# Be Careful!



## Birdn00b (Jul 20, 2006)

I just wanted to let people know, and this may be a no-brainer. Be careful if feeding a baby pigeon using a method where the baby sticks its head into something to suck up the food (or any other) not to get the baby bird feeding formula into its nostrils. It will dry and possibly kill the bird. Not being fully aware of this a baby pigeon I was caring for died most likely due to food drying in the nostrils.


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## Reti (Jul 20, 2003)

I am sorry the baby passed away.
I am not sure about the reason you mentioned. Of course it can happen, but he might have had something wrong with him to begin with. Bird parents sense when there is something wrong with their babies and reject them, this is a reason we find them out of their nests in the first palce.
But you have a good point, we have to be very careful with feeding babies.

Reti


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## Steelers Army (Mar 3, 2006)

*I use....*

Thanks for the advice  


This is the method and the houseware device I used to hand feed baby pigeons *"baster"* the one we use for turkey when sucking all the sauce and spread it on the turkey that houseware is the most safest I can think of, when I hand feed baby pigeons, Im not cheap just being practical and 1 or 3 pumps in the crop and they are full like they are fed by their parents...But of course you have to feed them with chicken pellets mixed in water and check up on the babies crop make sure the crop has water with the pellets, sometimes they poops so much and they disposed very watery, I do this for good 3 days and they are back to their parents, few more days after they are back to the parents they will learn how to peck for food...


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Birdn00b said:


> I just wanted to let people know, and this may be a no-brainer. Be careful if feeding a baby pigeon using a method where the baby sticks its head into something to suck up the food (or any other) not to get the baby bird feeding formula into its nostrils. It will dry and possibly kill the bird. Not being fully aware of this a baby pigeon I was caring for died most likely due to food drying in the nostrils.



Well..yes, one should not have the container SO 'full' that their Beak displaces the formula to where it is covering their Nostrils...

But even if it did, it would not amount to anything...they would simply breathe through a very slightly open Beak untill their Nostrils cleared out.

Typically, when Babys or youngsters drink on their own, with one holding a little Cup of Water for them to drink from, they immerse their Head far enough to cover their eyes even sometimes, as do older Birds on occasion, and this is no problem for them, so long as one is not forcing them TO do it, or forceing them to keep doing it too long at a time to where they in fact can not breathe at all.

Your Bird did not die because it's Nostrils were clogged...


And too, it is only polite to gently wipe off their little Beak or face with a warm tamp bit of paper towell or the likes, after feeding...


I have certainly fed many hundreds of Pigeon and Dove Babys, and I have never seen one get their Nostrils 'clogged' from the formula...I have never seen anything close to that, where the formula ever went into their Nostrils.


Then too, what kind of formula or food were you feeding them? 

And, how , in what, were you feeding them? What is your method?


Phil
Las Vegas


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## Birdn00b (Jul 20, 2006)

I was feeding the bird Kaytee exact. And I used the end part of a large eyedropper thing, you know the part that you squeeze. I filled it up with the formula and it just stuck its beak in and sucked it all up. Perhaps it was something else that killed it. For a few days prior to its death it was shaking its head like it had something in its nose or something. And just before it died it kept on twisting its neck around. It was also breathing through its mouth. I noticed that there was lots of dried formula in its nose so I assumed that was why. Perhaps I did not mix the formula right.


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## Birdn00b (Jul 20, 2006)

Reti said:


> I am sorry the baby passed away.
> I am not sure about the reason you mentioned. Of course it can happen, but he might have had something wrong with him to begin with. Bird parents sense when there is something wrong with their babies and reject them, this is a reason we find them out of their nests in the first palce.
> But you have a good point, we have to be very careful with feeding babies.
> 
> Reti


I dont know much about pigeons or doves but it did seem very healthy when I found it.


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## pigeon_ninja (Jul 10, 2006)

Reti said:


> Of course it can happen, but he might have had something wrong with him to begin with. Bird parents sense when there is something wrong with their babies and reject them, this is a reason we find them out of their nests in the first palce.
> Reti


I was wondering if a baby bird should be saved if it has been rejected by its parents and thrown out of its nest as you say.
Do parents do this because the baby could be contagious?


