Urgent Help Needed, Child Pigeon.. Please

[wahegurubol]

Okay,I m new to this forum. I have never had a pet. Never kept one and dont intend to keep one.

I live in an apartment tower 8 floors/storeys high.
I was at a construction site when I found this pigeon not able to fly. So I brought it to my home, kept in the balcony, gave it canaries and fresh water to drink.

I then took it to a vet. The vet said it is still a baby that is the reason it is not able to fly. He gave me some medicine to eat it and a white powder to mix it with water and give it.

So I am doing that. I bought Pigeon food and everything. So fat it has become very active and runs around in the big cage. It eats it food well all day long.

One day it jumped off from the balcony and landed 8 storeys down onthe ground, but miracalously it did not get hurt.

It doesnt have a tail yet. It stands on one leg at night. I dont know why.

also it poos in the water I give it to drink, which is terrible !

Today I tried to check if it can fly in my room. So I kept it on top of a high stool and allowed it to drop. It spins like a helicopter rotor with its wings flapping fast and lands softly on the ground? Will it ever be able to fly again.

I want it to fly and release it to the wild.


So please anyone intending to spare some time and seriously help me, I will really appreciate. You can email me at wahegurubol@yahoo.co.in and I will be happy to send some pictures of the pigeon for a visual examination.

[naturegirl]

Hello Thank You for rescueing this cute little bird. First off where are you located at? There are people on this forum that maybe can help you in your area. Someone will be on very shortly to better assist you with this matter but in the mean time if this bird poos in his water please replace with clean water. Looks like the tail feathers are coming in nicely as well.

Cindy

[wahegurubol]

Hi !
I am from India, but I am working in Kuwait. I live in a small 2 bedroom apartment on a tower at the 8th floor.

Here we have PAWS, that protect and shelter abandoned animals, but then they will just give this baby pigeon to pigeon-keeper ! i dont want that and I am vegetarian.

Most ppl also eat pigeon as food.... so i really dont want this pigeon to go in the wrong hands, i just want it to fly back to the wild

[Reti]

This bird does look young but it's not a baby. S/he should be able to fly. There might be more going on.
What do the poops look like, any odor to them? Did the vet do a fecal?
I am not sure we have anybody in your area who could help with this bird. Hopefully s/he has something minor going on and he will recover and be able to be released.

Reti

[Trees Gray]

Hello and Welcome to Pigeon Talk,

Thank you for rescuing this darling bird.

It should be able to fly, and since it is either weak, or it has an injured wing or other problem. But it sounds like the bird is quite active.

Are the poops nice and solid green with white on top...or watery and/or runny?

Does one wing look different or odd in comparison to the other? Can you feel any swellings on either wing? You can gently run your fingers down and around both wings and compare.

[wahegurubol]

hi !
i am posting one more picture to help evaluate what might be going.

The poop before use to be white -black. The first day I brought the bird in, the poop was liquid ..but now its not.

I am giving the medicine that the vet told me to give, and today when I tried to make the bird fly. The poop was brown and long.

I will also post some pics of poops, later.

I will really appreciate if someone on this forum can take out sometime and help me save this bird.



I tried to make it fly in my room by letting it drop from a height of about 5 feet and it flaps its wings and spins

Please have a look at this pic. This is a pic of the back of the wing.

[Reti]

What medicine are you giving him?
Also does the bird appear skinny? Is his keel bone sticking out? The keel bone is the vertical bone in front of his chest and it should not feel sharp.
Make sure he is eating a minimum of 30gr. of seeds/day.

Reti

[naturegirl]

Hi it looks like the wings are normaal from your pictures. Maybe it could have has a head injury where the brain swells a little but will go down with rest. I understand you don't want to keep it as a pet but is there anyway you can keep it till it gets better?

Cindy

[feralpigeon]

Thanks for helping the pij out, as Reti and Treesa have said, this bird should
be flying. It may be young, but the cere appears to be white which suggests
that the bird is has matured enough to have at one time already experienced
full flight capabilities. The right wing looks as though it may have had an
accident, or something is gonig on with it judging from the feathers. Can you pick the bird up and hold it so that it's back is against your chest and carefully
extend each wing and watch to see how well the bird returns that wing to
the side of it's body. Also, look on the underside of the wing for blood, swelling
of any kind (you can compare one wing to the other), at the top side of the wing, look for any blisters/boils around the joints of the wing, especially @ the
shoulder on the top side. Just be methodical, take your time and look carefully.
Also, is there anyway that you can find out from the Doctor what exactly you
are/have been giving the bird for medications? Here's a diagram to help you
understand the moving parts of the wing and their location:

http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~jc...m/Skeleton.swf

Also, should the bird need other medications, or to have it's wing set, is there
any way to obtain medical care for the bird in your area?

fp

[wahegurubol]

well theres really not a doctor here for animals. I took it a vet and all he said was that it is weak and still a child. He gave me two sets of tablets and told me to feed one in day and one at night and another white powder to be mixed in its water.

i can keep it with me.. but i dont want to it to depend on me, i can keep its food in the balcony and once it starts flying it can always return and eat its food.

