[zugunruhe]

I work at a bird hospital where we mostly cater to pet birds, but often we get wild babies brought to us which we don't have much experience with. Today two paramedics brought in a nestling pigeon who was booted from his nest by a much larger sibling (possibly they were trying to place him back in the wrong nest?) He's about 60 grams & had a full crop when he arrived. I warmed him up which really perked him up, and gave him some room temp Pedialyte as well as 1 cc of Harrison's juvenile handfeeding formula, just to see if he showed interest in eating. (He did & seemed to want more).

I didn't want to over-stuff his crop though, and it doesn't appear to be emptying completely. I palpated it & there seem to be seeds and a small 'chunky' thing in there ~ I'm worried he's not passing food through him as quickly as he should be. He's pooping, but it seems rather scant considering how full his crop appears.

I couldn't find this particular question anywhere else on the forum, so I apologize in advance if this topic is covered elsewhere. I'm not sure how old he is, but he looks similar to this baby from a previous post.

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=12536&d=1242039277

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! He will be going home with a relatively experience pigeon re-habber client of ours tomorrow, but even he has never taken care of a baby this young. Please help me get this little one through the night as best I can! I'm willing to do whatever it takes.

Thanks.

 

[Charis]

Keep him warm and don't give him any more food until the crop is empty. Adding new food to food already in the crop can cause a bacterial infection. Pigeon parents stuff the babies and feed them several times a day, rather than several times an hour as many other birds do and so it does take a while for the crop to empty.
As long as you have the baby in the clinic, it would be great thing if you would do a fecal and check for worms, canker, etc.

 

[zugunruhe]

We already ran a fecal & it was negative! Yay for that. Seems such a rare thing to have parasite-free pigeon poop, but the little guy's got to have *something* good going for him. Thanks for the advice ~ he definitely doesn't seem to need to be fed as often as some orphaned songbirds we've run across. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't starving him. Also? He sleeps A LOT... but I figure that's normal for a baby bird who's had such a rough day.

 

[Charis]

You might swab his throat and have a look at that too.
His eyes are open...right?

 

[Charis]

Once his crop empties, you will feed more than 1cc ...probably more like 8-10cc's.

 

[zugunruhe]

He made it through the night & started peeping at 8am this morning for more food! The crop appears to be emptying nicely (maybe all that 'chunky' stuff he had in there just took a little longer to digest & pass than the feeding formula I'm giving him now). His poops look great & are more frequent... and I am soooo relieved!

NOW my only real concern is HOW to avoid having him imprint on humans? I'm afraid he won't ever be releasable if he continues to get handfed by people. How do you avoid this & keep him 'wild'? He'll be going to the pigeon re-habber on Thursday, but I'd like to give him the best headstart possible.

 

[Charis]

Once he gets with other Pigeons he will "wild up" so don't worry about contact.