found ferel baby, what to do now?

[tozzie]

hi, my girlfriend found a baby pigeon at her riding stables and brought it home, been looking after the little guy 'Petey pigeoto' for 3 days now. by looking at pics of racing pigeons i guess he is about 5 or 6 days old.
i keep him in my airing cupboard, feed him 4 times a day prob about 5 ml of rearing mix (is this enough?). what does he need to flourish? ive looked everywhere but no-one says where to keep him (light/dark), or a chart of how much to feed the bird at what age.is it just untill the crop is full? have ordered a heat pad, seller says that the temp is between 30 and 40oC.
PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE tell me if i am doing anything right or wrong.really want this little guy to grow big and strong!!!

[Pidgey]

Don't suppose you could post a picture, could you? You can weigh them every day and then figure out how much to feed them from that. There are different methods but the one I use is they can have 10 to 15% of their weight per meal. So, if they weigh 50 grams, you can give them 5 to 7.5 mL and so forth. If you can't weigh them, then you just have to do it by watching to see how much they're holding in their crops.

Pidgey

[Lady Tarheel]

First, thank you and your girlfriend for rescuing this baby.

Are you in the UK? We have a few members there who can help you directly. If you can give us your location it would help tremendously.

[Jaye]

Well...if you have managed 3 days and he/she is still hangin' in there...you are doing VERY well. You have him on formula and you are keeping him warm, that's good. All of the nourishment she needs she gets from the formula.

A pic would help.

As far as feeding....the main thing you don't wanna do is overfeed...because that can kill a baby this young. So, look for threads here on how full a crop should be ...and images of what an overfull crop looks like...and avoid those situations.

Red flags would be if the lil' pidge becomes listless, starts breathing heavily or erratically, or becomes cold to the touch. If she seems to be energetic, eats with enthusiasm, is vocalizing a bit, and moves about, and is pooping...those are good signs.

Keep us posted.

[tozzie]

hi, thanks for all of your replies!
i have taken a few pics of petey and will upload them later, i did them next to a regular playing card as to give you guys some scale. he is very vocal, energetic, he stays warm on a sock full of rice on top of a heat pad,the heat pad only heats up to body temp with substantial weight on it, and the rice stays warm all day. dont know at what age their eyes fully open, but he always looks like he is squinting, but untill today i have kept him in a dark airing cupboard. what is the next step, just to keep feeding him? or is there something special i should do.
yes i live in the uk, in salisbury, wiltshire.

also for when he wants to learn to fly can i put him in my ex-parrot cages? they're about 2m high by 2m wide by 3m long, we have 2 but both full of junk!!

[Lovebirds]

Originally Posted by tozzie

hi, thanks for all of your replies!
i have taken a few pics of petey and will upload them later, i did them next to a regular playing card as to give you guys some scale. he is very vocal, energetic, he stays warm on a sock full of rice on top of a heat pad,the heat pad only heats up to body temp with substantial weight on it, and the rice stays warm all day. dont know at what age their eyes fully open, but he always looks like he is squinting, but untill today i have kept him in a dark airing cupboard. what is the next step, just to keep feeding him? or is there something special i should do.
yes i live in the uk, in salisbury, wiltshire.

also for when he wants to learn to fly can i put him in my ex-parrot cages? they're about 2m high by 2m wide by 3m long, we have 2 but both full of junk!!

I think that as long as the baby isn't in total darkness all day, where you are keeping it is fine for now. IF it was with it's parents, they would still be sitting on it all the time and it would be covered and in the "dark" anyway. Sounds like you are doing all the right things so far. Probably in another couple of days, you might want to take him out of the cupboard for a little while each day.
We'll wait to see the pictures later and determine that.

[tozzie]

some of the photos i took,sorry for quality, i took them on my phone.hopefully he looks okay to you all. one thing he doesn't do a lot of standing, well none actually,when do they stand up instead of flopping on their chin?

[Lovebirds]

What a sweet baby!! He looks pretty good to me. They become a little more active around 10 days old or so. Mine, because they are in a loft, will try to stand up at that age and "pop" their little beaks at me, trying to "scare me away".....LOL..

Here's a video I shot of some that are 11 days old.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wW3W-qCcls

[tozzie]

yeah nice i saw your video, do they always attack/scare you or do they warm to you? what measures should i take if i eventually wish to release him? if he becomes too tame can he never leave?!
also what age do you think he would be from these pics?

[Lovebirds]

Originally Posted by tozzie

yeah nice i saw your video, do they always attack/scare you or do they warm to you? what measures should i take if i eventually wish to release him? if he becomes too tame can he never leave?!

Some do, but a bunch of birds in a loft is a totally different situation than what you have. I've hand raised a few and they were my babies until I put them back in the loft and most of them, after a couple of days, decided they liked being pigeons.
As far as releasing, there are other members who can better answer that question.
Here's a link you might want to read.
http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showthread.php?t=11919

[rainbows]

Are you sure that is a pigeon and not a dove??

[kippermom]

Looks like a pigeon to me...my baby does already have a sharper beak at this age, and are generally smaller too...like the size of your thumb at a few days old......

[cyro51]

Do you have street pigeons at the stables? Although he doesn't have the "banana beak" he could be a wood pigeon or a collared dove. He could also be a stock pigeon, but they breed in holes in trees. There are a couple of pictures of baby wood pigeons in my Wood Pigeons album. Just click on my user name, choose public profile and the albums will be listed on the right hand side of the page.

Can you stretch out his wing and see if there are any white feathers sprouting there?

Try not to let him get tame, specially if he is a wood pigeon as they imprint so quickly on humans. If he does he will be unreleasable. One of our members (who will be posting the full story) has just rescued an imprinted woodie that had been released in the park. There he perched on peoples' shoulders and showed no fear of bull terriers. There were two siblings released the same day, one disappeared immediately.

You could give him a Beanie baby for company and only handle him when feeding. Avoid making eye contact when you do this.

Cynthia

[tozzie]

how can you tell whether it is a pigeon or dove?
put a toy in the nest? or outside the nest?
also all his feathers are grey/black colour, i have only really touched him during feeding so hopefully i can release him at some point.
i dont think there are any street pigeons there, but i haven't seen any pigeons either,or doves.i will go later and have a snoop around for some nests or birds.

[cyro51]

Well, no white band on the wings rules out wood pigeons and baby collared doves are a "sandy" colour. I will add some to my albums tomorrow.

That would leave the street pigeon and the stock dove/stock pigeon. They would be harder to distinguish at this age.

Cynthia