auntisocial
25th April 2005, 07:31 AM
Hello Everyone,
I am happy to have found your board! :D I have a story and will be asking for your advice.
About 5 weeks ago my husband came home from work with a present. He does metal roofing and while they were working they came across a nest with two pigeon hatchlings (eyes not open yet). He set the nest in a secure place watching to see if the parents would return. He did see the mother briefly but it was clear she was not going to be coming back. By the end of the day crows were hanging around... soooooo... He came home with a box filled with clean rags, two hatchlings and some trepidation as to how I would react. LOL
I was THRILLED that he is the kind of person who would care about whether a couple of these little guys would survive. We set about searching the web for information and came across your site. Reading other threads posted here we were able to glean information about how to keep them safe during these early days and the type of diet/feeding schedule they would require. We also visited with a local person who specializes in raising exotic birds by hand and has a very lovely shop here, so we were able to pick up the Kaytee and other specialized foods at her store.
I'm happy to say that "Chopper Bob" and "Chick"en, as we call them, seem to be healthy and doing fine. We had some problems with Bob having a slow crop but he seems to have overcome that with the use of "Prozyme". They are almost fully weaned (will only eat so much from the syringe now) and are on a diet that includes a variety of seeds and pellet food.
We got them a good-sized cage for now and they come out and run around and eat two or three times during the day. They have started flapping and hovering. Taking short flights up to the couch and back down to the floor. We had planned to put mesh up on our landing so they could start spending short periods of time outside, seeing other pigeons (there are lots here), etc. Here is where our story takes an interesting twist:
During the time we've had our squeakers we've noticed that a pair of pigeons have obviously been able to hear them inside and have taken an interest (they would spend time cooing out on our landing). We didn't see this as a potential problem. Last week my husband went out to put the mesh up and lo and behold... the pigeons had decided that it must be a safe place to make a nest since there were other babies nearby (at least that is our conclusion). So, now we have a new nest tucked away on our landing with Mom/Pop and two eggs (we're estimating they've been there about 7 or 8 days).
We can't really put up the mesh so our youngsters can run around out there, that would cut off passage for this new family. We're not confident we can transplant the nest. We're contemplating whether or not we can raise two new hatchlings if it comes down to that. Our main concern... will our two youngsters try to hurt new hatchlings? If we decide to try this do you think we could do it if we kept the hatchlings completely separate from our two that are getting close to being ready to leave? (Also, I feel guilty if we take these two new hatchlings as they obviously have devoted parents.)
So here I am, asking for advice. Any ideas? Any recommendations you could give us would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for your website -- I don't believe we would have been so successful if we had not found the information posted here. I look forward to hearing from you and thank you in advance for taking time out to read and post replies.
Thanks!
Laura
I am happy to have found your board! :D I have a story and will be asking for your advice.
About 5 weeks ago my husband came home from work with a present. He does metal roofing and while they were working they came across a nest with two pigeon hatchlings (eyes not open yet). He set the nest in a secure place watching to see if the parents would return. He did see the mother briefly but it was clear she was not going to be coming back. By the end of the day crows were hanging around... soooooo... He came home with a box filled with clean rags, two hatchlings and some trepidation as to how I would react. LOL
I was THRILLED that he is the kind of person who would care about whether a couple of these little guys would survive. We set about searching the web for information and came across your site. Reading other threads posted here we were able to glean information about how to keep them safe during these early days and the type of diet/feeding schedule they would require. We also visited with a local person who specializes in raising exotic birds by hand and has a very lovely shop here, so we were able to pick up the Kaytee and other specialized foods at her store.
I'm happy to say that "Chopper Bob" and "Chick"en, as we call them, seem to be healthy and doing fine. We had some problems with Bob having a slow crop but he seems to have overcome that with the use of "Prozyme". They are almost fully weaned (will only eat so much from the syringe now) and are on a diet that includes a variety of seeds and pellet food.
We got them a good-sized cage for now and they come out and run around and eat two or three times during the day. They have started flapping and hovering. Taking short flights up to the couch and back down to the floor. We had planned to put mesh up on our landing so they could start spending short periods of time outside, seeing other pigeons (there are lots here), etc. Here is where our story takes an interesting twist:
During the time we've had our squeakers we've noticed that a pair of pigeons have obviously been able to hear them inside and have taken an interest (they would spend time cooing out on our landing). We didn't see this as a potential problem. Last week my husband went out to put the mesh up and lo and behold... the pigeons had decided that it must be a safe place to make a nest since there were other babies nearby (at least that is our conclusion). So, now we have a new nest tucked away on our landing with Mom/Pop and two eggs (we're estimating they've been there about 7 or 8 days).
We can't really put up the mesh so our youngsters can run around out there, that would cut off passage for this new family. We're not confident we can transplant the nest. We're contemplating whether or not we can raise two new hatchlings if it comes down to that. Our main concern... will our two youngsters try to hurt new hatchlings? If we decide to try this do you think we could do it if we kept the hatchlings completely separate from our two that are getting close to being ready to leave? (Also, I feel guilty if we take these two new hatchlings as they obviously have devoted parents.)
So here I am, asking for advice. Any ideas? Any recommendations you could give us would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for your website -- I don't believe we would have been so successful if we had not found the information posted here. I look forward to hearing from you and thank you in advance for taking time out to read and post replies.
Thanks!
Laura