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🍗 Giant Runt

Pigeons & Doves · breed reference

THE LARGEST PIGEON ON EARTH — nearly three pounds — named “Runt” (the misnomer arc's best entry; the name is an old English word for a big domestic pigeon, not a joke). The Romans fattened its ancestors in purpose-built towers. A slow, deliberate breeder: fewer rounds a year and clumsy on the nest, so squab plants crossed it into faster breeds rather than running it pure. Kept today as the fancy's heavyweight.