Yes, the keel bone was sticking out a few days ago, but now it seems fine.

I use to feed canaries and it use to eat all day long, now I am giving pigeon feed which it doesnt eat. the vet said to give it pigeon feed , the canary feed he says is for little birds.

The food is usually in its cup all day long and it keeps eating as it wishes.

However, I have to feed the medicine inside its beak by myself, sometimes it doesnt like the medicine and it usually doesnt eat anything after it has eaten the medicine...

when it tries to fly , it flaps its wing, but comes spinning like a rotor down slowly. it cant maintain a level flight.

I really dont want to touch its wing, they feel to delicate.. i am afraid i may not hurt the wings.. but yes one side of the wing looks a bit different.

[wahegurubol]

do you think the bird can recover on its own ?

This is a really brave bird. It was haning outat the construction site amongst heartless workers. Then it fell 8 storeys and still survived and was sitting all by itself in the dark.

its really brave and a survivor... to bring to your notice, this bird doesnt seem to have a fully developed tail like the other pigeons i noticed, which have a circular tail at the bottom.

Please help me save this pigeon's life and secure its freedom in the sky. I really cant see a living being die. It PAINS my heart a LOT

[Reti]

There is a strong possibility he will recover with some supportive care. Keep on feeding him and you could mix the pigeon seed with the canary seeds, the he can pic what he wants to eat.
Can you ask the vet you took the bird to if he can give you a sulf drug? He might have coccidia which does make them weak and unable to fly.
Also, have you noticed any strong odor coming from the bird? (I am thinking of canker).
He also could have worms which could make him weak.

So, lets take it one step at a time. I would start him on a sulfa drug for now and see what happens.
At the same time you can give him a garlic capsule a day. That would help with the worms.

Reti

[wahegurubol]

hi Reti,
okay i will give it the canary seeds mix with the pigeon feed. No there is no ordor coming from the bird. I have even threw some water on its body .. and i think it likes it ... and then it usually rubs it body with its beak after the bath.

It also stands on one leg sometimes and at night ! .. I didnt notice anything unusual in its heels.

So where can i get a garlic capsule.... ?? and what does garlic do to the bird.

Should i simply cut small pieces of garlic and mix it , in its feed?

Thanks for u r reply.

I really wont be going to the vet until next week ! .. i took it to the vet last week and he checked the wings and everything and then he opened its beak and said "Oh still a baby!!!" and then he looked at its chest and said "You see, its weak." and he gave some vitamins and capsules for the bird.

The bird has indeed become active and it doesnt allow me to touch him/herself, it knows I am stranger. It even stops eating when I am looking at it.

When I had rescued the bird, it was not even showing any defensive movement. It was acting like as if it had surrendered into its fate.

[wahegurubol]

hi !
i just checked the wings. i held up the bird lighly on the palm of my left hand and held its body except that of the right wing.. i looked at the bottom of the wing and top, at the bottom it was all white.. i didnt see any blister or anything that couldnt allow it to fly.. and the wing was uniform. Also it retracted the wings smoothly into its body... they both looked smooth.. but as I am not a specialist in birds , perhaps I felt that it retracted the left wing quicker than the right.. it could really have been a doubt of my mind, but i dont know... from my intuition i just felt that both wings were fine.. but if you see the bird its right wing is a bit higher and not so streamlined with the rest of its body.



I hope i didnt hurt the wing

also i notice that there is a small point in the right wing which is usually higher and not streamlined with its body. I dont know what it is. perhaps a feather out of line !! or maybe just the hair.. but i dont know. I have posted it in the pic above this point... i really dont know.. perhaps it is keeping its right wing in a higher position than the left wing. could it be that the right wing is paining from some injury.

could it be that the pigeon has bird flu??

[Reti]

I wouldn't worry about the bird flu right now, if that was the case I would think the bird wouldn't be doing better now than when you found it, besides, pigeons are pretty resistant to it.

The garlic will help in keeping any possible worm infestation at bay. Some members had even birds cure of worms with the garlic.
Do not give it in it's food. You can let a garlic clove soak in the drinking water for a few hours.

It is possible he has a bruised wing, that would prevent him from flying. If that's the case it will heal on it's own in a few days.

I am glad he is doing so much better than when you found him.

Reti