This week we're talking conspiracy theories and pigeon milk.

This week I've been inspired by reading about pigeons, which are a lot cooler and more secretive than most people think...
We've all seen pigeons in towns or in our gardens but did you know that pigeons are hiding a secret? Ask anyone where milk comes from and they'll tell you that milk is produced by mammals to feed their babies. Mammals are warm-blooded, furry animals with nipples - which is where their milk comes from. Humans are mammals, cats and dogs are mammals and cows are mammals. We usually think of cows when we think of milk as this is where most of the milk we use every day comes from. BUT this whole time pigeons have been keeping a milky secret from us... PIGEONS MAKE MILK TOO. No joke. You heard it here first. Pigeon milk. Yup. I know what you're thinking, pigeons don't
have nipples. That's true, there are no secret pigeon nipples. Pigeons have an organ called a crop, part of their digestive system that they usually use to store food, however, when pigeons are incubating eggs the crop starts to produce SNEAKY SECRET PIGEON MILK.  So how and why have pigeons kept their milk a secret for so long? Why isn't pigeon milk available in the supermarket? As it turns out this might be for a good reason... Crop milk isn't a liquid like mammalian milk, actually, it isn't much like mammalian milk at all. Crop milk is a thick, fatty substance full of proteins and bird immune cells to make sure chicks grow up big and strong and are able to fight disease - great for baby birds, not so good on cornflakes.




For more about pigeon milk click here
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- Sarah 😀💚🐦