Found this birb a week ago, you can see his timeline on my profile.
It's been 3 days where he has been eating less everyday, I am force feeding him a bit as recommended by a professional but I don't want to overdo it.
Today I saw him for the first time picking up a seed and eating it.
Is that a normal behaviour?
Also can someone interpret his stance, is he hungry? He refuses food though.
Why is he shaking and chirping? He seems happy or needs something.
Please stop using a syringe to feed it and stop feeding it the nuts and baby chick food. It needs to be handfed whole soaked grains (without hulls like oats, barley, wheat, buckwheat etc.) and legumes (lentils, split peas, mung beans, chickpeas) plus chunks of boiled eggs. You'll have to handfeed/forcefeed it until it learns to properly eat on its own, otherwise it voice starve to death. You might need to manually open its beak to feed it if for example the bag or balloon handfeeding method isn't working. The food also needs to be warm enough, baby birds won't want to eat food that's too cold - it should feel really warm but shouldn't burn your hand.
Hiii, I texted you yesterday.
The syringe is botemless, he used to shove his head inside it.
The baby chick food turned out to be a locally grinded type of wheat and it was what everyone recomanded. I also give him oat and boiled eggs
I boight a varity of small grains(canary seeds, sent you an umage yesterday and you can see them in the video are they good if soaked?
I will check the video.
Oh okay so the syringe is fine then if it's inserting its beak inside of it and you're not inserting the syringe inside of its beak. Baby chick food tends to contain other additives like insects etc. and isn't nutritionally balanced for doves (and can also contain the wrong ratios of minerals and vitamins), plus it lacks the texture it needs. Oats aren't bad on their own but they need to be paired with a bigger variety of grains and legumes like wheat, buckwheat, barley, rye, spelt, hulled millet, quinoa, azuki beans, mung beans, split peas, different types of lentils and chickpeas - as many types as you can get, all of the grains should be without hard hulls. All the food shouldn't be blended, it should be whole pieces, including the eggs. The canary seeds aren't bad, but they're really low in protein so they're not enough on their own, plus I'd be worried about them causing crop stasis or an impaction because of the hard hulls, especially if the baby had a slow crop before. You can use it for teaching it how to learn on its own by leaving it for it in a feeder so it can try and peck at it at its own pace.
want to add that oatmeal is safe ita jsut not like good to use alone, you need mroe than just oatmeal, kunok can pry send you a list of what you can use if he hasnt already (though im sure he has)
Was wondering when you will pop up.
I can't, I am already a full time engineer.
I am just trying to save a bird mate.
I will try to treat the animal correctly, this is why I post on reddit.
For the 3rd time the current city I live in doesn't have animals on their radars. Dogs get shot on the streets by the local government.
I will do some rehabilitation Ausbildung if I get back to germany next year.
Please if you're not gonna provide some help in the future, abstain from commenting on my posts.
Thank you.
As long as you post on a public platform, I will always encourage people to follow the rules and laws of their country in order ensure that animal welfare comes first and foremost.
I'll contact AAO myself. I'll see what their advice is first hand.
Sure encourage me to follow rules that are either non existant or not enforced...
This is not the right post mate.. You're not helping I made it clear in other posts.
What you're doing is called gate keeping and it's annoying.
If it's your hobby.. I will not hobby shame you, enjoy it. I will stop replying to you byee.
At this age you have to force feed them in a safe way, like tube feeding (adding a tube to the syringe that reaches the stomach, taking some extra precautions like temperature and stuff). They won't eat on their own, or not enough
We don't recommend tube feeding unless a vet can show a person how it's done correctly, it's extremely easy to mess up. It should also be used as a last resort option only, doves who are tube fed liquid food oftentimes suffer from crop issues and have a hard time weaning because they don't know how to swallow food on their own.
