikki Shumaker and Pidgy
Toronto-based Nikki Shumaker, a 38-year-old wellness skilled, provides the pigeon she’s been caring for since March — whom she cycles between calling Pidgy, Hen and Henrietta — a variety of time, care and a focus, regardless that she doesn’t absolutely think about the chicken her personal.
“In fact, I’m a caretaker of it, however I don’t think about it absolutely a pet,” Shumaker instructed The Submit of getting initially saved the struggling squab from a potted plant coated in trash. “I really feel like we’ve a relationship, and I’m actually glad we discovered one another.”
She nonetheless provides the chicken a lifetime of luxurious — having it arrange with three makeshift nests round her room, full with pee pads, and a wide range of crops for perching and pooping.
Within the morning, she additionally frequently takes Pidgy out to benefit from the dawn, the chicken below one arm, her chihuahua Squeaker below the opposite; lets the fowl bathe in her bathe when it prefers (“It appears to know when it wants it”); and does Pilates with it (“It’ll fly from one leg to the opposite,” she famous).
Often, she additionally makes use of her rose quartz gua sha facial software on the chicken, who “appeared extra relaxed than ever” the primary time she tried it.
“This chicken has an awesome life — I really feel like within the subsequent life, I’ll come again as this chicken,” Shumaker joked.
She admitted that not everybody in her life was supportive when she began caring for Pidgy — and that she was turned away by a number of veterinarians/animal clinics earlier than discovering one to present the all-clear on the chicken.
Nevertheless, the wellness professional feels that in terms of pigeons, it’s vital for folks to “see past what they suppose.”
“So many occasions we’ve these misconceptions,” stated Shumaker. “I feel it’s so vital to be taught extra — to be form and compassionate … It’s vital to be educated.”
Rory Langelier | vet scholar and pigeon rehabilitator
Rory Langelier, a seasoned pigeon rehabilitator and second-year veterinary faculty scholar at Canada’s Western Faculty of Veterinary Drugs, wholeheartedly agrees with Lemoine’s reward for pigeon-kind, explaining that the derogatory “rats with wings” descriptor took root in Nineteen Sixties New York.
Round that point, the late NYC Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving first described the birds in that method as blame for spreading instances of human meningitis, reported the West Facet Rag in 2024.
“The (instances) ended up not being related, however the injury to their repute was accomplished, and other people began to see them as soiled pests,” Langelier instructed The Submit. “The time period ‘rats with wings’ was coined, and the remainder is historical past.”
Nevertheless, Langelier — who occurs to personal two of the birds herself — echoed Shumaker and cautioned that pigeon possession is a “large choice” that shouldn’t be taken calmly.
“Good pet homeowners ought to do their due diligence earlier than deciding to undertake,” stated Laneglier, including that pigeons “are an enormous dedication and deserve high quality of life. Though I’d think about them a better pet chicken, they nonetheless want a variety of enrichment and time with their folks.”
