Young Woodie, Feeding Advice Needed.

[amyable]

Hi All,

Thanks for all your input re-Exact. I've had a much better response from him the last three feeds. I think he's taking it better now with the spinach and soaked seeds added. It does seem thicker with this in it and maybe that is making the difference. The temperature is the same as I fed it before as I use the thermometer to check. He really guzzled down 25ml this morning and yesterday with the eyes rolling as he used to do, so that was satisfying to see.

Cynthia, he's at last taken to eating peas by himself!! I fed him a couple showing them to him first, then he did it for himself, after that there was no stopping him!
An interesting observation, someone might be able to shed some light on this for me. I assume pigeons see in colour, as when I tried him with sweetcorn, he reverted to dropping them. When I put both a pea and a sweetcorn in my hand or on the floor in front of him, he only ate the pea on each ocassion. To my mind there is no difference in size and texture, so apart from smell, why did he select the pea.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried to eat seeds, he still dropped them. Hope perseverance will pay off in the end.

So good news for now,

Janet

[cyro51]

Hi Janet,

It sounds good. If he can eat peas on his own he is well on the way to self feeding. I have noticed that woodies don't seem to like defrosted sweetcorn, though I continue to offer it.

What seeds are you feeding him? They will test seeds in their beak and drop them if they don't like them. My woodies like maize and safflower. They also like very small seeds.

I am fairly certain that pigeons can see in colour. I think they were trained to recognise orange life jackets from a plane in sea rescue. Feral pigeons are also suspected of choosing their partners by their morph when in the wild.

Cynthia

[Lady Tarheel]

I'm so glad to read he is eating better. I definitely believe they see color. Our Mr. Humphries loves the Zupreem Fruit Blend for cockatiels which has red, green and yellow pellets. He always zeros in on the red ones and leaves the other colors.

[amyable]

Hi,

Interesting about the colour preferences, I had forgotten their war involvement.

I'm putting down a mixture of different size seeds, I thought that way he might find a size he could manage. The very small seeds, whch I also soak and put in the Exact, are a canary small bird seed. Mainly red white and yellow millet with oats. He does try them but still no success with swallowing. Then I've put some pigeon mix down. He mostly picks up the larger round brown seeds and a round light green seed. Again still no luck. I'll try and get some of the ones you mentioned tomorrow and give them a go. I suppose it's a matter if time and technique.

He's just downed his latest mix by syringe. He went at it with such gusto, he'd taken 35ml before I realised how much he'd taken, so I don't think he's got the motivation to try seeds for a while now!

I found some pomegranite seeds and dried juniper berries in Tescos today. I wondered if they would be ok to give him. I notice the Woodies in the garden going at fruit like berries, or is that a bit too much for a youngster's system?

He's better fed than my family!!!

Janet

[cyro51]

Hi Janet,

If you see wild woodies eating anything then cut a little branch with the berries on and encourage him to recognise and eat it, he will need to do that in the wild.

I just gave all my pigeons some canary seed that canaryjayne had sent. They had never seen it before, but they all loved it, one of the wood pigeons came to eat it out of my hand. So it can't be the choice of seed that is stopping him.

I was advised not to give wood pigeons more than 30mls at a time, but Valiant would take 35...he would have probably gone for even more if I had let him.

I asked my friend what the wood pigeons in his garden were eating with such enjoyment and it is the beech nuts, they love them.

Cynthia

[amyable]

Hi Cynthia,

Thanks for the tip, the tree the Woodies strip in autumn has what looks like very small apples, I don't know what it is called, could be crab apples. I'll try some of those. There was a real crowd of them on the ground earlier, along with a couple of jays, magpies and squirrels, (very multi-cultural). They were under a row of oak trees pecking around at what ever had fallen to the ground. Might be the acorns as you suggested. I'll look out for a beech tree tomorrow in the park to see what the cones are like.

Seems like a good time for them out there at the moment, it's a shame Monkie isn't able to join them here while there's so many around. He'd probably get picked on though if he just went straight out. I saw an adult Woodie chase off a youngster who was in the garden this morning. Some seem very territorial.

Watching him in his cage in the garden again today, he tends to sits at the back of the box I put in there for shelter. I put him out there in the hope he will watch the birds pottering about, but I wonder if he even knows he's a pigeon. He's put in a smaller cage in the evening in a downstairs bathroom. Spends a lot of time looking at his reflection in the tiles. I have to watch him now if I let him out as he's trying hard to fly. Gets about four inches off the ground, but would hurt himself as he could into the bath or tiles, so I have to curb his enthusiasm.

I need some advice identifying a problem one of the pigeons has at the shelter, I'll put it on another thread.

Thanks as always

Janet