Pigeon with no mother!

I found a pigeon egg in my loft the other day that was laid by a female who already had a older baby she was still caring for. She didn't make any attempt to incubate it so after a few days I decided to bring it inside and put it in an incubator. I know that when it hatches it needs to be fed special food from its mother. I'm planing to put it back under the female when it hatches and watch to see if she will still take care of it. But if she doesn't accept it, do any of you know what I can do to feed it until it can eat regular pigeon food?

coconut120000 said:

I'm planing to put it back under the female when it hatches and watch to see if she will still take care of it. But if she doesn't accept it, do any of you know what I can do to feed it until it can eat regular pigeon food?

Click to expand...

If you are forced to hand feed a day old squab the odds are against you right off the bat. However that being said LyrebirdJacki a back yard member beat the odds raising a day old squab. I would private message her she has a 50% success rate in this challenge and that is a good as it gets as far as I am concerned.

Foster parents are your best option. Your next best approach is to adopt the same method as feeding parrots. They have a formula you can purchase to feed parrots.

Good luck buddy most pigeon fancier would NOT attempted what you are doing it usually ends badly.

Here are a few links that may give you some insight:



Here is another link which shows you an assortment of hand feeding methods you may try if your doves surrvive the first week.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=handfeeding+pigeon+squabs

coconut120000 said:

I found a pigeon egg in my loft the other day that was laid by a female who already had a older baby she was still caring for. She didn't make any attempt to incubate it so after a few days I decided to bring it inside and put it in an incubator. I know that when it hatches it needs to be fed special food from its mother. I'm planing to put it back under the female when it hatches and watch to see if she will still take care of it. But if she doesn't accept it, do any of you know what I can do to feed it until it can eat regular pigeon food?

Click to expand...

Chances are the egg is infertile... that is why it did not hatch.

Pigeons nearly always have 2 eggs... and as you see your female only has one squab.. its likely this unhatched egg is infertile.

Please don't try to hatch it... because, as the above poster says, squabs that are hand raised will die.. well 90 percent of the time... and if it does survive it will be weak and stunted.. with a low immune system... because they get the immunity from their pigeons parents crop milk.

Also you can not put it back with the mother... she will have finished nesting and raising her squab by then and will be either laying more eggs or off to have a rest.

She will not accept a squab at this time.. and will kill it.

The pigeon that is being raised by the parents is from the mothers first batch, but then she laid two more(the ones she didn't take care of) that I put in the incubator. I candled them and threw one out because it was unfertilized but the remaining one had blood veins, and now is almost ready to hatch.
Thank you so much for the help!

Why did you take the eggs? She would have hatched them out herself.

Good luck raising the squab... you are going to need it.....

coconut120000 said:

I found a pigeon egg in my loft the other day that was laid by a female who already had a older baby she was still caring for. She didn't make any attempt to incubate it so after a few days I decided to bring it inside and put it in an incubator. I know that when it hatches it needs to be fed special food from its mother. I'm planing to put it back under the female when it hatches and watch to see if she will still take care of it. But if she doesn't accept it, do any of you know what I can do to feed it until it can eat regular pigeon food?

Click to expand...

I once Found a cowbird that the mother kept throughing out of the nest so soon I just took it in along with the other 2 that were thrown out of the nest and I fed them chick food ground up from a syringe and 2 died and the other one lived 3 years it only died because we moved and it got stressed out. I would hatch it or at least try!