The pigeons are animals that live with us in urban and rural areas. Almost anywhere in the world we can find these intelligent birds, often very punished by our society.
If you come across a pigeon chick or newly hatched pigeon, you should try to contact a rescue center Generally, if the pigeon it is a pigeon species, the centers take care of them, but if they are a wild species, it is most likely that they will not do it, since it is the responsibility of the town hall.
In any case, if you decide to take care of the animal, you should know what care and feeding newborn pigeons need. In this article on our site we offer you some tips that can help you save your life.
Newborn pigeon care
Like any other animal that in the wild needs its parents to survive, the pigeon requires almost continuous care For this reason it is essential provide it with a safe, quiet and warm place to rest and grow, give it specific food for its species and, if we are only going to take care of it during its first stages, we must contact a recovery center that admits pigeons so that after this stage it can meet with other pigeons and learn from them.
Where to house a newborn pigeon?
In the first days of a pigeon's life, when it is with its parents, they will provide warmth and a pleasant environment. When we are the ones who act as nurse, we must put the pigeon in a wide cardboard box with newspaper on the bottom that makes it easy for us at the time to clean, put some type of mesh in which the pigeon can hold its legs keeping them together and not deform them and, provide it with a small blanket shaping it into a bowlto make you feel comfortable.
Both the mesh and the blanket are essential, as they will help the legs to grow in the correct position and not deform. Under no circumstances should rodent substrates or cat litter be used as pigeon bedding.
The box should be placed in some quiet place of the house, avoiding direct sunlight, drafts and heat sources very strong, like a radiator. We must offer him a gentle heat, for example a small hot water bottle inside a sock.
What do newborn pigeons eat?
Pigeons are birds that feed on seeds and fruits. Pigeons or pigeons three days old or less are fed by their parents a substance called "crop milk" This "milk" is nothing like to the milk that we produce as female mammals. It is an epithelial secretion with enzymes that is produced in the crop of adult pigeons. Under no circumstances should we give mammalian milk to a bird, since they will not be able to digest it, causing intestinal problems and, probably, death.
Since we cannot produce this "crop milk", there are some brands of food paste for parrots on the market that contain these enzymes necessary for the first three days of a pigeon's life.
At first, the feed should be more diluted. We must thicken it from the tenth day of life. Before giving our pigeon food, it must be at a warm temperature (not hot!), we should never give it cold porridge, it will be able to digest it and will end up dying. In case of emergency, we can feed the pigeon with cereal porridge for human babies, mixing it with warm water (not milk), making sure that they do not contain milk solids.
How to feed newborn pigeons?
In the wild, nestlings insert their beaks into their parents' beaks, then the parents regurgitate food from the crop. We can use other methods:
- Syringe and probe: we introduce the warm porridge inside the syringe, avoiding that air remains inside. We then place the probe on the syringe and introduce it through the beak to the crop, which is slightly to the right of the animal. This method is not for beginners as it can seriously harm the pigeon.
- Bottle: put the porridge in a bottle, cut the tip of the teat. Then, we introduce the pigeon's beak inside the cut nipple and that's how it will eat. Once it has eaten, we must clean the beak and the nostrils.
To know how much we have to feed it we must check with our fingers how full it is the crop We must be careful not to fill it too much, as it may be damaged. If we overfill the crop, two kinds of bubbles will appear on the pigeon's back. Every 24 hours we must let the crop empty completely.
If we notice that the hours go by and the crop does not empty, we may find ourselves facing a crop stasis, that is, the food is has stagnated and does not continue its route through the digestive system. This can happen if we feed the pigeon too cold food or if the animal suffers from a tumor in the proventriculus (part of the stomach) or a fungal infection. In this situation, we must go to a veterinarian
To finish we are going to share with you a video where you can see how to feed a baby pigeon, from the La Paloma Permanent Shelter:
