Some improvement today - his feet aren’t so far forward when he’s on his haunches and he’s standing up intermittently and better than yesterday. I made him chase the seeds around for a bit and walk around. I did decide to go ahead and dust with some calcium powder. His bones in his toes...
I think you’re in the clear then, that’s just air moving over a bit of fluid in the syrinx. Not really anything to worry too much about unless accompanied by other breathing difficulties, which you described as happening before the clicking noise. I think the squab is okay and needs the human...
Do you know their ages? They could just be too young. I’ve had young pairs that go through all the motions of courting and nest building but it took a while for any eggs to be laid.
Unfortunately that is very common with cat-caught animals, in addition to almost guaranteed infection even from small, easily missed wounds, the stress alone often kills vulnerable small mammals and birds.
Thanks for trying to do the right thing!
That’s a good clean up crew! The only birds I keep at the moment are pigeons so I had to do away with wire floor coops, the wasted seed was just attracting way too many rodents. I didn’t mind the chipmunks and squirrels that habituated themselves to come running when they heard me feeding the...
Very wet droppings today from the squab, not nice lumps as the day before. I think I let him have a little tooo much water yesterday.
Thursday night when I brought the squab in his legs weren’t great, but he could definitely walk and even scurry around on the floor, at least when he was frantic...
Yeah they don’t see to get too affectionate. If anything a close bond can lead to what we would perceive as aggression with your hen or cock biting at you and trying to drive you into the nest. The behavior is definitely more common with male pigeons but I’ve had at least one hen that would...
I think a good drink after feeding is reasonable. I gave him a big drink this morning because his crop wasn’t totally emptied, which I expected since he was practically starved beforehand.
That sounds like a dream. I have one homer cock that I can trust to feed random squabs but his instincts...
That makes sense, with most of my pairs the hen still contributes but it would make sense that’s what occurred this time.
Thing is I actually have a cockbird that is really good about feeding random babies, (if you remember a few weeks back I had a cock with babies get sick) and he helped me...
I have heard of it occurring rarely in birds, though I think in my case it’s much more likely she got fertilized by some random male pigeon, if not one from my own flock.
I had a garter snake a while back that I raised as a captive born baby, some seven years later she produced a litter of...
Also, is there a better way to feed him than this? The hen had him on the seed mix including peas even by the time I had left on Sunday. I tried to use a funnel but the peas are too big. The bag worked well but as you can see from the pictures he was going absolutely bananas, opening as wide as...
Nope, singleton. He was an “immaculate conception”, by a single hen. I didn’t even expect her lone egg to hatch, it was discolored and misshapen. I have a guess that the father is my only blue bar cockbird, but it also could be a feral. The hen is one of my whites and they all basically look the...
Seems like there’s a ton of members hand raising pigeons right now.
This guy is a little slow to develop and the hen seemed to have stopped feeding him entirely. His crop was completely empty and he was frantic in the nest box.
He’s inside with me now and doing much better.
I don’t have feed stores around here that carry pigeon feed, unfortunately. There are a number of very good brands such as Brown’s and Versele-Laga that you can buy on Chewy. Chewy is definitely more expensive than the feed store but the bags almost always qualify for their free shipping and you...
Maybe the air is accidentally entering the crop through the syringe? I’m not familiar with the consistency of the formula but maybe the syringe needs to be flicked to free the air bubbles.
Is this because you want to avoid the extra cost or because you have concerns with the shipping process?
I’ve had them shipped to me before without issue.
No luck on Craigslist? They are definitely seasonal with a spike in pigeons sold in the spring and fall.
If you’re looking for good quality or rare colored homing pigeons I still recommend Dennis at whiteracers dot com. Otherwise maybe there are pigeon shows in your area? They might be just...
Looks good! In my experience they are most prone to splay leg between days 3-8 [+ or - 1] because they start rapidly increasing in size and weight, becoming very front-heavy with food. At this point the legs can splay to the side when the squab tries to lift the front half of its body. If you...
If you hand raise pigeons they can be very affectionate. A single pigeon housed indoors will easily bond with humans. Bonding and affection with pigeons can also not be ideal for the keeper, a large part of pigeon courtship is the male pecking the female behind the head and “driving” her into...