# Question about parents raising more than 2 babies.



## Dron (Apr 19, 2016)

to keep a long story short, i have yet to have success with getting my birds to lay fertile eggs.

a couple weeks ago i put 2 of my rollers together, they layed EGG 1. the same day i found an egg in my kit box so to increase my chances of having atleast 1 fertile egg in the nest i put the KIT EGG into the nest as well. two days later they layed EGG 2. then to my surprise, two days later they layed EGG 3. i waited about a week, then i checked all 4 eggs with a flash light and they were all fertile. 

fast forward to today and 3 of the 4 eggs have hatched. 

ive read its very hard on the parents to feed 3 or 4 babies. so what should i do to increase the chances of their survival? 

should i pull 2 of them out and try to hand feed and raise? 
should i just leave them and let the parents try and do it on their own? or should i help the parents out by hand feeding them but leaving them in their nest? 

thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions!


----------



## Chuck K (Jan 12, 2013)

I would leave all three in the nest during the milk phase since both parents will be feeding and it is important to the young's immune system to get the milk. You will have to watch them, and maybe supplement any that are smaller with formula.

Once they begin to feather and the hen tapers off on feeding you will have to assist the cock in feeding them or start trying to wean them to feed themselves.

In my opinion if is easier to give a larger bird/breed more than two youngsters as fosters than to give three to the same breed. For example I knew some folks that kept rollers and homers that would put three roller eggs under the homers and never had a problem with homers feeding all three young rollers. I don't think you could get away with reversing that order.


----------



## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

You are putting a lot of stress on both the parents and the babies. This is how you get stressed birds who get sick, and babies who end up with canker. Feeding 2 babies is plenty stressful on its own.


----------



## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

ive read its very hard on the parents to feed 3 or 4 babies. so what should i do to increase the chances of their survival? 

should i pull 2 of them out and try to hand feed and raise? 
should i just leave them and let the parents try and do it on their own? or should i help the parents out by hand feeding them but leaving them in their nest? 

*I would have recommended first you find another foster couple to raise the extra 1 or 2 babies before they hatched, that would be their best bet for survival.

1. Allow the parents to feed them the first few days of their lives, as they will be getting that all important pigeon milk the first few days. KEEP a close eye out that they are indeed feeding ALL babies.

2. Once the growth starts at about 3 days of age, they will start eating great volumes of food, and that is the time to start supplementing. It is not fair to put such undue stress on parents, as Jay has mentioned.

3. I suggest, be there BEFORE feeding and take one out and hand feed, then rotate to another baby for next feeding. Make sure other two are well fed, that crop is full. This way they will all get benefit of parents feeding. This will take some of the stress off parents. If this is impossible for you, (imagine what it is doing to the pigeon parents), then pull the baby or babies AFTER parents have fed who's crops are not full and supplement them.

4.If one baby is still not getting enough to eat, allow the parents to feed that baby first by removing the other two and then putting them back, and supplement one or two of them as needed. Do this at every feeding. 

Here is a quick easy reference for feeding babies: http://www.pigeonrescue.co.uk/caringforababypigeon.htm*


----------



## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

What will you do if the 4th one hatches?


----------



## Jr Brown (May 22, 2012)

I might add that you should have food available at all times for the parents. And of course, clean water. 
I have had to deal with this several times. I keep the water and food right in the nest box. The babies learn much sooner to eat on their own when the food is easily accessible and they see their parents eating.
So of course the situation you have created is not ideal but, you can be successful in dealing with what has occurred. 
You will need to constantly monitor the babies because one will always be smaller than the others. So as mentioned above by others, you will need to make sure the smaller one then gets feed first, by removing the others briefly or you will have to fed it yourself. It will be some extra work for you and the parents but it can be a enjoyable success.


----------

