Diamond Doves

Overview

Diamond doves are the smallest breed of doves. Originating from Australia, they are used to warm temperatures since they live in desert areas and should be kept indoors during winter.

Temperament and interaction

Personality

Diamond doves are very social birds and need to be kept in pairs; you can keep a pair regardless of the sex of both individuals. They are also more skittish than other kinds of doves like ringneck doves, and their coos are less loud than theirs.

Differences between male and females

When they aren't adults, it can be tricky to tell if a diamond dove is either male or female. To do so, you can only rely on DNA testing.

This isn't the case with adult ones. The best and easiest method to tell a male from a female is to watch the red eye rings they have. If they are big and red, it's a male, but if they are small and paler/more orange, it's a female.

Taming and trust building

Taming requires patience and consistency, especially with this species. They are rarely “cuddly” birds but can become comfortable with their caretaker if you show patience, love, and understand their behaviors. You can try taming your doves by offering them treats by hand: seeds or millet sprays.

At first, the best way to let them approach you is by offering the seeds in your hand flat totally unmoving as a slight movement can scare them away. Once they learn to eat from your still hand you can try moving your hand very lightly while watching their behaviors for any signs of fear and work your way up this way.

Hormonal and breeding behaviors

A pair of diamond doves may display courting or breeding behaviors, especially mated doves.

This is why you must provide a nest if you have a female, as well as thin nesting material like coco fiber; not providing any can make your female dove egg-bound, which can be dangerous for her.

Nest building is also a big part of enrichment for doves and a bonding experience for your pair.

However, if you happen to only have a single dove, you may encounter issues. Your pet may see you as a mate, which you must absolutely not encourage so as not to frustrate your dove. If you see any signs of hormonal behavior (putting the tail up, wings twitching), you must ignore them and stop any interaction until your bird has cooled down.

If you own a female, she will lay a clutch of 2 eggs every month or so, even when no males are around.

With a bonded male/female pair, you will usually notice several phases that happens all year around:

1. Courting and mating: The male dove is going to follow the female around and bow coo to her. They will look for a nest, do nest calls, and mate. During this period, you may see an increasing level of driving behavior, which is described in a section below. You must ensure that your doves have access to a calcium source during that time.

2. Egg laying: Both male and female will be busy "upgrading" their nest with nesting materials. It's the best time for you to scatter some materials around the cage and see how they choose, pick, and place the material in their nests. The female will then lay her first egg in the nest, and the second one 24 to 48 hours later. During this period, they usually won't sit on the eggs.

3. Egg sitting: For a period of 2 to 3 weeks, both doves will sit in the nest. They will usually relay each other, giving each other the opportunity to feed and roam around while the other is sitting on the eggs.

⚠️ Note

Once both eggs are laid, you can wait a day or two before replacing the real eggs with fake ones. To ensure the eggs aren't fertile, you can freeze them for an hour. We do not encourage people to breed their birds since breeding demands a very thorough understanding of your pet's needs and requires you to be able to make strong decisions if something bad happens, like a baby bird being born deformed.

Sometimes, the male will drive the female back to the nest when it's her turn. Note that your birds won't poop inside their nests to keep them clean and will make a "nest poop" once their egg-sitting turn is over, which is significantly bigger (and smellier) than regular poops but isn't an indication of illness.

1. Abandonment of the fake eggs: After a period of several weeks, you may notice both of your birds sitting together in the nest. Then, a few days later, they will stop sitting in the nest and start the cycle again. You can remove the fake eggs at this time.

If your birds are laying to many eggs or are abandonning the eggs too quickly, it's a strong indication that something in their setup is wrong. Some diamond doves abandon the fake eggs if they believe it's fake. This is why it's important to wait a few days before switching the real eggs for fake ones.

Understanding your diamond doves

Driving behavior

When you have a pair of doves, you may see one chase the other around. Males are usually the ones doing so. You will see them follow, push, or peck the other bird until they go to a specific place.

This behavior is normal and shouldn't be interrupted unless the bird displays full-on aggression, like making the other bleed or plucking enough feathers to create bald patches. If your bird displays such behavior, it's likely that there is something wrong in your setup or that it is a husbandry issue.

Call noise

The call noise is the most common noise you'll hear from your birds. Both males and females can do it, although males tend to do it more.

Your doves usually make this call when calling for another one.

The noise can be described as a soft coo-coo! coo-coocoo!

Alert noise

When a diamond dove is frightened by something like a bird passing by, a sudden loud noise, or movement, they can make an alert call.

