Adult pigeon pecking baby pigon - why?

[Jeanette56]

I have one pair of week old pigeons. Today another pair of parents with eggs began pecking one of them enough to draw blood. I have not had anything like this happen before and I'm not sure what to do. Any help or advice would be welcome.

 

[Faith SL]

I have heard of young pigeons being attacked or scalped in the loft when they are old enough to have grown feathers and start exploring, but never at just a week of age... did they somehow fall out of the nest, are their parents not protecting them in the nest or is their nest in a bad location? Usually baby pigeons are safer when the parents are given a nest box or specialized compartment with a nest bowl placed in it - this way the baby pigeons have little chance of falling out and the parents can protect their nesting location. If the nest is in a bad spot where other pigeons can easily pick on the young, depending on where it is you could try to place a partial barrier around the nest to create a sort of shelter to provide privacy and safety from other aggressive birds in the loft.

If the nest is on the floor, you could try cutting out one or two sides of a strong cardboard box and placing it around/over the nest to try and help shelter them a little. With introducing any protective barrier such as this, you must closely watch the parents and make sure they are okay with the sudden change in environment around their nest. Keep an eye on them closely for a couple of days and make sure they continue sitting on their young and feeding their young like they should - if they do not resume their usual nesting duties within about 30-40 minutes of change (or less if the temperature is colder outside) remove any barrier and return the nest and all surroundings to their original state.

You mentioned the other pair of pigeons which are terrorizing the young have eggs of their own. Is this pair's nest too close to the other nest with the young pigeons? If so the pair with eggs is simply being territorial and trying to defend their nesting area from any other birds or their young which they view as 'intruders'. If this is the case, you might try securely placing a board or piece of cardboard between the two nests as a divider to give each of the separate pairs of pigeons privacy around their nest so they feel safe and cannot see or annoy each other while in the nest.

I would not recommend moving the nest and young if you wish for the parents to continue feeding them, as it is extremely difficult to successfully do and sometimes not possible to adjust the parents to the new nest location. The parents are already tuned in to the original coordinates of their nest and would not naturally recognize where their young have been moved to elsewhere in the loft.

For pigeons with head injuries or pecking/scalping injuries, I have had great results with sanitizing the area by gently wiping it with a small antiseptic alcohol pad and then smearing a little zinc oxide ointment or triple antibiotic ointment (with zinc in it) onto the damaged area. Continue to smear ointment onto the damaged area whenever the ointment gets rubbed off until the wound has finished scabbing over and is for the most part healed.

The parents should continue feeding their young if the baby pigeons have not been injured on the head too badly - a little spot on the head which they have been picked on should not discourage the parents from feeding the young if they are still otherwise healthy and energetic. Try to remedy their nesting situation in a way that the parents will accept it and things should be okay afterwards. If there is a very large spot on their head which has been damaged however, then the parents could very well get discouraged from feeding the young and the young might not even have the strength to pull through depending on the extent of the head injury.

If you do find yourself needing to hand feed these babies to keep them going, a fairly simple and easy way is to buy and use the Kaytee hand feeding formula (meant for parrots and such, but it has a fairly balanced nutrition for baby pigeons and will work) and mix according to directions, making sure the formula is warm like baby food but not hot to the wrist. Then to feed them, another easy method is to acquire a large medical catheter syringe (such as a plastic 60ml Kendall catheter syringe) and cut off the whole front part of the syringe towards the tip. Scoop the food into the syringe and cover the cut part of it with a medium-thick piece of cloth or paper towel rubber banded to the syringe. Cut a small x in the middle of the cloth/paper to serve as a feeding hole large enough for the pigeons to comfortably get their beaks in there and then try to gently coax the baby pigeon(s) to place their beaks into the hole and eat while you are holding the syringe of food up for them and slowly depressing the syringe to push the food to them as they eat. Feed until their crops are nicely rounded and baggy but not too tight and over full of food, and feed again when their crops empty most of the way. Don't forget to mix in a small pinch of grit to 1/2 of their feedings to begin to build up a small amount of grit for when they get older and begin to eat grains and seeds on their own. There are also other hand-feeding methods, but some can be a little more difficult.

I apologize if my hand-feeding directions are hard to understand, I am so tired right now!

