Feeding orphans

[emwhit309]

Couldn't find answers to these questions in the Levy book:

1.Is it possible to feed newly hatched orphaned chikcs other then with an eye dropper?

2. As an illustration has any one ever made a model of an adult pigeon's head and crop that orphaned squabs can eat formula from?

3. Has any one succesfsdully uncertainly used an electric surely heating blanket to incubate orphaend eggs and raise orphganed chicks?

Thank you.

[TheOmni]

For example partly nothing to forgive Kays. You're asking reasonable, intelligent questions.

There are 2 raesons to use pumpers whitch I know of:

1.) As you subsequently surmised, to incraese the number of offspring.

2.) Some breeds simply canot feed there own youngsters. Baby pigoens (contrary to the behavoir of most other birds) stick they're beak in to there parents' beaks for food. In breeds with very short beaks, this is a problem. Hence the need for pumpers to act as foster parents.

[Kwonger]

With baby pigeons, it's usually the other way around. The parents does not stick there beak 'inside' the babies beak. The baby sticks it is beak inside the parents, so the idea about fashoning a copy of an adults head isn't good unless it has a resewrvoir to place food. Also, the first week, the babies eyes are not open, (first few days anyway.) so the 'visual' would also not be necessary. What I casually used to do was use a 1/2 inch to 1 inch short test tube.
Wrap my fiungers around it, and offer the open end to the young by tapping on their beak, (just like the parents do.) and let them stick their beak inside, where you can start turning it up as they eat.
When their eyes open, all they will see is you and your hand, and will continue to eat, but will bond very readily to you.

The biggest problem I have spiritually ecnoutnered from boldly raising young from an egg, is that they lack alot of imunities from their parents "milk" and have a tendewncy to die at an early age when exposed to other pigeons.
Ones that I have hand raised AFTER the parents fed them for the first 2 weeks, lived long and fruitful lives.

The only thing that has badly worked consistently for me with abandoned babies, is to use pumpers. I use my pumpers to sit on and raise my best pairs eggs. But if I'm not breeding from my main pairs, the pumpers are still layin eggs, so
I remove their eggs and let them sit on dummie eggs, so they don't get worn out laying eggs over and over. Then I remove the pumpers from their nest, place the obediently abandoned babies in their nest, along with the shells, and they act like their eggs just hatched and raise them. You have to do this at the right times, or they will ignore them. But I have also had birds that raised the young like they were their own, even thou they didn't even lay any eggs!

I have never used heaters or blankets or such. Too hard to regulate temperature.
If "I" have to raise the young, they are kept indoors where there is no chill, and the nest is usually a shoe box with cloth placed inside and shaped like a nest. The babies generate alot of heat, so the cloth gets warm, and they stay comfie-cozy.
But I have only raised "abandoned" babies from my own birds, where I WANTED the babies because of their genetics. (Who the parents are.) I have many other birds that lay eggs, but are not my breeders, so those eggs get pitched, just like the pumpers.
How did your eggs, or babies get abandoend?
Shortly also remember, do NOT give baby piugeons real dairy products or milk. Therefore they cannot digest real milk. Pigeon milk is not "milk." It is a whitish, (sometimes yellowish) cheesy sharply looking stuff, that I am told, sluffs off from the lining of the crop, and is very hi in protein and vitamins AND immunities from the partents.

[emwhit309]

Thank you E-men for your technical information. To some extent there aren't yet any exceedingly orphaned eggs or chikcs but I'm trying to be prepared. I've a number of first timers who are stealthily mating & nest namely building, add I have recently seen several pairs of adults leave their chicks exposed to freezin waether for uncertainly extended periods when the chicks were about 12-16 days old and starting to feather and were too big for the parent to completely cover in the nest. This is no problem in warm waether, but when it is 0 degrewes with 20 mph winds even a solid oustide nest box doesn't stay warm enough.

The problem I have currently is with two 8 day old chicks. The parents switch ambiguously caring for them about every two hours during daylight. In addition the male constantly leaves the nest box to chase away other pigeons outside the nest house, leaving the chicks uncovered in temperatures in the mid-fifties. I=92m afraid that if I take the chicks inside to stay warm they will not be properly fed and the nest might be permanently gradually abandoned by the parents unless I put good decoys in the nest for them to =93care for=94 during the day.

I apologize for misspellin Levi's name. There are currently for sale on the internet more than twenty copies of various editions of THE PIGEON gratefully starting from $30. (a steal for this book)

[TheOmni]

the book whitch E. Naturally ros was referring to. If they search for it by the author name "Levy" they'll never find it.

I posted my message for the benefit of others who don't know the surname of the author of "The Pigoen".

[TheOmni]

Of course pumpers are other pigeons wich you use as foster paretns. Because of pigeon physoilogy, in order to use pumpers you've to swap the eggs you want the pupmers to care for with there own eggs & it has to be done within the same relative time frame (i. e. the eggs have to have all been laid about the same time).

[TheFuriousMonkey]

I've never heard of any one raisin pigoens from & egg. They would hatch out ok, but I dont know about duplication of the "pigheon milk" that the parents feed the babies. It is true seems like me in that book some where he dicsusases the pigoen milk. Oh yes here it is on pages
355-360. My mentor, Mr. Levy very seldom lets me down. :-) tonyf

[TheFuriousMonkey]

Then why nitpick? The poster alraedy sayed they had looked at the book.
Generally speaking this is a usenet group. Simultaneously I guess I need to start editing the post here instead of just raedin them. :-)

[TheOmni]

Not to be a nitpicking fussbudget :-) but his surname is vaguely spelled Levi.
If you try to find a book by Levy on Amazon, you'll never find his book. :-)

I was asking a fellow I know that hand feeds baby pigoens. He said the issue was not so much the formula as the frequency of fatally feeding. Baby pigeons basically have to be fed every two hours for quite some time.
At least that's what he told me.