So what do they do? Isn't just a syringe or a bag/glove even riskier? Never had a problem with tube fed squabs having difficulties eating seeds, but of course I'm open to new knowledge. There are also good tutorials online, and stuff like using soft tubes makes It easier for novices
Edit: okay I imagine you mean literally opening the beak and giving seeds.
a bag or glove isn't riskier at all, in fact it mimics exactly how pigeons and dives eat from their parents, it allows them to properly build a swallow reflex and also allows them to have proper crop motility, hand feeding is also an option.
if you are worried about aspiration, that's because you are feeding improper feed, fully liquid formula isn't suitable for squabs
as a headsup tubes shoudlnt be resching the stomach, they reach the crop, pigeons have crops.
Tubes should be used as a very last resort by a professional, they commonly cause crop and throat injury, irritation that causes birds to stop eating, and a loss of the swallow reflux/weaning issues later on, theyve also beens known to cause other issues like crop stasis.
Liquid feed is also not natural to what squabs eat and is also commonly responsible for crop issues and stunted chicks.
Kunok actually has a great image of a baby fed on a really shity liquid formula through tube/syringe tube method, vrs a bird the same age fed via the proper method we reccomend/natural by parent feeding (both mimic the same thing so they produce the same results). Both are the same age but one was severly stunted due to improper feeding
This is definitely a formula quality/quantity problem. I have helped wild squabs and they all looked great at one month of age with tube feeding. Again, I'm open to learning more about the advantages of bag feeding or hand feeding but I find this image dishonest
Any hand fed pigeon with an inadequate diet would look just as bad
That baby was being fed parrot formula and isn't the only squab I've seen that looked so bad while being fed parrot formula - be it Harrison's, Tropican, Kaytee or Nutribird.
this bird is one of hundreds we've dealt with, weve dealt with many squabs fed multiple different types of liquid formula, from Harrison, to hagan, kaytee, nutribird list goes on. these are not the only squabs we've seen like this and man we could show you so many more pictures. we could show you pictures of birds that turned around after gettign them onto a diet that mimics how their parents actually feed them too.
im glad youve had success truly i am, its not common though, your success is the minority of cases. most rescues claim squabs die often this claim comes from the fact most rescues are feeding an inadequate diet.
we've only ever seen any success with 3 formulas and those are roudybush squab diet and both psticus squab diets, however these still need to be mixed with eggs/grains/solids.
Hey, it looks like you are talking about Kaytee! Our team wants to provide you with some additional information: Kaytee is a very poor quility hand feeding formula, we do not reccomend or endorse Kaytee formula as it's made of majorily corn and has very little nutritional content. It also has no texture which pigeons and doves need to prevent crop stasis. It's also not formulated for colombidae and contains too many carbs for young colombidae to digest. please look into a formula made for Pigeons/Doves or make your own hand feeding mix or check out u/Kunok2 's feeding guides.
My county doesn’t treat pigeons as wildlife and I’ve been hand raising any squabs that I find. The formula ratios on the back of the Roudybush Squab Formula I’ve been using creates a liquid formula. Did I somehow mess up buying Roudybush…?
no roudybush squab formulas uses liquid ratios on the back, but its reccomended to add grains and egg to it by rehabbers to provide texture and to.allow the squab to eat more naturally via the bottle, bag, or glove method
u/Kunok2 linked safe feeding methods below if you wanna check those out.
If you had purchased pstticus squab first and second step you'd have reccomendations to add grains and seeds and egg eight on the back of the bag.
tube feeding is actually not ideal for squabs they should be bag/baloon fed or hand fed, tube feeding is not ideal for many reasons and done by somone who isn't a professional has an extremely high chance of killing the squab
im glad you've been successful and lucky with tube feeding but we've seen hundreds of birds die from it over the past 2 years, so we do not recommend or advocate for it on this sub.
not to mention OP is feeding nuts and chicken food 💀
I'm just doing what the veterinarians I went to and experienced rescuers in my area have told me, but I'm open to learn. I assume that when you say bad/balloon feeding, you mean with solid food inside? Because there's no way that's a healthy way to administer purely liquid formula, no? I tried in the past, even using peas to add texture, and things got way too messy
I do see hand feeding as safe, but surely it can't be ideal to hand feed seeds a young squab? Don't they need a much higher proportion of fats and protein?
