# Befriending young feral pigeon?



## Hyenarchy (Jul 2, 2018)

Hello pigeon.biz users! 
(English is not my native language, I apologize for my mistakes ^^")
At Friday, a week ago, I found a pigeon behind a bus stop. Big ball of fluff, apathetic, standing still, with blood under the wing. Took it to the vet (found the avian one!) immediately, then I took it to my home and put it in my old cage that once belonged to my degu. (My first pigeon)
1) It was bitten by a dog but after the wounds were sanitized, they healed up nicely.
2) Empty crop. It was starved. 
3) It had parasites. Vet found Trichomonas in its crop and Coccidia in the droppings. The pigeon (I named it Pablo) is already after the treatment, so it has them no more ^^
4) Paromyxovirus. Yikes. After treating all of the things mentioned earlier, I got Carnifarm and started to put it in its water. It's a standard supplementary solution, it consists of Magnesium gluconate and sorbitol. It has L-carnitine, biotin, L-arginine, taurine, L-cysteine, a little bit (<5%) of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and crude ash. 
5) It is young. It still can't fly (vet checked the wing muscles, they were poorly developed). It's beak has still visible fleshy gape flange, and its wattle is still flesh-colored. Although recently it slooowly started to get white.
Me and vet decided that it can't have more than 3 months (at the end I will show pictures of it). I still don't know its sex.
For first few days I needed to stabilize it, I fed it special veterinary food through syringe, but after 2 days it quickly showed appetite and I just gave it seeds for wild birds, added some peas and lentils to it. Vet also gave me some antibiotic to give him once a day for week.
Then I got it through the treatment of parasites. And now I focus at giving it supplements so it can fight its Paromyxovirus.
It had terrible diarrhea, but right now its droppings are almost good. Round, khaki in color, with white places. Sometimes there are more runny poops, but I read that those are typical for Paromyxovirus.

I do not keep it ONLY in cage. It treats the cage as its sleeping place. At the morning I put some newspapers on the floor and remove the upper part of cage, so it can jump out. It spends it's days on newspapers, chilling, flapping and training its wings and overall doing pigeon things.

Now, after introduction I would like to ask about taming it. I mean, it has no problem eating, sleeping, preening etc. in the same room as me. Earlier it was just paralysed and shaky whenever I took it in hands to give it its medicine, feed, or just wanted to move it somewhere else. NOW IT IS PISSED. Whenever I sit near him it puffs up and makes this breathing (almost hissing) noise, and when I try to put my hands ANYWHERE near it, it attacks me with wings and pecks me. I'm happy to see it having way more energy, but I was wondering how can I interpret its behavior:

1) It is still terrified, but thinks that it has no way of escaping so it attacks instead.
2) It learned that I am not here to hurt it, so now it treats me as someone bothersome and only wants to mark its private space.
3) Both.

It knows that newspaper is its place to be and is not that keen on moving anywhere else. And my questions are:
1) What can I do to be friends with it? I know that I can't force it to anything, I've found a lot of information about health, toys, food etc. but nothing about slowly gaining trust of pigeon. I would like to know what can I do to be seen as more friendly by it? (it WON'T take food from my hand, only from its bowl) 
2) How can I prepare and what should I know about maturing pigeons?
3) Any information or tips, really. I only know SOME theory about pigeons, I want to prepare for practice.

I added photos in attachments. First photo is about the same day I got it. Second is from few days ago. And the last is from today.


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## Marina B (May 5, 2011)

Very beautiful pigeon! You won't win his trust by sticking your hands out to him, he must come to you. One thing you can try is do give him chopped up raw peanuts. Pigeons just love them. You first have to sprinkle some on his food, and once he develops a taste for them, start offering it to him in a small bowl. Once he starts going for it, you can put the bowl closer to you every time and just wait patiently for him to come closer. Peanuts have a very high fat content, so don't overdo it. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks time, he will be sitting on your lap eating the peanuts.

How do you put him back inside the cage to sleep at night? If you chase him around the room to put him back, this will just add to him being scared. Always better to wait until it is dark, then catch him to put him back.

You can also put a brick on top of the newspapers, pigeons love to perch on something. A mirror next to the brick will also help him feeling less lonely. Sometimes males will attack their mirror image (consider the other pigeon as an intruder). If this upsets him, rather remove it.


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## Hyenarchy (Jul 2, 2018)

Marina B said:


> How do you put him back inside the cage to sleep at night? If you chase him around the room to put him back, this will just add to him being scared. Always better to wait until it is dark, then catch him to put him back.


I never have to chase him, because he doesn't really run away from me. 
He jumps in by himself, always about 10 p.m., because when he's out, I remove the upper part of the cage - the one with metal bars. So it's just this blue box, and when he wants to - he just hops into it and I put the upper part back.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Great advice from Marina. The more you are around and just speaking quietly to him, he will get used to you being around. If you have been medicating him orally and handling him to do that, then it will take a while for him to realize that you aren't going to grab him for something. They really don't like that. They prefer to be able to come to you when it is their idea. The chopped up peanuts are a wonderful idea. Once he tries them and finds out how wonderful they are, he should eventually come to you for them. It will take time and patience for him to now learn to trust you. You will make friends with him the same way you would with any wild animal. Patience and kindness.
What makes you feel that he had PMV?


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## Hyenarchy (Jul 2, 2018)

Jay3 said:


> What makes you feel that he had PMV?


He has problems with hitting the seeds, he has to have them in the bowl, and still sometimes misses. He has poor coordination and sometimes has some sorts of "fits", when he shakes his head rapidly and spins in circle.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Other things can cause those problems.
Does he get vitamins, and calcium/D3?


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## Hyenarchy (Jul 2, 2018)

Yeah, but I have him for only 1,5 week. I give him calcium, many different seeds, some supplementary solution for pigeons and sometimes I add this veterinary feed with vitamins. Although I plan to go to some special shop for pigeons in town, is there something you'd recommend to me?


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## Hyenarchy (Jul 2, 2018)

I don't know whether editing post shows as adding as post, so this time I will post two times in a row instead of editing my last one. 
Pablo is much better, but he still has some issues with flying and spinning in circles. Although SLOWLY he gets better and better. He is able to jump/fly on the bed now!
He still dislikes being handled, but only gets grumpy instead of attacking. BUT! TODAY HE ATE FROM MY HAND! The peanuts idea was AMAZING.
He's still grumpy though.
I will provide you with video of his flying attempts. They are BAD. But he gets better at this, I promise! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-SZolRWrzw

At the end of video I said "Good job" and my bf "Yeah, it was kind of nice".


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

The poor thing. I wouldn't want him doing that, as he could injure himself. Maybe better not to let him try for a while. If he did have PMV then he may not be able to fly again.


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