# a rescue story



## tbmama (Jul 3, 2013)

Hi everyone, firstly let me say thanks for this forum and hopefully my story gives hope to any novice trying to rehab a baby dove. 

A couple of months ago my geriatric cat got hold of a baby dove and brought it to the back door. Now I know my cat can not climb trees so she must have found it on the ground somewhere, the night before we had really stormy winds and I think this little one got blown out of its nest and was sitting on the ground like a sitting duck when the cat found it. I got the baby bird off the cat and had a good look at it, there were no puncture wounds so I was hopeful. I put this little guy in a box overnight in the spare room to recover hoping he wouldn't go into shock. I kept thinking, if only I knew where the nest was I could pop him back in there. 

The next morning he was still alive and I had to figure out how to feed him. I looked on the internet and guessed he may have been about 10 days old. I had some canary seed in the cupboard and ground it up with a mortar and pestle with some oats, mixed in some hot water and tried to feed him with a syringe. It was tedious but I kept at it but after a couple of days I was getting frustrated that this baby was not eating enough, and honestly the baby bird was getting frustrated with the feeding too. So I searched on the internet for a better way and came across some sites that mentioned putting something over the syringe. I searched the house and found a fresh pack of rubber cleaning gloves and decided to give it a try. I cut the end off the syringe, cut a finger off the rubber gloves and washed thoroughly in water, cut a hole in the fingertip and put it on the syringe held in place with a rubber band. It worked! I honestly think this baby dove thought this was the parents gullet and it didn't take much encouragement to get him to stick his beak in. He would arch his neck down and gobble up the food as I gently syringed it into his beak. At this point I felt hope, maybe he was going to be ok. 

This feeding went on 3x a day for weeks and as he grew it was time to get him onto seed. I spent ages every night before his last feed, seed scattered on the floor and pecking at it with my finger. He got the idea to peck but he would just drop the seed again. So I got my husband to hold him while I opened his beak and popped one seed at a time in there, tilting his beak up so he would swallow it, hoping he would get the idea. This went on for weeks and I started to wonder if he would ever be able to eat on his own. I didn't want to start weaning until I knew he could actually peck and eat seed but it wasn't going anywhere. 

As he got bigger I started putting him outside during the day in the small shadehouse, by night he was brought inside to be in his box. I kept thinking if I just had another dove he could learn how to eat properly by himself and then one night as I lay awake in bed (and yeah, this little guys future kept me awake at night) I had an idea. I decided to take the shadecloth off the shadehouse door and replace it with mesh so he could clearly see out. Then I put seed inside the door for him, and seed outside the door to attract some other wild doves. 

Within a day, there were a couple of wild doves feeding outside, and he was instantly curious, and started copying them. It was time to do away with the midday feeding. Another week went by and I wanted to motivate him more to feed on his own, so I stopped his morning feed as well so he would have to eat by himself out of hunger. All the time he kept growing bigger, and was flying about in a confined space. A couple of weeks later I could tell he was getting restless, and I felt he was ready to leave (actually I felt he was getting beyond the age he should be leaving) so I stopped the last feeding for a few days and let him go. 

The whole time I cared for him I never mollycoddled him, never babied him, and never had anything to do with him apart from feeding because I didn't want him to be tame, and it seemed to work because he was always stand offish, as he got bigger it became harder to catch him just to feed him. After I opened the shadehouse door, he didn't waste any time and just flew off, I was surprised at that and when he didn't come back that night I was surprised too but cautiously optimistic. 

A day and a half passed and I didn't see him until I was hanging up some washing and he appeared out of nowhere. He walked right up the path towards me which was weird, I bent down and said "hello little one" and he didn't fly off, just looked up at me. I knew if he was back he was hungry so I got some seed and fed him, he wasn't even bothered that I was there, this was actually the tamest I've ever seen him. 

He's come back for a feed the following couple of days, today he finished his seed and flew up to my shoulder, its so weird to see him this trustful and friendly. But at least he is free to be a wild bird again, I don't mind if he comes back for food everyday, I'll be there to help him and if he manages to find enough food by himself to keep his belly full then that's ok too. I figure he's on a pretty steep learning curve right now, being out in the big world for the first time but I think he's doing pretty good considering. 

There were times during this that I wondered if he would ever make enough progress to be out there on his own, but he did it and it's a good outcome. I learned not to give up on him, to keep trying different things to see what would work and get him progressing (some of those things I read about at this forum) but if one thing wasn't working, I had to try something else to keep gradually pushing him along so that hopefully he could make it to a point of being released. I read someone say on here that sometimes we aren't as good as their natural parents at teaching them, and that is so true, no matter how much I pecked with my finger, it was the wild doves that showed him how it's done (and they got some free feeds out of it for their trouble). 

sorry this is sooo long, but hopefully there are some things in here that might help someone if they have to rehab a baby dove and like me have no idea what they are doing.

TBmama (TB is what I call my baby dove)


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## Jaye (Mar 13, 2008)

Great story, you have done very well.

