baby wood pigeon

I am new and have never been involved with pigeons but i found a baby wood pigeon in my garden yesterday . I have managed to keep it alive over night. I received good advice yesterday but I am very worried about what I am doing. I have so many questions.

Hi Kathy and

How is the little one today? If you weigh him at the same time every day you will be able to check that he is thriving. At one week it should be taking about 15 ml each feed and be feeding every 6 hours.


Please ask as many questions as you want! In the meantine, here is a picture of a baby pigeon with an empty (flat) crop. The crop is resting on the floor:



In this picture his crop is just about full, see how nice and rounded it is:




And this is a baby wood pigeon with a full crop:




Someone very kindly highlighted the crop area in this photo of my little Chico when he was a baby:

The pictures are good i think i need to feed it abit more. last night the crop did look full. thank you kathy

Here are a few photos of baby woodies which I hope will help age him:

1.


2.

3.



4.



5.

Hi Kathy,

What are you feeding baby on? I have some hand rearing formula I can send you if needed. Let me know if I can be of any help.

Janet

Janet, I am hoping that as you and Kathy live quite close to each other you might be able to have a look at the baby, demonstrate how to feed and how much it should be getting. At the moment it is being fed on the soaked chick crumbs diet, which is ideal for woodies.

I was wondering how near Kathy lives.
It's such bad timing as I'm carless until tomorrow then in Leeds until Friday, so can't get to her at the moment. Just hoping she can perhaps post a picture maybe to give us a better idea on age. At least we can guide her through the next few days.

I am still working my way around the forum as i have never used one before. Cynthia thanks for the pics i think my baby pigeon looks similar to the one in pic no. 4. I am still struggling to feed the pigeon but it is taking the food. I feel I have more on it than I do in it. Would i be better using a syringe or dropper and how often should i be feeding it. I am now heading into day 2 and I am still very nervous about this little creature. kathy

It would help to see a picture.
You need to feed the baby every time the crop is empty and so if we can see a picture, we can give you a basic idea of how much each time.

Welcome, by the way. It's very nice to have you jopin our forum.

Hi kathy, I just sent you a reply to your private message, I'll answer you on here aswell so anyone else that has some advice can chip in.
As Charis says, it's important not to feed again until the crop feels empty. I generally works out around four/five hours inbetween feeds.
I find the syringe and ballon method very easy, but stll messy as these babies do get quite excited when you feed, just need to clean any mess off before it dries on hard.

Janet

Using a human baby bottle nipple might be another option for you to try, Naomi.
Fill the inside of the nipple with baby bird formula and then offer it to him. It can be a bit messy, but it's doable.

Here are a couple pictures.
This little guy took his eating very seriously.

Hi again, just looking at picture 4, at a guess I'd say it might weigh around 175/ 200gms. If so I'd feed about 20ml of the mixture every four to five hours, or when the crop is empty.

Janet

Hi Kathy,

I am going to ask OwlMomma to have a look at this thread, she is a full time rehabber and gets a lot of baby wood pigeons. She might be able to advise on whether we can start adding defrosted warm peas to the diet.

The little ones in picture 2 were being fed 15 ml every six hours, they weighed around 110 gms. As long as the crop is going down between meals and the pigeon is pooping, I just make certain that it empties completely once every 24 hours.

Can you weigh the pigeon so that we can get an accurate idea of how old he is?

Is he gaping when you slip your fingers round his beak?

Fancyfeathers wrote:

Using a human baby bottle nipple might be another option for you to try, Naomi.
Fill the inside of the nipple with baby bird formula and then offer it to him. It can be a bit messy, but it's doable.

Cindy, this is such a splendid idea. I will keep that in mind in case I will have to feed a little one ever.

Thank you for all the help it is nice just to get the support. I will weight the baby pigeon today and take a picture but must wait for my daughter to show me how to take it from my phone to the computer. They always do it for me so i must learn. I can see the crop filling up and it was empty this morning, the baby seems to know when it doesn't want anymore. It also knows when it is hungry. I am going to buy some pigeon food today should i start leaving it in a bowl for it?

should have been weigh not weight

Hi Kathy,

Quote :

I can see the crop filling up and it was empty this morning, the baby seems to know when it doesn't want anymore. It also knows when it is hungry

That is excellent! He sounds healthy.

Yes, you can put pigeon food in a bowl next to it, scatter some around. It is better to use small seeds first like pigeon conditioning mix or wild bird mix. He will also need water and grit. Wood pigeons also eat a lot of fresh greens and the young ones love their defrosted peas.

Cynthia

pigeonwriter wrote:

Fancyfeathers wrote:

Using a human baby bottle nipple might be another option for you to try, Naomi.
Fill the inside of the nipple with baby bird formula and then offer it to him. It can be a bit messy, but it's doable.

Cindy, this is such a splendid idea. I will keep that in mind in case I will have to feed a little one ever.

It can get a little messy, but worth a shot of all else fails.

It sounds like you and the little one have things under control.
Just a suggestion regarding the seeds you put out.
At times you might want to mimic picking them up with your fingers.
They are very curious little ones at that age and will begin to follow your lead.
Before you know it, he will be eating on his own.

for posting the update.
You're doing a great job.

Hiya,

Cynthia asked me to have a look at this thread. I use hand rearing formula for all my babies. I feed them with a syringe, at the sort of age we are talking, I would say about 15 mls per feed and I would do it every 4 hours.

If you have the baby in front of you and, assuming you are right handed, put the back of your left hand in front of the beak with fingers pointing down. Then get the beak between the first two fingers and the pop the syringe into the beak. Gently syringe the food in with the neck extended. I have found that on average, it takes two feeds for the baby to work it out, after this, they will be shoving their beaks into your fingers and gaping at every opportunity.

Once the little one starts pecking around, introduce small seed, fat sticks, peas etc and tap at them with your finger. They will soon mimic you and once they are eating on their own, there is no stopping them.

If all else fails, or you cannot get hold of hand rearing formula, you can feed them on soaked cat biscuits, go cat or similar. I have done this in the past and it does work very well if you cannot syringe feed for any reason.

Soak the biscuits in boiling water and leave to cool until they are little soft sponges. Break them in two and pop them into the beak, they usually gobble them down.

Hope this is of some help.

If you need to chat to make more sense of it, just pm me for my number or get it off my web site.

www.wingandaprayerhaven.org.uk.

Kathy, how is it going?

Hi its going well I think. The pigeon appears to be thriving and eating well but I need to know what the next stage is. I have bought myself a new camera and hope to get some pictures to show you how we are doing. I have been away on holiday and a very good friend has been taking very good care of my pigeon. I need some advice again on the feeding and watering of my pigeon. The pigeon still needs me to feed it and is not interested in feeding itself. I feed it on wild bird seed and chick feed. I have been putting it outside for small amts of time in a run. It also has alot of feathers missing from under its neck and top of head. please as again any help is greatly received. kathy