As the name suggests, these calls are meant to inform the other birds of potential danger. Usually, you'll see your bird's feathers flat against its body, high on its feet in an alert stance.

The noise can be described as a soft but sharp coo!, repeated several times at small intervals until the potential threat is gone.

Bow cooing

Male diamond doves bow coo to females as a parade. This specific type of cooing is accompanied by the dove putting its head low and displaying its tail feathers like a peacock. If you watch closely, you'll also notice that their pupils retract when they coo.

Nest call

Both sexes of diamond doves can make nest calls. As the name suggests, doves make this specific type of call when they find a place they deem worth making a nest in. Usually, they'll use the nests you place in their cage but can sometimes do it in other seemingly random places.

Nest calls are typically accompanied by wing twitching.

If your doves disregard the real nests and only make nest calls in other places, you may want to investigate the reason; their nest could be placed wrongly or not adapted for them.

The noise can be described as coo-croo!, repeated several times at small intervals.

⚠️ Note

It is important not to encourage hormonal behavior toward humans. If your dove is making a nest call to you, ignore it or place it in a calm space for 10 minutes to cool down.

Nutrition and health

Seed mix

Diamond doves need a seed-based diet. They shouldn't be offered fruit and can only be offered leafy vegetables in very small quantities as a treat.

A high-quality seed mix should form the base of their diet. Unfortunately, there are currently no seed mixes made for diamond doves, so you have to get one targeted either for finches or canaries.

However, canary mixes (and some finch mixes) are usually significantly fattier than mixes for columbiformes, so you need to search for one that follows this composition:

Composition	Percentage (minimum to max)
Protein	13% to 16%
Fat	3% to 5%
Fiber	7% or less

Moreover, it's important to complete the seed mix by adding at least one type of rice and one type of small lentils to it if there's not enough variety.

For more informations, you can consult our guides on the subjects.

Grit and minerals

Grit is an essential part of your doves' diet and should be available at all times. However, you need to give them appropriate, digestible grit with redstone and soluble minerals and avoid insoluble gravel or sand-based grits, or poultry or parrot ones.

To complete the grit, you can add a pigeon vitamin-mineral powder on top of it. Female diamond doves must also have access to a calcium source like oyster shells in order to make sure egg laying goes well.

For more informations, you can consult our guide on the subject.

Cage and space

Diamond doves need horizontal space more than height. A wide enclosure allows short flights and natural movement, which are essential for these agile birds.

Not providing a cage big enough or providing a cage without enrichment can lead your doves to attack each other out of boredom or frustration!

For a pair, the minimum cage size is as follows: 70 cm x 50 cm x 50 cm / 28 x 20 x 20 inches.

Nests and nesting material

If you own a female, you must provide a nest and thin nesting materials; otherwise, it can lead to your dove having egg-laying issues, which in the worst cases can even be fatal.

Several nests are recommended to ensure they find the right one and avoid them laying eggs in inappropriate places like on the ground or inside feeders. When you have several nests up, your doves may switch from one to another after each clutch.

Free roaming

Free-roaming diamond doves contains risks and should always be done under full supervision. They are fast, small, and always find the worst places to hide. When you let your birds free roam, it should always be inside a fully closed, safe room. Never leave your toilet door open, as there have been many sad cases of doves hitting themselves and drowning in it.

Also, you shouldn't let your birds free roam if they are new and not used to you or their environment. Diamond doves are skittish, and their instinct will be to fly straight into your windows, which is both very frightening for them and can be dangerous.

Enrichments

Enrichment is not to be forgotten when setting up your doves' cage. It avoids boredom and other unwanted behaviors like aggression.

Diamond doves are ground feeders and enjoy foraging for seeds. Toys like cat slow feeders or foraging toys are appreciated by them.

Other toys and enrichment include bells, cat balls, nesting material, nest platforms, wooden platforms, swings, fake plants...

Avoid mirrors if you notice any aggression (scratching, pecking) or hormonal behaviors (bow cooing).

Bathing

Unlike other kinds of doves and pigeons, diamond doves must NOT bathe in water.

They are birds that originate from a desert area, and their feathers aren't used to too much water, which could cause issues.

Instead, you must provide them at all times with a fine, but not dusty sand for bathing. Desert terrarium natural sand or playground (clean!) sand can both be correct options.

You might notice your birds pecking at the sand and even eating part of it. While eating too much sand is obviously a bad sign, eating only part of it (minerals) isn't dangerous.

This guide has been written the 13/02/2026. Sharing is allowed, but using informations for selling them is prohibited. Bird care informations should remain accessible for everyone.

For more informations, you can consult our guide on the subject.