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

[JGregg]

You're always better off to feed a little less than to overfeed.

I'm worried that the baby may be getting dehydrated, and it is too young to be drinking on it's own. What is the consistency of the formula you're feeding?

Please feel the baby's crop, is it nice and soft (squishy) or is it hard?

If the crop is hard syringe feed some water and gently message the crop.

[TAWhatley]

Hi Azuur .. I don't think that is a pigeon .. I think it's a dove .. the care is pretty much the same
but the amounts of food and water would be quite different as a dove is much smaller than a pigeon.
Also, if I am correct about it being a dove, it is quite a bit older than many of us have been thinking.

If I'm way off here, I apologize as I'm just now trying to quickly scan all the posts in this thread.

Terry

[TAWhatley]

OK .. took another look at the pics .. still think it is a dove but the beak is very pigeon like and less dove like. Can you post a couple of larger pictures .. even larger than what you get when you click on the thumbnails?

Terry

[cyro51]

Hi Adrian,

We have had two members in Bogota that have raised baby pigeons, I don't know if they are still contactable but hope they are..

Ingrid is one of them she is in Bogota and she says "
Getting baby food for pigeons wasn't hard, (after all, Colombia is the country with the greatest number of bird species...so you can get ahold of almost anything)

This is her thread, you could try e-mailing her to find out what she found and where.:

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

We also have Javier, his pigeons were three weeks old when he found them:

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

How is the baby this morning?

Cynthia

[azuur]

Thank you for your concern. I don't know if it is dove or a pigeon really. At first I thought it might be one of the sparrow-like little birds that live here.

The bird seemed to be doing badly this morning. I tried to feed it and he didn't even chirp. I couldn't get him to open his mouth. He wasn't even standing/sitting (what do you call that position?) well when I moved him.

When I got home, not too long ago, he was much more responsive, and basically just fine. I fed him and he seemed okay. I tried syringe force feeding, with little success. I will still keep trying although I think my syringe is a tiny bit too small.

I'm pretty sure I haven't overfed him. In fact, his crop has never been completely hard and full in the last days. The food I'm giving him is not runny at all, it is quite thick. However I have been giving him water with a spoon and he has been drinking it (maybe it is a dove after all...)

His poop is sort of green, probably because yesterday I fed him mostly pea mush. (I didn't have another homemade formula at hand, since I decided to stop feeding the rice stuff after I read a post here)

Here's one of the pictures from yesterday:


If you want a specific picture of something specific, just let me know. Thanks for your help.

[Pidgey]

Well, it's dove or pigeon, one. It might help if you took a picture with a ruler or you could weigh him in grams and post that.

Pidgey

[azuur]

My mother has the camera, so I can't take pictures now. However, I measured him. He is about 7cm long (almost 3 inches).

[Pidgey]

And by that, you mean the essential length from beak-tip to tail as shown in that picture (reclining; head in normal position as in "not outstretched), right?

Pidgey

[azuur]

And by that, you mean the essential length from beak-tip to tail as shown in that picture (reclining; head in normal position as in "not outstretched), right?

Yes, indeed.

[Pidgey]

You wouldn't happen to have a scale to weigh him with or some other means of guessing at it, would you?

Pidgey

[azuur]

I don't really have a way to measure his weight. My guess (don't trust my guess much) is that he weighs about 150 or 200 grams.

[Pidgey]

That'd be about the same as 6 ounces of water and 8 ounces is "1 cup". Probably the most standard coffee cup size up here is 8 ounces although when you buy a fresh cup, it's often much bigger. I don't know what kind of styrofoam or paper cups you're used to, but the "normal" size is the 8 ounce (240 milliliters or grams, take your pick) size. A lot of disposable cups at water dispensers are half that size. You could take a small plastic bottle that has a milliliter amount written on it, proportion the correct amount of water and compare the weight of the water (and cup or plastic bottle) with the weight of the bird. In water, one milliliter is equal to one cc (cubic centimeter) and they're both equal to one gram.

Pidgey

[azuur]

Hi again. I will try weighing him tomorrow.

I read the thread about Javier (I think I got his name right). I found it useful. If he in fact released his doves into the wild, and knows where flocks are, I might want to contact him to know how and where to do it.

Today the pigeon/dove (?) was sort of drowsy. Like I already said, this morning I was worried he was dying and very weak. During the rest of the day he was basically asleep. To feed him, I had to spend a few minutes just waking him up. however, I have been able to feed him some, and more importantly, give him water. He seemed to have a lot of food in his crop (although it wasn't visibly full, never really has been visibly full) and he seemed to be having a hard time swallowing and getting it past his throat. Is there a problem or is this ok? What should I do about it?

Also, I've seen somewhat less poop. My question is, what is a normal poop rate? I felt he ate well yesterday but he doesn't seem to be pooping much. Today I fed him less, as mentioned above, so I'm sort of confused.

Since I've been reading stuff on the internet, I've heard about growth spurts and introducing pigeons to bird seed. I would like to know when this is going to happen. Does anyone have an idea, based on my pictures, how old the bird is? I think it might be important so I know when to do certain things.

I will post tomorrow morning, or sooner if awake. Thanks, Adrian.

[rzuur]

hi i'm adrians sister. i raised a baby pigeon when i was about 12 and she became a great friend to me. she sadly died from some sort of cancer when i was 18. i wish i lived near my brother so i could help him. anyhow i am glad for this forum you all know so much more than i do.

[cyro51]

Hi rzuur,

It is good to know that caring about pigeons runs in the family! THey are such remarkable and individual birds.

Cynthia