Introducing myself and our rescued wood pigeon

I have a rescued pigeon from last september , and already have 2 cats and 2 big aquariums.

He/she is a lovely bird, lives in a dog crate at night with some branches from the garden as perches and out in a room to itself in the day.

Loves bouncing and cooing, i know absolutely nothing about birds, have learnt the basics since spetember but still feel a little daunted by the task of keeping her/him for the rest of its life. Would love some support and advice about how to look after woodies?

We were going to release her when we first took her in thinking it would be simple, feed till all flight feather are good and then release, and then realised that that was looking unlikely, she is not wild wild but not tame either, has no fear of cats and is missing some neck feathers.

She has her night time nest cleaned every day, while she is outside playing in the room. with fresh water and food that contains D3 as well as vitamin supplements and grit and mixed pigeon seeds. and a one inch depth bath is always put out. so the basics are sorted as far as i know.

Idealy we would like to find her a new home with another woody but am struggling to find people where i am in UK.

We dont realy handle her because the plan was always to release her or find someone who could realease her for us so we kept our distance. Though recently we have been getting closer.

She has a bald neck and we have tried mite powder twice and it is still not getting better, any advice on that would be great!

Or if you know anywhere near cambridge UK that would take her in and love her, i would love to know!!

Also someone has offered a parrot cage to us which i have no idea how to modify because it is a lot taller and made for parrots not pigeons, though it would be a larger indoor cage for her at night.

I am so happy to find this site! and am looking forward to making friends with some fellow pigeon lovers. I will put up a recent photo of her soon ,

Hi Peamu,
Welcome to Pigeon Angels. It's great to have you here.
How did you come upon your little rescue?

We don't have Woodies here in the US, so I'll leave the advice/suggestions to our members who live in your neck of the woods.

We do have a list of UK wildlife hospitals, sanctuaries and vets. I've not checked out any of these contacts personally, but there might be a sacntuary near you who could assist you.

We would love to see some pictures.
Please keep us posted on how things are coming along.

Yes, pictures might help us to figure out why she is missing the feathers. Could be something other then mites.

I put a link to the thread on Facebook.

Nice to meet you, Peamu! Woodies are lovely but not born to be pets, so I agree with you that the best would for him/her to have the company of his own kind.

Teresa wrote:

I put a link to the thread on Facebook.

Nice to meet you, Peamu! Woodies are lovely but not born to be pets, so I agree with you that the best would for him/her to have the company of his own kind.

Thanks, Teresa.

Hi and thank you guys for the welcome!,

there was a nest in one of our trees, we had strong wind and woody i assume was blown down, she was by the house door, and i ignored her for the whole day and kept an eye out for the cats that were around, and waited for the dad to come down and get her to move, but he wouldnt come close to the house and she wouldnt move away from the door. Then the cat came and i managed to grab him and bring him in before he noticed the chick next to him. And then i waited until it was getting dark, and the chick looked like it was getting cold and shaking and sleepy, the dad flew off and didnt come back, and i made the decision (right or wrong)to bring him in. She couldnt fly when we got her.

The neck problem happenned actualy after i de-mited her the first time , lots of mites fell off and i cleaned everything out. and then it was like they all moved to her neck and she started scratching her neck . We didnt use the powder on her neck or head as per the intructions on the bottle.

That list of places was great thank you, but all the main places would put woody down or expect me to get her there which i cant as i cant drive and dont have a way to get her there. Idealy i was hoping someone who keeps pigeons or rescues them like you guys would take her and collect her if you lived nearby. A long shot, but you dont know unless you try.

I will try and get the pictures tomorrow. We are happy to keep her for as long as she needs us, she is very beautiful and everyone keeps saying woodys are so wild, which she is a little but she does sit on my back and peck my hair and we bow to each other alot if i sit on the floor she comes over and washes herself and i wash myself and she is definatly teaching me the pigeon lingo.

Thanks guys for you time

Awww, how sweet is that!

Cynthia replied to my post on Facebook:

Quote :

There is a member called Wendy (I think her user name is little fledgling) who lives in Lincolnshire. She hand raised a woodie and built an aviary for it, then adopted one of Janet's rescue wood pigeons... she might be able to help. If she can't give the woodie a home she might be able to advise on how it could be kept.

I sent Little Fledgling a PM.

Thank you teresa

I will look for little fledgling and see what advice she has, i would just like her to be with other woodies and to experience the outside idealy.

Though i have been making the effort to bring the outside in, with ivy berries on branches and lots of twigs leaves and branches and i new pine cone which i will place in today. I also grew some of the seed mix in a pot and got young pea shoots which she enjoyed pecking at .

xx

Peamu wrote:

Thank you teresa

I will look for little fledgling and see what advice she has, i would just like her to be with other woodies and to experience the outside idealy.

Though i have been making the effort to bring the outside in, with ivy berries on branches and lots of twigs leaves and branches and i new pine cone which i will place in today. I also grew some of the seed mix in a pot and got young pea shoots which she enjoyed pecking at .

xx

Here is Wendy's (Little Fledgling) profile page. There is an option to send her an email.

I hope all works out well with the little woody.