sore throat

i have a pigeon named unru (short for unruly) who for the last few days has not been eating.

he kinda bends down to pick up the fried grams that i put out for him, but then doesn't take it in.

i think he has a sore throat. any idea what i can do to help him?

appreciate the feedback.

Was he eating the fried grams before? He could be too young to be eating much in the way of solids -- a photo would be very helpful, if you can post one.
Sore throats are not very common in pigeons, but he may have Trichomonas (also called Canker), which can cause obstructions inside a pigeon's throat or crop. Here's some information about it:
http://www.pigeonangels.com/t238-canker-trichomoniasis
Please let us know how he's doing.

thanks for the reply.

he is actually quite old. a lot of his feathers have turned grey. and i have been feeding him fried grams for like 3 years now.

actually i think it was just his overgrown scissor beak which was making it difficult for him to eat.

he is feral.

so after three days of watching him not eat anything, i had our cook grind the grams to powder.

but that day he turned up smartly with his beak clipped! not sure how that happened. maybe somebody did that for him.

and he is back to eating as usual again.

thanks again.

btw this has happened before as well - the previous time it happened was when i searched the web and joined this forum.

he is not able to eat for a few days and then turns up with his beak clipped. maybe he himself does it - maybe by rubbing his beak against the ground or something. not sure.

That's really strange! I'm quite sure he wouldn't be able to wear his beak down overnight, so someone must be clipping it when it becomes too long for him to eat.
If he's ready to catch, you may be able to keep his beak overgrowth under control simply by filing it gently with a nail file now and again. That way it's almost impossible to cause bleeding by removing too much.

i have never caught him - doubt i ever will.

but if he is not capable of mending his beak, then it should be that there is some human who does that. and unru also knows about that person, for him to go there and get the job done.

but unru is always hanging around our balconies. he doesn't go anywhere else. sometimes i have to remind him that he is a pigeon and should fly around a bit :-) so for him to go to that person to get his beak clipped, bespeaks both knowledge and memory.

my wife and i have kept names for many pigeons who visit our balcony and many of them respond to their names. for example if i see some familiar one on somebody else's balcony, i call out to him and he comes flying in - often because i feed him.

but for a bird to know of somebody who could clip beaks and go to them to get it done - wow! more intelligence to pigeons than i credited.

I see what you mean...

Pigeons may come to people for food, but not for trimming down the beak, something which I'm sure they would find at the very least disagreable...
Perhaps the person who clips his beak lives in the building, or very close, and knows the pigeons too.

The only other explanation is that the tip of the beak breaks off when it gets too long, but surely you would have seen evidence of that! Very strange...

yea i know it is very strange - but his beak will clipped off at the right length. neither too short nor too long.

afaik nobody else in my apartment complex takes care of them. at night we can see a dozen pigeons sitting around our balcony alone - not on anybody elses.

and as noted before unru always sits on my balcony. seldom goes anywhere else.