URGENT PLEASE HELP

[birdking11]

thats crazy ive never heard of such a thing

 

[jak2002003]

What is crazy?

 

[jak2002003]

UPDATE!

Wow things have really improved with the smaller chick! The last couple of days NO AIR in the crop!!! But after the air problem it got SLOW CROP!

However, after a couple of small feeds with my home make apple puree (thanks for recommending apple sauce Faith), its back on track and doing very well - gaining weight and catching up to the larger chick.

Today I was delighted to see them both flapping their wings and the bigger one can jump and flap out of the box! I put a bowl of seed down on the table and after I refused to feed them - to my delight they both started pecking and swallowing seed on their own!!! WOW WOW WOW!

I have reduced the feeding times to only 3 a day - as much as they seem eager to eat each time. Now careful not to overfill their corps.

I was not attached to them at first - but now they see me as mummy and will slap me with a wing to get food - so cute. Its been 8 days since I rescued them. Hope things carry on so well. I could not have done this without all the helpful advise.

I even gave them names now. The small runty one is called vulture - as it is bald - I think it must have been scalped while in the nest. The bigger one is called Jet - because it is all black.

 

[Faith SL]

This is wonderful news!

I am so glad to hear that they are growing happily and that the smaller one is doing so much better!! Looks like it wasn't a sickness after all, thank goodness.

Baby pigeons are so cute, and when hand fed can become much more tame and act calmer when around people. In a loft with a bunch of baby pigeons being raised, it is safe to say that the youngsters can usually be separated from the parents and thoroughly weaned from baby food a day or two after the under-sides if their wings are completely covered over in feathers. They are placed in a loft or safe area with no other pigeons or only a couple pigeons which are very docile and nice mannered. This allows them to learn how to eat, drink and hover around the loft for at least a week without the presence of larger and more aggressive pigeons bullying them while they are trying to learn.

When hand-feeding baby pigeons however, I personally prefer to feed them for a couple of days, if not over a week after the under side of their wings are feathered due to the fact that they did not receive crop milk from the parents and probably not as much nutrition tailored to their needs in their early days of baby growth. I have heard from others that if you continue hand-feeding a young pigeon into it's later stages of maturing and even adulthood, it will continue to eat the food formula and rely on the person feeding it for most of it's food intake. In my experience this rumor has turned out to be a myth, as any baby pigeon I have been hand feeding loses interest in the food formula anyway about a week after the undersides of his/her wings are fully feathered over and naturally switches to grain food.

What do you plan on doing when they become adults - are you going to continue keeping them as pets or ?

Faith

 

[jak2002003]

I will keep them as pets in my garden. In the UK I used to keep white racing homers and now I moved to Asia I miss them very much. So I can now have these 2 guys! I will make them a wooden box and attach it to my house wall, so they can roost in there.

I also keep Japanese Bantams, Ringneck doves, diamond doves, zebra doves, Gouldian Finches and Chinese painted qualis - I LOVE MY BIRDS!

The older chick is loosing interest in the formula food like you said. He eats less than the smaller one and I have seen him eating a few seeds on his own. The next step it to teach them to drink! Once they are eating seed and drinking I can relax! Now I feed them only 2 times a day.

Do I need to give them grit now as they are starting to eat hard seeds? Do I mix it with the formula or give it in a dish? Can they digest the hard seed OK if they don't eat a lot of grit at first? I am worried about them getting the seed blocking up their crops.

Thanks

 

[Faith SL]

I am very happy to hear that they will be set up in a great home under your care - those two little pigeon squeakers are very lucky birds to be rescued, fed and given a place to stay. Thank you so much for being so kind to them and for accepting them into your home!

