Help, I found a baby (?) pidgeon yesterday!

[Pidgey]

At least I had the first letter of the second name of the continent right... I guess Jiggs ain't going to be able to help here.

Oh, well, at least the popcorn is the right stuff. You can start soaking some of that to feed him later.

Pidgey

[azuur]

oh, and, I'm in South AMERICA (Colombia, to be exact), not South Africa

[Pidgey]

You wouldn't, by any chance, have access to unflavored, unsweetened yoghurt that still have live, active cultures, would you?

Pidgey

[azuur]

not really...

[Pidgey]

Originally Posted by Reti

Azuur mentioned s/he is from S.America.

Read up a bit, Reti.

Are there any stores nearby that have a variety of food products?

Pidgey

[azuur]

yes, there's a supermarket down the street

[Pidgey]

Well, then, look for these kinds of items in your kitchen and see if we can make some kind of very thick soup or pudding:

Breakfast food-(unsweetened)
Rice crispies- rice
Cherrios-oats
Wheaties-wheat
Popcorn finely ground
Dried split peas finely ground
Cooked beans
Hard boiled egg (some of both yolk & white)
Finely ground egg shell for calcium
A bit of Vitamin Powder if you have some.

How many of those ingredients do you have?

Pidgey

[JGregg]

Thank you for rescuing the baby pigeon, and welcome to Pigeon Talk!

The uncanned dog food (kibble) and Gerber's baby rice formula (this is powdered) are very important, but Kaytee Exact baby bird formula would be the best. Please do not feed the baby dairy products because they cannot digest the lactose in milk. When you feed the baby gently open the beak and place a small chunk of dogfood soaked in water in and the baby will swallow the food.

Be very careful not to overfeed the baby, feed until the crop is roundish and squishy not taunt. You will also need to allow the crop to empty before feeding again. This way the baby's crop will not become impacted or sour, which could kill it.

You will also need to keep the baby warm at night, or maybe not depending on what your low temperature at night is. I'd use a heating pad set on low placed beneath the contained you're keeping the baby in. I'd recommend placing the baby in a plastic bowl with paper towels inside of it, for traction and to avoid splay legs.

[azuur]

Ok, I will probably do something like that tomorrow, since the store already closed. The pigeon just ate very well (did he?), probably a teaspoon of rice mushy stuff in the last two hours. I will feed him that tonight and early tomorrow morning, until I get the stuff you're talking about. Thank you everyone for your help. I will report on what happens tomorrow

[azuur]

So, I should make a Gerber-baby-mush-and-grains-and-other-stuff thick soup tomorrow. Thanks again

[azuur]

This morning he woke up fine and ate. I force fed him my rice mushy stuff. By the way, is this the right way to feed him? I heard that his crop needs to be full, but I just fed him what seems to be a lot of rice mushy stuff, and it doesn't seem to be full. Is this ok?

Also, he doesn't seem to be drinking water from the improvised cups I put in his box, so I decided to give him some water from a spoon, which he does drink. What should I do on that regard?

Another question I have is when to introduce him to seed. If you want to know how old he is, (because I was unsuccessful at deciding by looking at the pictures) I could take a picture and put it online.

Furthermore, last night I talked to my sister, who is an animal loving, pet loving, vegan in San Francisco, California. She told me to feed it at least five times a day. The most important thing she said to me is that, assuming the pigeon survives, I probably have to keep it as a pet or give it to someone as a pet. She also said that, as a pet, it might be risky to leave it outdoors because it could land on someone head or near a cat, since it didn't develop these ideas of staying away from them. My last question is, is there a way to keep it as a pet outdoors, be it by training the bird, or building some kind of cage or anything? My father is very allergic to animals so I don't think it's possible to keep the pigeon in here when it's grown up, however I feel it's very unlikely that I can find people in Colombia who would want a pigeon as a pet (even though my sister said they make great pets) because of people's ideas here.


Anyway, I have to go to school. Bye for now, Adrian

[Trees Gray]

Hi Adrian,

Thank you for taking care of this youngster.

PLEASE do take a pic for us.

How does the poop look, he should be pooping alot?

Can you grind up a few sunflowers (without the shell) or safflowers, even a drop of olive oil added to the mix might help? Go easy on the rice, perhaps only 2 percent of the entire mix. The rice may just stop him up. Do you have any kind of kefir or plain yogurt on hand? You can add a little of that.

You can always leave a small, deep spill proof bowl with little seeds in it for him to practice eating seeds, but he won't be curious unless you make him interested in it, but that will come later.

Don't worry about him drinking yet, the formula mix should provide enough water, as he is too young to drink.

[cyro51]

Hi Adrian,

Are you in the country or the city?

Here we have some stuff called chick crumbs that are excellent for raising squabs. If you have a corn store or some other shop that caters for people that keep chickens they might have something similar.

These are some useful links: THis one tells you how much to feed at each stage:

http://www.internationaldovesociety....eedinghelp.htm


THis one outlines various methods of feeding:

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showth...referrerid=560

THis one is a video that demonstrates the Syringe and balloon method of feeding (the syringe and balloon can be repplaced by whatever y9ou have to hand, someone used a cake icing bag successfully)

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showth...referrerid=560
BTW, what country are you in? One of our members is in Montevideo but I don't know if she is accessing the Internet.

Cynthia

[azuur]

Thank you very much for your help. I'm in Colombia, in Bogotá, the capital, so yes, I'm in the city. I will take into account the rice commentary and the links.

The poop seems to be just fine, regular bird poop as far as I'm concerned, plenty too. When I got home from school I found the pigeon sleeping and there was little poop, however I found out that my parents had changed the newspaper not to long ago and that it was very dirty.

I will take a picture for you, and again, thanks for your help.

[azuur]

Here are some pictures of the pigeon. I have larger versions of the pictures just in case.






He has been pooping less lately, this worries me some. I fed him and he seems to be sleepy so I'm going to let him sleep for several hours, although checking on his poop