# Help - Baby pigeon just died



## matt131 (Jul 26, 2014)

Hello,

As the title says, my baby pigeon just died this night; I'm completely devastated.

You don't have to read everything on the paragraph, so I highlighted the important parts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I got this bird when it was an egg. It was a feral pigeon egg; their parents abandoned the nest soon after they laid it. I brought the egg into my house and by using just a heat lamp and a humidifier, I successfully hatched the egg in 18 days. *I fed it "Nutristart" formula I bought from the pet store. As the baby pigeon grew, I slowly began adding oatmeal to its food, and less formula. Soon, after 2 weeks after hatch, I fed it more oatmeal than the formula, and the consistency of the formula was increased. (The food, of course, was mixed with water to imitate the "crop milk"). Nothing went wrong, and the pigeon grew fine. *Even my friend, who had raised pigeons, said that oatmeal was okay to mix with the formula. Soon, *three weeks after its hatch, I began to slowly introducing it defrosted split peas and corn, mixed in the oatmeal formula.* *Around the 26th day, I noticed that the pigeon had a hard crop. *I gave it some water with a tiny bit of salt, and it drank on its own.* The next day, the crop emptied, and I began feeding it normally again. *Soon, *at around 30 days, I noticed that the pigeon was not developing fast enough. Based off the searches I found on the internet, the pigeon should look close to an adult pigeon. On the other hand, my 30 day old pigeon still had yellow fuzz on it. I also noticed that it had feathers on it's feet and that it had black plumage instead of gray*, which was weird since the pigeon's parents had both gray plumage, which was the main color of feral pigeons. As the days went by, things went by normally. But *on the 35th day, something horrible happened: my pigeon suddenly died. *The bird was facing down, with its legs stretched out. I don't know what exactly happened. *The same afternoon, I let it play outside in my yard*; the temperature was quite warm, but I noticed that the pigeon was shivering, so I immediately brought it back inside. *I also gave it more defrosted beans and corn today*, mixed with a tiny bit of the oatmeal formula. But that's all I did different. In any case, the baby pigeon unfortunately passed away.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To be honest, I don't actually know how it passed away. Was it because of the beans and corn? Did it die of shock? Was it because of the food? Did its death have to do with it not developing fast enough?
Any possible explanations to how the pigeon died will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

By the way, I'm new to this site, so please correct me if I'm doing something wrong.

- Matt


----------



## looloo (Aug 7, 2014)

Has anyone got any answers for this? I'm worried about my little feral buddy now...


----------



## loftkeeper (Sep 21, 2010)

what kind of beans


----------



## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

The bird was probably malnourished if it never developed properly. It should have been fed a baby bird formula which contains all that they need up until weaning. Probably also didn't get calcium which is very important for a growing squab.

They probably never abandoned the nest. Pigeons don't usually do that. They don't stay with the nest until the second egg is laid. Baby birds are very difficult to hand raise, and to be able to do all that they require. It really isn't doing them a service to hatch eggs and try to raise them. Really isn't fair to them as they often suffer because of our well meaning intervention and die anyway, or can never be released to be a bird as they were meant to be.


----------