Pigeon squeakers eventually start to gain interest in grit if placed in an accessible dish for them, but usually after a week or two of going off of formula food. Parent pigeons consume more grit while feeding young and begin feeding the babies grit along with the food formula more and more as the young pigeons begin to be fed more grains than crop milk. Adding a pinch of grit to the food formula would be very beneficial, if the grit won't plug up the syringe/feeding instrument you are using. If feeding them grit mixed with the formula is not an option, I usually will take a very small pinch of grit, gently open the squeaker's beak and try to place the grit at the back of the pigeon's throat so he/she will swallow it. When using this method I will make sure the pigeon successfully swallows at least 10 small pieces of grit per day for 3-4 days to give it a head-start when switching over to grain feed. Also mix some grit in with the free-choice grains for them to pick at if they wish or offer it in a separate bowl. Placing a dish of water in for them and occasionally swishing your fingers in it to ripple the surface should get them interested - they will drink when they feel thirst and are ready to drink on their own. In a week or two they will be having fun splashing around in the water and taking a bath!

I don't know how baby pigeon's will manage digesting grain feeds without grit, as I have never allowed baby pigeons here to go without. I suppose the youngsters would make it through okay, but possibly with an initially slower and poorer digestion with the absence of grit. Pigeons have natural digestive 'juices' in their crop which helps break down foods, but grit acts as the bird's 'teeth' in that it helps to grind up hard grains initially. Some grit also provides a certain amount of minerals and such, can be important to a pigeon's young stages of life.

Good luck with them!

Faith

 

[jak2002003]

I will mix a small amount of grit and oyster shell grit in their feed. I am feeding them chick started food with some mynah bird pellets mixed in. I then add cold water and mix, then leave the food to soak over night in the fridge and then heat it up in portions to feed them as needed the next day.

I feed them using a plastic bag with a hole cut in one corner for them to put their beaks into it. They love it and its not too messy and the hole is only big enough for their beaks to get in.

I will now start adding seeds to that mix. Leaving in overnight in the fridge will help the seed get softer too.

Today both chicks were jumping about flapping their wings. They can both jump out of the box now and the smaller one is the boss - always pushing the bigger one out of the way!

 

[Faith SL]

Interesting, I have never tried making a pigeon hand-feeding formula out of the ingredients you mentioned. I have mixed up many different types of baby pigeon food in the past as well as used the Kaytee Exact hand-feeding formula or Harrison's Neonate hand-feeding formula (more for Psittacines and similar birds, but it also works for pigeons), and if mixed carefully as they should be they all seem to do the job. Do you mind my asking what brand of chick starter food and what brand/type of Mynah bird pellets you are using? And also, how much Mynah pellets do you add to the chick feed - 1/4 Mynah pellets in 3/4 chick feed or ?

Reason being on another forum I try and help give people who have found a baby pigeon directions of how to care for it and mix up formula food. Sometimes they live in other countries and have very limited options as to what they can find locally to use in a food mixture, so every recipe I can log down which has been successfully used just might help someone save the life of a baby pigeon in a crisis of finding local or on-hand ingredients for food.

Thank you

Faith

 

[jak2002003]

I had to make my own food for them as I live in Northern Thailand in a rural village and there was no way I could get any kaytee bird food (never seen it in this country).

I guessed that the chick started food would be OK as its got everything young chicks need to grow. The mynah bird pellets seemed to have good ingredients in them like powdered eggs and corn plus they had added vitamins and minerals. They are called 'thunderbird' mynah bird pellets. The rest of the information on the bag is written in Chinese and Thai.

The chick food is no particular brand. Just some none medicated chick food I buy from the market. The mynah bird pellets are also not branded - they are sold in small or large clear plastic bags. They are small pea sized pellets that are red colour.

My friend recommended I use them as he hand rears songbirds called red vented bulbuls - and he sells them to the pet shops.

I mix the dry chick food with cold water so its like porridge. Then stir in about a desert spoon full of the pellets. Leave the lot overnight in the fridge. In the morning its gone quite thick, so I add more cold water to make it the right consistency, then microwave a portion of it for 1 minute. Then spoon it into the plastic bag to feed them.

If any of the heated portion is not eaten - I feed it to my chickens or throw it away. I never re heat it! But the big portion in the fridge will last me up to 4 feedings before I have to make some more.

I also hand feed a few soaked mynah bird pellets if they still seem hungry after the formula, but popping them into their beaks. They seem to really like them.

 

[sourland]

Jak, well done!