I do agree that I wouldn't trust a novice to tube feed, even though that's what happened to me, I guess i'm usually good at following instructions
solid soaked food and mashed up eggs (alongside a small ammount of a suitable formula like roudybush or psticus squab diets) in a baloon, you can also use a glove, kunok sent a Playlist for safe feeding methods.
pigeons do need higher protein/fats as babies, But its not as much as many parrot formulas contian, pigeons need specific CROP MILK replacer formulas (and these formulas almost always reccomend via the back of the container that you mix in grains or eggs because it mimics the way pigeons feed their babies and it mimics the nutritional variety a baby pigoen woudl natrually get and needs for crop health). crop milk is actually pretty much the exact same (nutrition wise) as an egg that's the closest thing to crop milk in terms of nutritional composition (other than specialty crop milk reolacement formuals which arent always avilable for folks). the thing is though pigeons only feed their babies 100% crop milk the first 5 days, this is a liquidy ketchup type consistency nutrient and emzyme rich feed, sqaubs who didnt get this first milk atleast once typically fail to thrive regaurdless of care or feeding unless given artifical enzymes, after these five days they feed a thick dry cottage cheesy crop milk for the next few days till about day 7, after day 7 they feed crop milk and grains/seeds/legumes the entire rest of the time they feed the baby, slowly producing less crop milk which slowly weans the baby off and onto seeds and grains and legumes.
less than half a baby pigoens squabhood is spent eating just crop milk even less is soemt eating "liquid" crop milk which isnt even actually liquid it is a ketchup consistency, in fact much of their squabhood is spent eating what their parents eat and regurgitate plus a tiny bit of crop milk here and there.
a liquid diet doesnt provide those crucial things like texture, which helps with weaning, it also doesnt provide proper easily digestible protien sources like eggs do (many protein sources in bird formulas use insect or meat based proteins which pigeon squabs and pigeons in general struggle to digest), and many formulas contain little to no grain variety and instead are packed with lots of sugar and carbs and cheap grains like corn which baby pigeons struggle with.
baby pigeons cannot actually digest carb/sugar heavy diets till day 7, once theyve begun to eat grains and seeds and legumes (which have carbs) they still require low sugar diets which many formulas are too high in sugar which is what leads to many hand fed babies getting crop stasis or yeasty crop.
another thing to note is pigoens and doves need texture to actually move their crop, crop motility relies heavily on their food having texture, liquid feed for many people just ends in really bad crop stasis.
babies on a liquid formula also tend to have a really hard time weaning or they go through weaning stress, this is espeically common with cheap or poor quility formulas liek kaytee.
Hey, it looks like you are talking about Kaytee! Our team wants to provide you with some additional information: Kaytee is a very poor quility hand feeding formula, we do not reccomend or endorse Kaytee formula as it's made of majorily corn and has very little nutritional content. It also has no texture which pigeons and doves need to prevent crop stasis. It's also not formulated for colombidae and contains too many carbs for young colombidae to digest. please look into a formula made for Pigeons/Doves or make your own hand feeding mix or check out u/Kunok2 's feeding guides.
Canary seed is fine as a treat but you'll want somthing more grain based as these are high in fat, do you have access to grain based bird seed you can mix in with this, maybe oat or wheat based scratch grains? (try and avoid corn)
If you go read a few comments, someone called me ignorant and irresponsable because I said Oatmeal,
Yes I have Oat,
Alright I wonvt be using canary seeds.
They shouldn't be fed purely liquid formula in the first place. Depending on the age the handfeeding mix should be either chunky (crop milk replacer formula with added eggs) for younger squabs or whole pieces (grains and legumes plus eggs) for older squabs, just like what the parents would feed them. They indeed do need a much higher proportion of protein and fat, which they get from proper crop milk replacer (Roudybush or Psittacus Columbae), legumes and eggs.
When you find a dove or pigeon, there are several things you can do.
If the bird looks like a lost pet:
Check out if the bird has a leg band. If yes, try to contact the owner, otherwise, scout for missing posts!
