What to feed baby pigeon

[benji]

Need help! My cat captured a baby pigeon about one month ago. I've been taking care of it since, I started out with liquid bird food and recently he/she is refusing to be hand fed. The problem is that it will not eat bird seeds. I've tried giving it table food (fruits, peas, corn, peanuts) and it doesn"t seem to know how to eat. Any sugestion?

[cyro51]

I found myself in the same situation a few weeks ago with a rescue that was old enough to eat on her own but would not do it. I had to push one seed at a time into her beak and hated doing that in case I hurt her.

But you will just have to force feed it soaked peas and beans or soaked dog biscuits, or ball of griund seed mixed into a paste with water. Otherwise try Stacey's baggie method http://community.webshots.com/user/mrenya
(If you haven't done that already). You could replace the formula in the bag with the ground seed mix.

Cynthia

[Snowbird]

If the bird is active it will make feeding difficult. In this situation you gently wrap a towel around the youngster until just the head is sticking up. That will tend to relax everyone, and you can take your time and hold the beak open with one hand and insert some moistened puppy chow or seeds in one bit at a time.

[peggy campbell]

Originally Posted by cyro51

I found myself in the same situation a few weeks ago with a rescue that was old enough to eat on her own but would not do it. I had to push one seed at a time into her beak and hated doing that in case I hurt her.

But you will just have to force feed it soaked peas and beans or soaked dog biscuits, or ball of griund seed mixed into a paste with water. Otherwise try Stacey's baggie method http://community.webshots.com/user/mrenya
(If you haven't done that already). You could replace the formula in the bag with the ground seed mix.

Cynthia

hi my name is peggy in chicago, my boyfriend tells me not to pick up baby pigeons that they could have dieases, i kiss them when i pick them up! what do you think, ima new member here as of feb 23, and i love it here, peggy

[cyro51]

Hi Peggy,

I was absolutely terrified of kissing my first rescue, even though the temptation was overwhelming, because I had hear so much about pigeons carrying diseases. It didn't cross my mind at the time that humans can carry so many more infectious and contagious diseases than pigeons and that all of them could be transmitted to other humans. So we are in much more danger from contact with our fellow humans.

I have since learnt that although pigeons can carry diseases iit is the minority of them that do and that very few of those diseases can be transmitted to humans. Those that can be transmitted would usually be transmitted via droplets (eg sneezing) or thorugh oral/fecal transmission (eg food or hands contaminated by pigeon poops coming in contact with the mouth) or by breathing in the dust created by dried contaminated poops. So when handling a strange pigeon I make certain that my hands are cleaned afterwards and that their poops are cleaned up before they become dust. And I don't have pigeons near my food.

I kiss my own pigeons on the head but I wouild not kiss their beaks...this is because pigeon's mouths are a lot cleaner than human mouths and I would not wish to infect one of my pigeons with my bacteria.

Cynthia

[Reti]

Hi Peggy,

It is very unlikely to get sick from picking up a pigeon. But please do not kiss them. You can handle the bird, feed him, medicate, whatever needs to be done, but kissing is a nono. Unless it is your own pet, and you know 100% it has no diseases.

Also after you handle any bird or animal that you find, thorogh hand washing is in order. Good hygiene will keep you healthy and the animals.
Also always wash your hands in between handling birds or animals. That will reduce the risk of transmitting diseases from one animal to the other.

reti