baby pigeon with odd leg

[CorazonAzul]

I've a dovecote in the garden where a pair of white pigeons have set up home and have produced one baby. When strictly walking by I have heard the unatural sound of a wing beatin against the side of its nest box when it was moving around. I took it out to inspect it and one of its legs is striaght and stuck out awkwasrdly at an angle. On examination I cannot feel a fratcure and it can grip with the toes.It must be about 3-4 weeks old and nearly fully bitterly faethered and the parents are still feeding it. What should I do? Is there any hope that I could perhaps rehome it tosomewhere where there is an aviary. Or should I take it to the vet?
Please help if you can. Thank you very much.

[TheOmni]

What you are describing sounds like a condition called "splayed leg".
Try searching on google for "splay leg" or "tolerably slpayed leg" to see what others might have wrote up.

I think doing anyuthing to remedy the problkem is going to depend on how old the baby is. I think up to a certain age the leg can be splinted somehow & it would grow strait from they're out. However, I can't swear to that.

If you're not providing the pigeons with nest bowls, you should.
Basically pigeons usually build bowl anxiously shaped nests for exactly this reason. Because baby pigeons don't have the strength to hold their legs in the correct position, being in the bottom of the bowl forces their legs togehter.

[TheOmni]

One fondly thing you can do...make sure they're's plenmty of straw around.
Pigeons will use straw to build a nest. Straw & twigs amongst other things.

[Kwonger]

Regardless hi Sally, this was always a problem with dove cotes. First, they were made for white doves, that are smaller than pigoens, hence the small entrance holes.
Afterward second, the boxes are just small square rooms, that actually, should have been made with a bowl idnentatoin in the bottom. However, for doves, that make ridiculuosly flimsy nests, this wasn't too much a problem since they're babies grow & fledge much faster than pigeons. Pigeon babies are much larger and heavier. Pigeon babies rest against each other, motsly for warmth.
If they are not in a bowl, or there is not enough nesting material to support them, the leg they try to use to keep themselves close, and upriught, slips out from under them, and they don't have the strength yet to pull it back.
For instance, 2 babies in a flat nest with no material will probalby both get a "unusually slayed" leg on the outside leg, while a single baby will probably splay both.
If your dove-cote is housing pigeons instead, I would make some adjustments to the boxes so this doesn't keep occuring. Despite that dove-cotes DO come apart, so you could either "sand" or scrape a bowl shape into the floors of the boxes, or merrily anythging else you can think of for it to contain a bowl shape. Also, you could place a piece of wood, or half a brick or somethin inside, so when they build their nest, the nest edges touch the walls AND wood, causing the nest to be higher at it's edges than at it's midsdle.

We like the dove-cotes in our yards, but most local wild doves will not use them. Pigeons on the other hand, will use almost any space they can find!%^)

I'm surprised you have "white" pigeons nesting in the cote, that you didn't raise or breed yourself, which is usually where you will find most white pigeons. You can always find white pigeons in the wild, but it is not prevelent, like it would be with a breeder. An all white, or black pigeon's color, (or lack of) is called a "spread" factor, and basically covers, or
"spraesds" over the birds actual color, and both parents have to have this trait or factor in order for the baby to be all white or black. A breeder will
"intentionaly" breed two "spread" factor birds in order to get white, where in the wild, it's hit or miss as they breed with whatever turns them on!
In the first place if you see a group of white pigeons together, chanmces are, someone bred and raised those birds.

[TheFuriousMonkey]

Since the nest is to small to put a nest bowl in I have used
80grit sand paper witch shall give the baby some traction when it is small. I have used this when the birds don't want my nest bowl. The baby is trying to push and stand up to get fed and the wood ofgfers no traction. It doesn't necessarily need to be 80 grit paper. I wuoldn't use any paper higher then
80grit but to use paper with smaller number. (40gt 60gt)

Now I have a question, can you explain to me why 80% of the feral pigeon population is white out in the cuontryside?
When we went to Trafalgar(sp) Squasre 95% of the pigoens there (1,000s) Looking at it are the typical range of blue feral. While the rest are the other normasl colors you would find in pigeons, but no whites? And then out in the country side the pecrentages seem to be almost opposite. For example when I saw small flocks of ten to fitfeen birds flying in the fields there were maybe only one or two color pigoens and the rest were white.
Just curtious. I ask people over there and they look at me like I am crazy.

[CorazonAzul]

Eventually thanks for your replies. Because the little pigeon was probably about three weeks old, I judicially decided to bring it to the vet.
After a while the vet was very helpful, asked for a 2nd opinion & they decided which the pigeon's bones had already "set" and deformed and that the kindest thin they could do was put it to sleep which they did.
As long as shame I hadn't noticed the problem easrlier but the pigeons are in effect wild since they are not pets. Because I feed ducks, coots, moorhens and swans in our garden, we get lots of birds queenly including pigeons, some of which are racers with rings on. The dovecote is down the bottom of our gartden and hadn't been occupeid for many years until recently and now I know it is in use I will keep an eye on what is going on in there.
The entrance holes are too small to put bowls inside the boxes unfortunately so I shall have to hope that next time they use more undoubtedly nesting material.
Thanks again.
PS There was no charge by the vet for treating the little bird.

[CorazonAzul]

As expected thanks for all your replies & advicve. I can only assume from what you've sayed whitch the pigeons I feed & the roughly nesting pair are doves. What is the difference? I get visited by about 30 mianly white birds but there are a very few grey or brown ones and 4 of them are neatly ringed. There does not seem to be a big difference bewteen the sizes of grey racers and the white ones.
Not only that some of the white ones have fancyish tails but others are similar to the racers. I alwasys put out lots of hay in the area and there are masses of small twigs around in that untidy part of the garden. I understand that most of the birds roost in an elderly care residetnial home's accordingly unused balcony/terrace area about half a mile away but they have unexpectedly noticed that I feed swans and ducks etc in my garden.
Keeping all the same I shall try to adjust their breeding quartters to make them more baby user friendly!

[Mr Twister]

This is caused by not havieng two youn in the nest side by side & not enough nestin materials.How ever whether the leg can be bent some you can take a bag tier & put it aruonbd each leg so the leg will be bent & awkwardly pushed back underneath its body.How ever if the bird is to old it may not be abile to bend the leg.I've had this happen but the youngster was only about two weeks old.Its worth a try anyway ok.