Mysterious squab death

[LamarshFish]

I came to my loft yesterday mornign to see one of a pair of two about 3 week old squabs (almost fully feathered) dead. No signs of being physically injured, just cold dead. Looked fine the day before. It's clutch made seems perfectly healthy.

Anybody ever have an inexplicable death like this?

 

[Hokum Coco]

Anybody ever have an inexplicable death like this?

I had one about 4 days ago it was a single hatch squab (second egg was infertile). Was getting excellent care died shortly after it's eyes opened 4 or 5 days old. Some times it is just a poor mix of genes. I have to admit though at to 3+- weeks of age it is most unusual without some sort of predator involved. Wish I could give more insight.

 

[MissChick@dee]

Lamar I don’t have pigeons but there may be others here that do. My suggestions so others can help (their going to ask) photos of your setup. What do you feed? How many do you keep? A history of information helps others to answer your questions. Good luck. I’m sorry for your loss. It just adds to the heartache when you just don’t know “why”. I hope you get some answers.

 

[JackBaker]

The fact that they were nest mates points me to think either there was some sort of struggle with rearing from the parents e.g. they became uninterested or too stressed to feed. Or a lethal gene was expressed from this pair. A lethal gene normally has the infant dying in the egg but can sometimes cause them to die later on in life too. If that is the case I would not breed from this pair again as they will both be carriers. That being said, if this pair has had healthy young before I would just put it down to an unfortunate circumstance. The best thing you can do in this case is to remove all the grit and minerals and treat the birds with a cocci and canker treatment as well as an immune booster to make sure. Then once the course is finished but all the grit and minerals back.

 

[jak2002003]

Sorry that happened.

The other posters advise all seems good. I would just add that you might want to check inside the squabs beak / throat to check that there are no signs of canker. Also feel if the squabs crop was empty or rock hard full of undigested food.

 

[LamarshFish]

I buried the dead one right away. I'll give a close look at its nest mate, but it seems perfectly healthy. All else seems fine in my loft. This pair has raised many squab successfully before, but never two at once, so that may be it. They usually only have one egg that hatches, other does not, and this was the first time they had raised two, yet one died at around 3 weeks. Thoughts?

 

[Hokum Coco]

one died at around 3 weeks. Thoughts?

At three weeks it is a good idea to have a dish of seeds and water if practical in the nesting area to get them acquainted with fending for themselves.
As far as my thoughts on the matter I would be thinking it was attacked in some form personally. It may have just got a bad mix of genes as I had mentioned before on this post.

Was it dwarfed in any way and may have been dominated to death by the stronger squab?

 

[JackBaker]

I buried the dead one right away. I'll give a close look at its nest mate, but it seems perfectly healthy. All else seems fine in my loft. This pair has raised many squab successfully before, but never two at once, so that may be it. They usually only have one egg that hatches, other does not, and this was the first time they had raised two, yet one died at around 3 weeks. Thoughts?

Sorry I thought you meant they had both died. It's very peculiar that they only ever hatch out one egg and not both. I would have thought, considering they have reared chicks in the past that they would be experienced enough to be able to raise two by now. Usually a new pair can struggle to raise both chicks in their first nest, yet once the first nest is out of the way they are usually experienced enough to raise two chicks in the next nest. Weather that be next brood or next year. I would definitely treat for cocci if I was you. Also what food do you feed? does it have enough large seeds like beans and peas. The youngster at 3 weeks old should have been learning to eat on its own by now so it is a very strange time for it to just die on you. What type of grit and minerals do you have down? Sometimes of the quality is not good enough the parents will sacrifice one chick in order to save the other. Lastly it may be worth you taking away one of their eggs and seeing if another pair can raise it for you whilst they raise the other chick, with you saying one egg usually doesn't hatch it could be something to do with a sex linked gene that is killing the young!As pigeons and doves are more likely to produce a hen and a cock in the nest (although it is not always the case). A sex linked gene that was lethal would only kill the gender it was attached to, so perhaps for example this pair can not have any female young survive.

I really hope this helped and I hope you can get to the bottom of this. Good luck.

 

[thinkyesi]

Ive had this happen a few times. Ive learned that some pairs just dont so well feeding and caring for too squabs, but are great with just one squab only. They are disinterested in one squab and just stop feeding it. Other cases ive seen is that the smaller squab sometimes doesnt fight to be feed as much as the older squab and starts to not try to get fed as much and even starts refusing to eat from the parents. I dont know why they do that. Maybe this is what happened or couldve just been a bad gene in the squab. Wish you the best though.