Newby needs help

[Germanbird]

I am an American living in Germany, near Nürnberg. My daughter was walking home from school, and noticed an injured bird, being my daughter we had to go help it.

We took it to a very uninterested vet, who grumbled (in German naturally) "It's a piegon." Now the Germans classify piegons, doves, and tuttle doves as just a plain old general piegon.

I tried to match it to the pictures, and it is close, but not nearly the same as a 15-to-20 days old. But it has a blackish beak, and dark feet.

So far my wife and daughter are feeding it, oats, wheat and seeds (soaked), and cut up hard boiled eggs (the eggs were the vets idea). Some times he (we guess 'he') he eats fairly large portions, but yesterday he doesn't eat much.

We have him in a very large hamster cage, with straw in the bottom, and an old bowl with ripped up papertowels, sitting on a warm water bottle (still use them here).

How far off are we, or are we hurting him? We have not a clue what to do. When we find hedgehogs in the winter, we are pretty knowledgable, the vets are willing to help, they are protected and the government ask that you assist them. But piegons are not really cared for.

Being a wild bird, is it safe to let him stay, provided we can care for him?

I will appreciate any help what so ever.

And I must stress that I am a hunter, and even we have feelings too.

[cyro51]

Hello and thank you for rescuing this pigeon.

Boiled egg is fine, but in very small quantities. A good food for hand feeding is the chicken flavoured baby food that comes in a jar. You can feed that at wrist temperature using the syringe and balloon method described at this link :http://community.webshots.com/album/165797594SYYRWL . If you go into each photo you will find instructions in the text box.

If you are having to open the beak and push food in then soaked dog biscuits are a good food.

If the pigeon is feeding itself then small seeds are fine.

The hot water bottle is a good idea but straw isn't good for bedding as it gets damp with poops and that produces a fungus which is harmful for pigeons. I find a piece of toweling is good for bedding.

You said a black beak and black feet. Could it be a wood pigeon? If it is then it will already have the white stripe across his wing, you will be able to see it if you stretch the wing out. This is a link to photos of young wood pigeons: http://community.webshots.com/album/307673749CDqjnv Wood pigeons can be fed on defrosted corn and peas.

How big is it? Does it have yellow fuzzy hair still? Can you desribe its feather colour? What are its poops like?

Cynthia