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

I know that you think that it was the feeding method that you used that caused this pigeon's death and I know full well that we rescuers always associate the loss of a baby with something we did or failed to. It is human nature. But I am beginning to doubt very much that it was the feeding method that caused it to die.

First, I think that virtually all pigeons breathe through their mouths when they are close to death. There is also an intermittent clicking noise that I associate with imminent death. These are certainly the most common symptoms off life ebbing away that I have observed

Also I remember that someone who had a young pigeon that eventually died of ornithosis mentioned that neck twisting. I will try to find the thread as it is not a symptom commonly associated with ornithosis.

Another thing is the head shaking. That I associate with canker, because one of my rescue squabs did it when he had canker. Canker could look like dried Kaytee Exact.

It is a very sad thing to lose a bird in your care and we have all been through it. The important thing is that the little one had someone who cared what happened and who provided him with safety, food and warmth.

Cynthia


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Birdn00b said:


> I was feeding the bird Kaytee exact. And I used the end part of a large eyedropper thing, you know the part that you squeeze. I filled it up with the formula and it just stuck its beak in and sucked it all up. Perhaps it was something else that killed it. For a few days prior to its death it was shaking its head like it had something in its nose or something. And just before it died it kept on twisting its neck around. It was also breathing through its mouth. I noticed that there was lots of dried formula in its nose so I assumed that was why. Perhaps I did not mix the formula right.



Hi Birdn00b,


Can you describe what the poops had been looking like? Their color and consistancy and so on?

How old was the Baby?


Phil
Las Vegas


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

pigeon_ninja said:


> I was wondering if a baby bird should be saved if it has been rejected by its parents and thrown out of its nest as you say.
> Do parents do this because the baby could be contagious?



Hi pigeon_ninja,


Yes...

Many of the Babys or youngsters I have been brought or found myself and raised, were ill or injured or both...

The majority of these are very easy patients and get well or heal up just fine.

The others in many cases would be easy enough if one could arrive at a correct diagnosis to know what meds and regimen to elect.


And some, probably, have an illness which has advanced too far, or injurys of such a kind, that they will be very difficult to save...

Some, if one gets them too late in their illness, or if too severely injured internally, likely can not be saved by any means or insight.
Some Nests are simply too precarious or too small or too exposed to winds or preditors, for the Babys to remain secure in them...as well as some Babys are just more rambunctious than others, and so sometimes Babys fall and or fall and get injured, when they had been otherwise perfectly healthy and rubust.

Some of these when old enough, start 'marching' looking for their parents or looking for who knows what, and can travel so far that their parents can not find them to feed them anymore...

I have found quite a few of these 'marching' Babys/toddlers over the years, and who knows how far they had gone on those little legs, and with all that determination...!



Phil
Las Vegas


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## Birdn00b (Jul 20, 2006)

pdpbison said:


> Hi Birdn00b,
> 
> 
> Can you describe what the poops had been looking like? Their color and consistancy and so on?
> ...


I dont recall that well but what I remember they were greenish with some white and fairly watery, and also I dont recall seeing it poop anytime after the last feeding before death.

From the pictures that I have seen on the web it looked to be possibly nine days or so.


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## pdpbison (Mar 15, 2005)

Hi Birn00b,


I just don't have any real ideas as for what was the matter with him...



If he was not making enough of his own Body Heat, to be like "A Little Furnace" when held in your palm...then, if you were not for sure keeping him 'warm' by provideing a dedicated set up for him to be warm in...

Then, if he had got chilled, and was fed when chilled, the Food can spoil in his Crop and Stomach and so on and this can kill them in a day or two...

One must not feed a chilled Baby, untill it is made to be thoroughly warm through and through, and kept warm thereafter...


Otherwise, if Canker, the head shaking would be consistant, but it is hard to say if the poops were...


Phil
Las Vegas


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