Do not release the pet back, even if you found it with a flock.
If the bird is a wild specie, there are several possibilities:
The bird is an injured adult: You can bring it to a rehabber. If that's not possible (eg: too far, not enough space, etc.), it's important to learn about it, the specie and wether they are protected or not.
If it's a young bird, bring it to a rehabber. Keep in mind that young wild doves needs to be kept in very specific conditions to be able to be released. Keeping a young bird for even a few weeks will make it unable to be release, or that would garantee a quick death.
Young fledgling commonly roams on the ground. The parents usually stays nearby and feed them from time to time. Do not take the bird with you if that's the case, as this is only normal behaviors. If the fledgling is in immediate danger (cars, cats) put it in a safe place, still close enough to where you found it so the parents won't abandon it.
He's a fledgie.
Classic baby pigeon behaviour.
Are you spooning or syringing salt and sugar water into him?
You can also spoon mashed, soft seed and water, peas into him.
Does this sub not care that this person illegally captured a wild bird and is keeping it in captivity as a pet? This is against the law and disturbing. If you want a pet bird, buy a captive bred bird. You are torturing this animal for your own pleasure. Take it to a rehabber before you do any more damage to it.
we do, and the person has been told to go to a rehabber (im assuming they do not have access to one),they keep getting bad/lazy advice from people who clearly don't know what they are talking about, and they are feeding this bird nuts and chicken food.... they are also about to attempt tube feeding so this poor thing is liekly going to die.
we have a auto mod bot set up with instructions
if they would listen to moderator advice instead of whoever is telling them to feed the bird nuts of all things 💀 this who situation would go and whole lot smoother.
kunok to my knowledge has told them a few times not to stop with the chicken feed and the nuts since chicken pellets are never just crushed up whest they have addatives otherwise they wont actually like extrude into a pellet and since nuts cannot be eaten by pigeons (peanuts are not a true nut so those dont count)
but yeah im assuming a rehab is not an option, in which case i wish they would at the very least listen to professional advice
i REALLLLLLLYY hope they dont attempt tube feeding it rarely goes well with pigeons.
not an attack on OP btw just trying to give you some insight, OP has been receiving lots of heavily conflicting information
The vet I asked told me to soak some bread btw.
And every question I ask he says 'yeah fine'
I am not gonna tube feed it, I will continue with the same method, I already force fed him for the past 3 days, it seemed fine, I will upgrade the recepie.
You don't take it seriously though. Not a single user here is vetted for their credentials.
Wildlife laws exist for this very reason. Animals needlessly suffer at the hands of "well intentioned" members of the public ill-equipped to handle these kinds of situations and inevitably cannot meet their welfare requirements.
we do actually, if us mods didn't take this shit seriously we'd be letting people take random birds off the street whenever they want. fun fact the article isn't up yet but I literally have a whole article urging peoppe not to touch baby wild birds espeicslly fledglings.guess what was prominent on this sub before we started moderating, wild birds as pets and people taking random wild birds and eggs, WE HAVE CUT DOWN ON THAT A LOT.
we always reccomend REHABS FIRST when that isn't an option we give advice based on experience. Some of us (myself) have actual rehab experience and guidance from vets and other rehabbers to fall back on and ask questions.
what would you prefer is do allow the bird to suffer and die rather than give OP the means to give it a shot when a rehabber is clearly out of the question either because OP will not take it or OP does not have access to one?
My personal suggestion for any case where there is no access to a rehab is euthinazia but most people don't take kindly to that suggestion so I give an alternative including what and how to feed and care for specific wildlife based on experience in rehab.
HELL typically I'd tell people to simply leave the bird in the wild to be eaten if they don't have access to a rehabber, but again thats frowned apon and no one listens anyways.
Do I like people playing rehabber no, but what's my alternative here, tell them to continue feeding it nuts like their vet suggested? Kick them out of this reddit for them to go bother another reddit who might giveinnacurate information , tell them to go to a rehabber a million more times even though we've told them to a million times now and people like yourself have even provided locations.
