Young pigeon found

[Jennifer]

Hello,

We found a young pigeon out of its nest, running around in the town square yesterday. (We live in France). We have 2 cats so keeping the bird long-term is not an option but short-term we are happy to try to feed it. We were not sure what to do but read some posts here and some websites. The only trouble is, the feeding mixtures alluded to (brands) are not available here.

What I did was to whir up in a blender some wild bird seed I had in the house (sunflower seeds and a mix of smaller unidentified seeds - the ingredients list just says 'seeds and cereals' for indiginous birds) and some oatmeal and mixed it with warm water. We've managed to get some of this into the bird in 2 feedings - one last night and one this AM (he swallowed from a dropper once we propped his beak open a bit and squeezed a bit into his mouth and seems quite pleased when we feed him) and I will try the baggie method I just saw in some photos. He tries to peck at our fingers but doesn't seem to really open his mouth when he does it.

As he appears to have normal looking wings but downy tufts on his head - I think he could try to start eating soaked whole seeds now? (Please confirm). We left some seeds and bread in the box but he doesn't know how to peck that much is clear.

Can someone just let me know if this type of mixture I am using is OK and if it's OK to try to give him whole seeds soaked in warm water? If not ideal, what sort of mixture should I look for on Monday (it's Sunday here so all stores are closed at the moment - that is small town French life for you). We don't have any breakfast cereal in the house other than meusli, oatmeal and all-bran and I didn't think the all bran would be very good for him/her.

Please don't use brand names in your reply as we are in France so any US or UK brands won't be found here.

How often should a bird this age be fed?

We may have to take a car trip for the whole day soon - will he die if we don't feed him during that time (8 hours in the day) - should we bring him and feeding supplies with us?

I can send or post a photo of him if that will help - we are not really sure of his age - he seems younger than some 'baby' photos I've seen due to having head down, but the rest of his body has more adult feathers (but not the tail).

Thanks!

Jennifer

[bigbird]

small seeds, shelled sunflower seeds, dired small corn, peas, wheat, etc. by hand.
He sounds hungry. Feed him until you see a bulge in the chest area (crop). Give him water too.

Take him with you, feed about every 3 hours.
If he has a full crop (very full), you could leave him for 8 hours but no longer. A little crop, take him with you.

There are millions of pigeon people in France. Ask around at a feed store or pet store about pigeon seed.

Good luck,
Carl

[Jennifer]

Thank you, I'll let you know how he gets on. I know the animal feed stores will be open on Monday and I've seen all kinds of bird food in there before.

[maryco]

Try feeding him some soaked peas (the dry ones for soup).. Soak for 5 hours and hand feed if you can't do this I can send you a video that shows how to open the beak and handfeed.. Just email me at mary_pigeons@hotmail.com if you are interested!

Thanks for helping the pij out!

[Jennifer]

Hi,

The young pigeon (nick named 'Francois') is doing well so far - seems to be getting stronger now. He's now an international pigeon as well. We had to smuggle him over the border to Switzerland and back into France yesterday rather than leave him alone w/o food for 8 hours on the day after finding him.

We are feeding him some couscous (wheat) moistened with rice milk, some pigeon/dove seed mix found in a pet store (he's just started to like this today - yesterday he was only into the couscous) and today he had some soaked lentils for his 2 most recent meals and a couple CCs of rice milk again. (Rice milk being not milk at all, but a product made with 'rice, expeller pressed safflower oil and water').

We feed him on a newspaper on the floor, and when he's full he walks back up a little ramp we made into his 'nest' (a cookie tin with a folded hand towel lining it). We are impressed that he won't poop in his nest and always goes over the side or on the paper when we come in to feed him - didn't know pigeon babies would be that smart. His poops have firmed up (were very watery when we first found him) but are still a browny green - is that normal for a bird his age? There is a bit of white in them, but mostly browny green still.

After only 2 days he now runs out to our hands when we peck at the seeds on the paper. But rather than peck at the seeds as our fingers are, he pecks at our hands. Oh well. Still feeding from the plastic baggie method or opening his beak for the lentils and some seeds.

Question - I bought some seashell 'grit' (loose) at the pet store too. Should I add any of this to his seeds or wait until he's pecking at them to put some of it down for him?

If he continues to like us so much we may have to keep him...we'll see how it goes.

[Nooti]

Hi Jennifer and well done so far. You sound as though you have everything under control. Just to answer one of your questions - re, how often should he be fed? The isssue here is not how often but how much, and he should be getting about 120mls per 24 hours of the blended seed you are feeding with a dropper. Usually 3 sittings of 40mls. That should give you an idea of whether you are giving him enough. Hope this helps.

[Jennifer]

Hello,

The pigeon we found is starting to fly (sort of - doesn't seem really good at it) in the room from the nest area to beds, down to the floor etc.. But doesn't seem to fly for much time - just short hops.

How can I tell when a pigeon is old enough to try to release back into the wild and if it will be relatively OK ?

He does peck at food now and we've stopped hand-feeding, and he's eating seeds and drinking water by himself now (this was done over time by reducing hand-feedings each day once we noticed he would peck and eat seeds).

He doesn't quite seem to have all his feathers (I'm no expert but his neck looks like pin feathers still).

We live in the country and have a very large wooden roofed balcony that the bedroom window opens out onto. Today we opened the window (after closing doors to the balcony, putting seed and water out on the sill and making sure it was cat-clear) and he seemed to have no interest in venturing out of the room at all, even when put onto the window sill he sat there and flew back into the room.

There are no other pigeons near here - would it be better to just take him into town where there is a flock ? If so, when ? What is the best way / time of day / time to wait around ? We are afraid to do that right now because we are not sure if he's really ready to be released or not and we have no idea what we are doing and if he's going to do stupid things like running up to strangers and pecking their feet for food as he sometimes does to us when we go into the room (this is why we've been going in only about 1 time per day now to change the water and clean up a bit - we try not to handle him much now that we don't have to hand-feed). He seems to do this less lately then when we were 'weaning' him, but I don't want him to get stomped on!

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

[Snowbird]

Hi--this youngster seems to be healthy and on a fast track for release. You need a basic skill set in place before release-- these attributes were not in place when the bird was first released.

It needs to be weaned and it sounds like he is. And it needs to be a strong flyer. It can get this with no training on your part--just some periods of free excercise indoors while the cats are locked out or out on the balcony but a hawk may get it there. And it should have some extra weight because it will have to learn from other pigeons where the food is and it may go hungry for the first few days--so pump it up so that has a nice full round breast/stomach--not shrunken. This will take a few days and it will likely get more aggressive about the outside world when it puts on some weight and experience. If you don't think there are hawks in the area you could simply let it fly out from the balcony and feed it when it comes back. This is better if there are other pigeons within sight and the area isn't in the inner city. Or else the release point is the healthiest looking flock you can find; release it in nice weather where and when people are feeding birds so your boy has a chance to get hooked up quickly.

good luck and merci.