They can deflate their neck and look and function normally (I’ll reblog with a picture of them deflated). All pigeons can fill their neck up with air to make it big and jiggly which is pigeon sex appeal. Voorburgs have been specially bred to be able to really fill up their crop, and they LOVE it! They seem to inflate it just for fun, it also makes them ultra sexy to other pigeons.
The only health problems are them being prone to bacterial infections in their crop (preventatives work just fine to keep this from happening). Sometimes the cocks refuse to deflate when trying to grab something like food or a stick for nesting material but eventually they give in and release the air. The hens don’t get stubborn about keeping their neck inflated as much.
That’s Franklin in the foreground. They have long legs and an upright posture but other than that pretty normal pigeon shape.
And there he is puffing up. They can inflate and deflate very rapidly!
You can kind of see it happen in the video I posted previously 😊
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 