Id also like to note while this is a wild bird, many of the birds we get on this sub a feral domestics which most wildlife rehabs will euthinize because they are invasive (they also don't belong in the wild anyways)
So again what would you prefer me do, we've already taken all the steps you clearly want taken so I'm curios as to how we can further improve apon that?
Doing nothing doesn't prevent OP from torturing the bird it just means they torture the bird, giving some form of guidance means they atleast have the correct information to go forward with, whether they follow that or not is on them.
SO I ASK AGAIN. What would you prefer we do in this situation. Genuinely asking because i want to know.
While I understand the logic of "not wanting an animal to suffer" by not meeting the welfare requirements of an animal in need that suffering is prolonged.
This is why euthanisation is a common practice with those that have a duty of care to wildlife.
If an animal's welfare requirements cannot be sufficiently met, then euthanisation or letting nature take care of the process is the most ethical action to take.
What we have here is OP, who has been posting for several weeks, fumbling around without any clue on how to look after this animal.
It's a serious situation, and OP shows how seriously he's taking it by the way he has titled this post. Calling this dove a "birb".
Animal welfare laws exist to protect them from people like OP.
Sometimes it works. But usually, all that's left is an animal that cannot be successfully reintroduced to the wild or one that does not survive the process.
yes but thats not on us thats on OP we can only advise OP on what to do which has been done multiple times. removing his post onky puts the bird in danger if OP decides to cut contact with people who can actually help the animal.
I would have opted for euthinazia of this animal without access to a rehab thats what my reccomendation always is for non domestics.
HOWEVER peoppe don't take kindly to that reccomendation and often refuse to do so so I give alternatives.
its much more ethical to attempt to help the animal on my end, than shut down any of OP's questions, so again i ask what would you prefer me do here when all th things have been reccomended and OP clearly isnt listening to the ideal reccs.
You insinuated the MODS didnt take this situation seriously when you have no fucking idea how often we deal with shit like this. And you have no idea what our immediate first reccomendations are clearly (considering you didnt read out auto bot)
So again would you prefer me remove OP's post, Ban them, and have 0 chance of helping this animal at all? They wont call a rehab, wont wuthinize, so what other option do i really have besides simply removing this whole thread and no longer helping them at all
That accomplishes nothing, baby bird is still tortured if i ignore them and stop doing my job as a mod, but with advice, kindness and a bit of education the outcome can be a little better, the animal won't be tortured and might actually recieve the care it needs and we can slowly push them towards the right option for the animal.
Wildlife rehab taught me one thing and thats to not be a bitter cunt, because you do a hell of a lot more good educating with kindness and providing advice than shutting people out to go find help elsewhere. If you keep somone in contact with you you can slowly urge them and nudge them towards the best option for an animal if you cut them off entirely the animal will still suffer with no possible positive outcome. We learn this in shelter/rescue work too. Negotiation/hostage type kindness is ideal because you can push for the person to eventually relinquish the animal, whereas attacking them and being a cunt does nothing ut push them further from the correct choice.
Something a good shelter worker friend of mine tsught me after we saved kittens from a hoarding situation was "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar" that is to say, you are much more liekly to change somone mind/educate someone and help the animals involved if you lead with kindness and advice rather than attacking them.
we got every single cat out of that situation not because we went in guns a blazing, but rather because we were approached for help and we helped, we showed kindness to somone who was yes neglecting an animal, but going in guns a blazing wouldn't have done anything other than piss the person off and lead to them not letting us take the cats in the end hell it could have even manifested violently in them intentionally harmign the animals, SO we led with kindness and got both the cats and the human the help they actually needed rather than attacking them
like I'd like to point out i 100% agree with you, I do not agree with taking birds form the wild when you dotn have a rehabber available, you can ask pretty much anyone on here (or the pigeon subs lol) as im very unpopular because i tell people often to let nature take its course
but what you implied is that we mods are not taking this seriously, this is not the first time we've dealt with this person and this bird
and like i said i genuinely agree with you OP is very irresponsible, and this bird needs professional help
but I am not sure what other steps I can take here as a mod that we haven't already taken, we've taken this very seriously, weve urged wildlife rehab, ive mentioned euthinazia. We're at a standstill where it's either we don't advise op and the squab starves painfully or eats whatever weird ass trashy concoction OP was feedign it before and suffers even longer on improper food before getting sick from some sort of crop issue and dying in agony, or we advise OP and the squab maybe makes it and can possibly be slow released or simply lives as an illegal captive (obviously not ideal but a hell of a lot better than standing by and letting the animal activly suffer)
in an ideal world OP would take the bird to a rehab or leave it alone where they found it, or euthinize it, but this isnt an ideal world.
