Parents don't feed babies

[Gillian]

Hi! I'm new to this site, and I'm hoping you can help with a serious problem. I have a pair of pigeons who do not seem to know how to feed their babies. The male was purchased and the female was found in the wild unable to fly. Both seem healthy and have laid two previous pairs of eggs, but each time the babies died because they weren't fed. Now they have another egg due to hatch 10/25, and I'm afraid it will happen again. What can I do? Can I handfeed the baby? How? Will the parents finally catch on, or will this just keep happening. It hurts to see all the little birds die!

[AZWhitefeather]

Good evening Gillian & welcome to Pigeons.com
You've come to the right place. Let's see if we can help you out a bit. Yes, you can hand feed. What I would recommend for now is...
Learn as much as you can prior to the arrival of your babies. Move your curser to the upper right hand side of this page, you should see the word resources. Click on that and go over the basic care. It will explain all phases of caring for the baby pijjies, including feeding them. Read it over. Check in tomorrow (Monday)& there will be more members that can go over any questions you might have. We will work together & God Willing you will have some fine babies. We will even see if some of our 'experts' have any suggestions as to why Mom & Dad are not doing their job. See ya tomorrow. Cindy



[This message has been edited by AZWhitefeather (edited October 19, 2002).]

[Gillian]

cheak your phone book and see if you can find a pigeon rescue,maby they will have something on baby pigeon feeding?

[bigbird]

Hello new member,
This is a real problem, here are some suggestions:
1. When this pair of pigeons lays eggs, take one egg away. Allow them to set full term on one egg only. This sometimes gives them a better chance to feed the young.
2. Remove the fertil eggs prior to hatching, put them under another setting pigeon.
3. Hand feed one baby (first born) and let the parents feed the second born. If they do not wish to feed the one remaining baby, remove it and hand feed of if the timing is right, place it under another pigeon pair that are setting. Sometimes the new pair will think wow...a new baby, I better feed it.
4. If this problem with feeding the young continues, I suggest you seperate the pair, give each another mate who will know what to do with new hatched babies. This is a last resort tactic.

Good luck,
Carl

[Gillian]

Thank you for your replies. The baby will hatch this weekend. We'll let you know how it goes!