Do you still leave seed outside the door of the shadehouse ? I think you should do that regularly. Elevated so a cat or other ground animal cannot get either the Doves or the seed. This way if TB comes and you are not there, he/she will not be relying on your presence to eat.

You have given TB a great gift.


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## tbmama (Jul 3, 2013)

Thanks Jaye, this rehab took much longer than it should have, but I think if it happened again I would be much better at moving things along quicker without all the trial and error. 

So far I've just been keeping an eye out the window for TB to see if he shows up for a feed and then I stand guard while he eats so no one bothers him. I think you're right though that it would be better to set something up off the ground (I might be able to attach a dish to the shadehouse for seed.) You got me really thinking about this, and TB is obviously associating me with the food source and it might be better for him to have food available where I'm not part of things. I love this little guy (girl?) but I also know it's not in his best interests to be so tame


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## amyable (Jul 7, 2007)

That is such a lovely story and you have done an amazing job.
It must be so good to be able to see him still and for him to come back as he trusts you.
Thanks for all you did to get him to where he is now, 

Janet


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## kunju (Mar 14, 2012)

Wonderful story! I truly appreciate the way you unconditionally loved the bird, so much that you checked yourself and did not cuddle/baby him, so he can become a happy wild and independent pigeon. It is rare to find people like you!


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## Miss-Sassypants (Sep 25, 2010)

This is a heartwarming story! Thanks for sharing! 

It is so sweet that he flew up to your shoulder after the feed. He wanted to say thank you. I do hope he isn't too trusting with other human strangers. But he's lucky he's a dove not a 'pigeon'. That wouldn't sit too kindly for other anti-pigeon people.

Do post a pic of him if you have it!


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## tbmama (Jul 3, 2013)

Thanks everyone, it's so nice to tell this story to people who get how rewarding this is to give this little one a second chance.

Amyable I was glad he came back when he got hungry and I think he tried to tough it out for as long as he could before he did that. Kunju thanks, I tried to be very conscious all along that he needed to be tough enough to make out there and I had to keep my distance. 

I think he's do pretty good, I only see late in the day now so I figure he must be out there foraging by himself for the most part. There's been no more flying up to my shoulder thank goodness LOL. I don't think he really feels attached to me, it seems to be all about the seed and filling his belly 

when I start pouring some seed on the ground for him he sometimes starts pecking at my hand as if he's saying "move, you're in my way!" LOL so he's still being his feisty little self.

I'll see if I can get a pic of him to post miss sassy. I live in a fairly quiet street and there are always a few doves around so hopefully he'll be ok.


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## hong kong pigeons (Sep 30, 2013)

tbmama said:


> Hi everyone, firstly let me say thanks for this forum and hopefully my story gives hope to any novice trying to rehab a baby dove.
> 
> This feeding went on 3x a day for weeks and as he grew it was time to get him onto seed. I spent ages every night before his last feed, seed scattered on the floor and pecking at it with my finger. He got the idea to peck but he would just drop the seed again. So I got my husband to hold him while I opened his beak and popped one seed at a time in there, tilting his beak up so he would swallow it, hoping he would get the idea. This went on for weeks and I started to wonder if he would ever be able to eat on his own. I didn't want to start weaning until I knew he could actually peck and eat seed but it wasn't going anywhere.
> 
> ...


I am thinking how you could achieve the highlighted without his parents to teach him to fly.


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## tbmama (Jul 3, 2013)

flying was the one thing that came very naturally to him, so as soon as his wings were strong enough, he did that all by himself. I have rehabbed another older dove once before as well, and he was the same, he basically taught himself to fly in a safe confined area. I don't think the parents necessarily teach them to fly, but more so, they push them out of the nest and encourage them to get moving for food etc. but the flying part seems to come naturally as the wings develop IMO. If the parents keep feeding the babies, they won't bother leaving the nest, which is why I gradually cut back on the handfeeding, because this was the only way I was going to encourage him to fly down to the seed and eat by himself. he would have been happy to stay being hand fed, so just like his parents, I had to push him and motivate him by withdrawing that, othewise he would have stayed a dependent baby instead of being able to look after himself.

ps. a few years ago some doves built a nest under my pergola and about 2x a year it gets reused by either the same doves or different ones for nesting. what I have noticed is the parents will start leaving the babies for longer and longer, until one day they both just get up and fly out of the nest without the parents being present. It's a very quick process and they may hang around the area for a day or two to practice but then they are gone and flying off elsewhere once their confidence is good. their first flight is usually from the nest to a window sill etc, but they seem to be able to fly no problem even straight out of the nest with no experience. They just seem to know what to do and when the time is right (and part of that is probably realising the parents are not coming back repeatedly to feed them) so they get moving and leave the nest.

and to me it seems as long as there is room for them to do a bit of flying, that is what they will do. initially I let tb loose in a bedroom to fly around a bit, but later he was free to fly about the shadehouse, he even found himself a spot just under the roof where he would sleep at night like a nest of sorts.


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