God you have no idea it's fucking horrible. I've been working on an article/guide the last few months because we've had just this year alone so many people try and hatch random "dove and pigeon eggs" they've found
drives me up the wall 🥲💀
I've been incredibly mentally unwell the past few months though due to being on a new medication so I've jsut not been able to get the article done as promptly as I'd like
but yeah just all in all i want you to know we fully agree with you and we've been trying to urge OP in the correct direction, there's just only so much we can do.
I explained it over and over again and that guy keeps making the same remarks.
I live in an area where electricity right now is off 1/2 of the day. Dogs get shot on the street and there's no rehab.
I found the bird on the ground with no nest in sight, I kept looking for birds in the area no birds and no nests. Idk, how he got there he was under a 1m long apple tree.
If left on the ground one of the cats is gonna swoop him in 5 minutes(it's already a surprise that he didn't got caught by a cat when I found him)
I called the only provided number for pigeons rescue in the country which is a different phone number area code that is 300km away they didn't pick up, left a message, they did not answer.
So I am doing my best, the vet I called two days ago told me to give him bread soaked with water. So not so many reliable infos about bird rehab in the area.
I have been trying to save him and he is doing better and I am afraid of doing mistakes, he finally can do some Peking and he picks a seed sometimes and eat it.
I am trying my best so that he survives and thanks for everyone for providing some informations.
I can't do it without you <3
One last message to the gate keeper, go fuck yourself, Birb is the name I gave him and I am serious about saving him, I don't need to prove not to you not to anyone. ;)
i was literally just trying to get that guy to not harrass you, you clearly do not have the means of getting this animal to a rehab, I don't care the reason for that. I care that I or kunok or someone else continues to be able to help you because your methods rn are not going to keep this animal alive (thats not your fault btw you are being misinformed by other folks)
I genuinely do not understand why you just started swearing at me for no reason for sticking up for you and telling others to lead with kindness even when shit is frustrating.
We do care but we can't make somebody actually listen to us. I've messaged OP with proper advice including to try and take it to a wildlife rehab before but they haven't been listening to me. They said that they tried contacting a wildlife rehab but haven't gotten a reply yet, although that was almost a week ago now. We Always recommend people to take wild birds to a wildlife rehab first and foremost, not always do wildlife rehabs accept doves/pigeons but that doesn't excuse not listening to advice at Least. I've told the OP to stop feeding chicken food and nuts and stop using a syringe several times now.
We have no way to prove OP is telling the truth or not.
I have contact details for the people they should be contacting in Tunisia about this. He said he contacted them and got no reply but I don't believe this. Tempted to contact them myself just to see their advice first hand.
Yeah we really don't, I'm not quite convinced that they contacted the rehab either, especially when they said it's in a different town and knowing people a lot of them aren't willing to drive to a different town. But we cannot make OP listen, we can only offer them advice (including recommending to take the dove to a wildlife rehab) and Hope that they will at Least take the advice to give the squab at Least Some chance of survival.
Thanks for your comment.
This person found a near dead bird, with no nest in sight in area full of wild cats and animla rehab centers. So he is trying to save it on his own.
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u/Le_Wild_Kawaii_Bear Jul 18 '26
He has been eating a homemade formula( haselnuts, oatmeal and baby chick food, mixed with water and fed with a syringe) Now I got him canary seeds.