Help!!! Scalped Baby!!!

[muscovy94]

EVERYONE PLEASE HELP. i got home today to sadly find the only baby pigeon left badly scalped with blood everywhere and probably no hope of her eye ever getting better and when I found her she was starting to get cold because the parents weren't on her. PLease give me instructions on how to hand feed her and what i can feed her. I live in vicksburg mississippi and no store in vicksburg sells baby bird food that you can use to hand feed. so is there anything else I can feed her? like wet chick feed or something? please help. her crop isn't full at all.

 

[Mary Of Exeter]

Do you have any pet stores around you? Most pet stores have kaytee extact baby bird formula. If not, you can use corn meal, or ground up feed/pellets, with warm water. Adding some plain natural/organic yogurt would be great too.

Here's some threads on hand feeding. It's also good to clean the baby up, get it on a heating pad (if you plan on bringing it indoors to finish raising yourself), and put some neosporin on its head to keep infection away.
http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f25/various-methods-to-feed-young-squabs-9682.html
http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f25/macmilk-crop-milk-substitute-15236.html
http://www.internationaldovesociety.com/Recipes/handfeedinghelp.htm

 

[Mary Of Exeter]

Also, how old is the bird?

 

[muscovy94]

She is 3 days old. The only pet store we have here is a pet shop / antique shop and all they have are goldfish and hamsters. I have baby chick starter and adult laying pellets. could anyone of those work?

 

[Mary Of Exeter]

Alrighty. The chick starter would probably work best for mushing into a pet paste for the baby to eat. Another thing I added to my handmade formula was plain oatmeal (we didn't have chicks at the time, so I didn't have many options). If you happen to have a syringe around the house, you can take the needle and plunger out, fill with the food, and gently push the beak into the larger end. This is what I usually do, and if they are hungry, they eat. In that sense, it is good the bird is so young. Older babies who are used to being fed by their parents, can be tougher to get adjusted to syringes and such.

 

[muscovy94]

Ok, so how does chick starter, plain yogurt, oatmeal, and water all mixed together sound? that be good?

 

[larrylofts]

If You Can Remove The Other Birds From The Pen Or Seperate The Parents And Baby And See If The Parents Will Take Care Of It I Grind Chick Starter With A Coffe Bean Grinder So It Is A Powder At Three Days Old A Slur With Mostly Water Warmed Will Do Has It Gets Older More Feed If The Crop Is Hard You Need To Add More Water To The Mix Good Luck On Raiseing One That Young

 

[balderman2002]

I have raised pigeons for about 22 years. In my experience if you can find the culprit remove it, and most of the time the parents will still care for the baby and it's head will eventually heal. I have hand fed some scalped birds the kaytee handfeeding formula works great. I always keep some on hand, keep it in the freezer until you need it, then put it back, even if it is expired if it's in the freezer it's ok. [email protected]

 

[darkfur]

I'm handfeeding at the moment one who fell out of the nest and whose parents wouldn't accept it back. It's a pain in the butt frankly, but I'm too soft to let it die. I use a large gauge crop needle and kaytee. My top tip is to make sure there's lots of absorbent bedding (unbleached paper towels will be good) under it because they do one heck of a lot of poop. Yours is going to need feeding every 3 hours or so (feel if the crop is empty). Feed heated to 41 degrees C whatever that is in F sorry. What some people do is chop the end off a syringe and slip the tip of a finger cut off a latex glove over it then cut a slit in the tip of the finger. You put the food in the back of the syringe, replace the plunger and slip the bird's beak into the glove slit. This is supposed to be more like how they naturally feed. It will slow down eating as it fills up. Remember how full babies look when their parents do it and aim for that. It takes a long time which is why I am using a crop needle but crop needles can be dangerous if you haven't used one before. My squab is currently living in a cheap plastic aquarium inside a brooder - this is hard for him to leap out of. I keep telling him jumping out was how he got into trouble in the first place but he's not a good listener.