Here are a couple of links to hopefully clarify how to hand feed baby pigeons:

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f108/various-methods-to-feed-young-squabs-9682.html

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/165797594SYYRWL (View individual photos and read the photo descriptions for a walk-through of how to use the syringe-feeding method)

(Gives an example of how the hand feeding is done)


Hope this helps

Faith

 

[Faith SL]

I actually prefer having most of my pigeons breed and nest in open lofts so as to give them more space and free run of the loft, as they are much happier this way. I closely monitor my birds and know their personality and temperament. I will check on them often and watch them to make sure everyone is getting along, no pairs show any signs of cheating on their mates with another bird, and I will make sure that the pigeons can live in a peaceful environment with no stressful and troubling bully pigeons or other problems. The breeding lofts are also never overcrowded and each pair also has a large compartment to fully claim as their own territory and nest in. 95% of the time scalping occurs in breeding/nesting/fostering lofts with overly aggressive pigeons or in lofts which are too crowded or do not have a very good setup.

I have had two problems with scalping, but they were both from predator attacks (lucky pigeons, both of them survived and are living happily now) and not from other pigeons in my lofts. I will not stand overly aggressive birds and will re-home them if they are the main problem. There was another instance which almost became a scalping problem - a young Parlor Tumbler pigeon being cared for by Homing pigeon fosters fell out of their large nesting compartment onto the lower platform entrance of another nesting compartment while trying to explore. The parents of that compartment chased the young Tumbler around in the compartment for however many hours and pecked off most of the feathers on the top of his head, but no blood was drawn and no one was otherwise injured save for a terrified young Tumbler. That was my fault, and I should have removed the Tumbler from the fosters a couple of days sooner before he had the urge to explore too far out.

My point is, open lofts are not always a bad thing and if they are setup well, not crowded and the pairs of pigeons are monitored, your birds can usually be much happier in a harmonious open loft than a closed loft (besides some breeds of pigeons who do better in smaller spaces anyway).

 

[jak2002003]

I sometimes had this problem.. An aggressive male pigeon would go into other pairs nest boxes and try to kill their squabs.

Now I keep each pair in their own cage when they are raising young... and let them all out again when they have finished.

Its much safer!

Then can raise their squabs in peace.. and I also have control over the parents of the young. I can put special food in the cages to help with the squabs growth.. and its good to keep a close eye of everything.

If you don't block off the nest box from the more aggressive birds then they will eventually find at opportunity to get in an injure the squabs.. or even kill them.

Maybe you can simply cover the front of the nest box with some chicken wire and put food and water in there.. keep the pigeon family in there until the squabs are feeding themselves. Then take off the wire. Good luck.

 

[Hokum Coco]

I lost 15 squabs. last one was yesterday 30 days old one more week he would have left the nest.

For some reason I doubt it is a pigeon problem. I am thinking a predator mostly likely rats from what you described.

 

[biophiliac]

Hey,faith I recently saw two pigeons fighting with baby pigeons,so I thought to clear the nest and replace the nest to another site but i think I had mistakenly took the baby pigeons away from there parents as they were trying to feed them which I thought was fighting. What should I do now

Now you should give the babies back to the parents. How old are they?

 

[ThiefPouter06]

Its called scalping. Pigeons have a natural instinct to kill babies that fall out of the nest. Perhaps the squeaking baby on the ground draws predators. In the loft babies that end up on the floor, in the wrong nest or parents that invade anothers nest can get scalped. Not much you can do. They can be saved if they are old enough to hand feed. Nest fronts are very important. And no nests on the floor.

 

[ThiefPouter06]

Pigeons can be a balancing act in an open loft. I have found also that if a pair lives for a while by thereselves they can have trouble accepting new pairs as they claim the whole loft. I have scalping of all ages (pouters are not good for the open loft). I have even had an adult scalped.

 

[Hokum Coco]

some parents abandon or stop feeding scalped babies. I have had some scalp their own when I cleaned the nest box before weaning. Unfortunately its apart of the hobby, some breeds are more territorial than others. GOOD POST TOTALLY AGREE !!!

This is something I learned the hard way ALSO. No matter how messy a pigeon nest gets just leave well enough alone. After all it is only 5 to 6 weeks and they are home free and able to fend for themselves.

 

[laughingdog]

Odd one out.. So to speak. Rest paired up and have territories, n this one no one to help keep territory/nest etc inside. Pigeons always do best kept in even numbers.