raising a short faced pigeon from hatch?

[biophiliac]

currently my hands are supposedly 68F or 20C a bit colder than the 37 C hes sleeping in

Don't worry too much about that I think. They must be quite strong to survive. Perhaps use small squares of fleece to hold him if it takes a long time?
Sweet dreams little bird.

 

[tacothechicken]

sounds good. he woke up once around 8 and seemed restless I gave him approximately .5ml from a feeding cup and he settled right down to sleep!

 

[tacothechicken]

the small one woke up pooped and ate and slept so its looking like well be going at 2hr food intervals based one times so far

 

[tacothechicken]

well we made it through the night, baby woke up wanting a drop or two of food almost exactly on the 2hr dot all through the night. his face is so small I literally cant put it in his mouth so were going with the sucking method rather than gullet it seems. tiny also decided it refused to settle down unless weighted with cotton, so its 'mother pigeon' is now a palm sized wad of cotton o-o.

 

[tacothechicken]

Well i called out of work :/ thought I could pull it off, but baby was definitely not pleased being out of the warm incubator even with a heat pad and snuggled by cotton. Looks like I'll just wait a few days before he has a but more substance to him and bring him in on Thursday. Also I managed to lose my smallest feeding tube this morning as I cleaned it, dropped it, and then apparently managed to not put it in a pocket or on a counter luckily the chicks preferred feeding method is mouthing food off my finger and its getting the hang of the feeding cup so hopefully he'll put on a little side and I'll just jump it up to the next tube size. On another note the baby has been showcasing some blinking!! So obviously hes got enough sustenance to at least maintain basic development as I believe they start opening on day 3 no?

 

[tacothechicken]

Got a good few mouthfuls in just now and now we're back to sleeping. Luckily it appears the baby only wakes up to eat and poop so it's a good sign of when to feed. Went an HR 1/2 just now as he had a late meal at 8:15 but only a few drops, versus the 6 mouthfuls we just got in. Hopefully this means his eating rate and serving amounts are increasing properly as what I saw seemed to increase 1ml each day through day 1-3. I am a little worried over the exact mix though, it's a bit more watery that the yogurt he got dosed with his first 3 meals and it shows in his poop. Is it ok to increase feed density or no seeing how the exact isn't as smooth as yogurt in the first place?

 

[tacothechicken]

Gonna get out the scale and see what we weigh...6 grams according to my scale

 

[tacothechicken]

Put on enough size and food that I can actually make out the crop! It's got food but is soft and malleable not solid just as it should be so we're looking good

 

[tacothechicken]

End of day one. Baby did just fine although we ended up needing hr feeding rather than two hourly due to lacking proper tube feeding to assure maximum intake and babies general wrigglyness. But baby has already shown signs of blinking and a slowly expanding crop to take more feed. I suspect the 1 ml is more a estimate based on a standard pigeon rather than a midget like a figurita. From what I saw baby took approximately a 1/4 ml post hatch reaching about 1ml by late morning and by this evening was gulping probably just over a ml to 1.5ml. Which is around half to 2/3rds the estimate on a small standard pigeon chick at day 2 soI suspect it's more a size in general thing than a struggling to eat thing. Baby has a full crop after feeding just now, and it looks like I'll be able to settle into a 2hr feeding shift again for the evening.

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

Got busy doing last minute Christmas shopping these past few days and forgot to check in .. YOU HAD A BABY

S/he seems to be doing well I’m happy to be able to see the complete process and notes you have here! Are you going to follow up until it’s all grown up/“flown the nest”? Hope the 2 hour interval feedings aren’t kicking you in the rear too much