Introduction to hand-feeding baby pigeons in an emergency or otherwise - Why, What & When

This is a several-part post dealing with how to cope with feeding baby and juvenile pigeons in a variety of circumstances. This will include domesticated pigeons and those you may have found abandoned in the wild. In my case, I have never found an abandoned wild pigeon, people just bring them to me because they know I have pigeons and presume I should look after them. They also bring me other sick or injured birds but that's another story, although the feeding part is often not dissimilar. The following situations are all ones I've come across over my years of keeping fantails and fantail-crosses.

Domestic Pigeons - Why and when should you intervene?

Cold weather and single parenting

There is perhaps nothing more vulnerable than a small baby fantail pigeon born in the Winter, like this one pictured above. He was hatched in our dovecote and under normal circumstances he would be permanently covered but in a forest garden and in the vagaries of our climate, a hint of sun can send both parents out foraging. Fantails are very tame, they not only stay near to their home but also bond easily with their keepers. My removing of this pigeon from its nest because it is already beginning to show signs of cold, will not mean its parents will abandon it. In fact on several occasions, with freezing temperatures and snow, I have moved the whole nest, parents included into the barn and experienced no problems whatsoever.

It is not for fanciful reasons that fantails are associated with love, fidelity and romance on wedding cakes and Valentine's cards, for they are loving mates and caring parents. In my experience they are monagamous but that does not mean that either sex is not averse to a little dalliance now and again. I once saw a male pigeon, who had both a partner and young chicks, trysting with a young female behind the dovecote and then returning to his mate carrying a twig for the nest in his beak. His behaviour was redolent of the classic guilty offerings of flowers and chocolates. In a free-range, forest environment like ours, there are therefore, occasionally birds who are left to bring up babies alone.

Difficulties arise for the lone parent, if the baby is hatched in the colder months, as it will mean the mother will be out foraging, right from the day of hatch. Some breeders keep food in the pigeons' nests in cold weather and I have done this on occasions but for an optimum nutrition there is nothing like the parent bird itself for seeking out those extra minerals, vitamins and other micronutrients to be found in the 'wild'. So although my pigeons have organic, sprouted grain, fruits, vegetables and oyster shell available, I would still prefer to take in the baby pigeon for a while and if necessary, give it a little extra feed. This allows time for the parent time to create her own unique and nourishing blend of pigeon milk. Who, for example would think of feeding moss and lichens, as shown by these two foraging parents above?

 

Spring showers & uneven growth

Even after the Winter months there can be other problems for pigeon parents, as we head into Spring, namely, heavy rain. Fantails were created to live around sacred sites, often those included water gardens and they have retained that love of bathing. Unfortunately, this also involves enjoying heavy rain. They will sit on the roof with their wings uplifted in the pose of a human taking a shower but unfortunately this can wreak havoc with their ability to fly. On several occasions I have had both parents stuck on the roof and babies getting cold and hungry back in the nest.

The other problem with my pigeons and when I have needed to intervene, is in a situation of uneven growth. Most pigeons can cope with laying two eggs and thus having two hatches at a time, as you can see below, even one skilful parent can feed two babies evenly (even simultaneously). However, sometimes things go awry. When this happens one baby becomes ever stronger and more demanding for food and the other one gets left behind. There are two possible solutions, one being to take the larger one out at feeding time thus leaving the smaller to feed first. This however, is only practical if you know exactly when the foraging parent is coming back, so sometimes it may be more expedient to take the smaller one out and hand-feed it. Do not though, totally rule out the first option and it is worth trying to get a combination of both feeding sources, so as to get the optimum nutrition for the baby. 

Different rates of growth in pigeon babies do occur but it is only when they are very young that this can cause problems and can lead to fatalities. For example, where the smaller pigeon becomes too weak to indicate to the parent that it needs food. As you can see in the photo below, these two babies have been unevenly fed but it is more likely that the white one was better fed than the blue, rather than the blue one was underfed. As these two were brought up in the compost bin and I was unaware of their existence for their first weeks of life, I was not able to remedy the situation.

Orphans and Abandonment

These are the two young pigeons I called the Compost Kids, their parents were both killed by a sparrowhawk at a period of development in their life, when although technically juveniles, they were still not ready to leave the nest. As their name suggests, they were not hatched in the dovecote but in the top layer of a 'resting' compost bin, therefore they had neither seen other pigeons nor the way adult pigeons feed. They somehow instinctively knew how to drink but feeding was another matter. Part of getting them to eat was also, in part, having them feel comfortable around me and accepting me in loco parentis. The fact that they had each other and that they had seen no pigeons other than their parents, helped I'm sure in getting them to trust me.

How could anyone abandon this baby?

This is Little Pige, he was abandoned by his mother after she got caught on the roof taking a shower in heavy rain and couldn't return to her nest overnight. I had to take the baby in and feed him. This, even though it was the case of a single mother and a Fantail crossed with a town pigeon and I was worried that both these factors would make for her being very wary of joint feeding. After I took him back to the nest, unlike a similar situation with a baby fantail, (see below), who was welcomed back and fed with open wings, Little Pige's mother wouldn't even sit on him.

Little Pige like many abandoned or orphaned pigeons has forged a very strong bond with us. This is not necessarily something either I or the pigeon would want if I was feeding a wild bird but more of this in the next article.

If you have your own flock of pigeons then having an orphaned or abandoned pigeon may be solved by getting another of your parent birds to adopt them. This can be an ideal solution, as long as it doesn't put a strain on their ability to feed their own young. Baby pigeons are very vocal and insistent when it comes to being fed (as you will see in the video below) and can often get themselves permanently adopted.

Now if you'd like a little light relief, sit back and watch the film of the abandoned Little Pige and his easy acceptance of hand-fed peas!

Thanks for dropping by and if you have enjoyed this piece and found it useful think about sharing it and also about joining this blog to be assured of new posts. Please also feel free to ask questions or make comments in the section below.

All the very best,
Sue
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© 2015 Sue Cross

Free-ranging Fantails - organic pigeons, strategies and tips for raising them in a enclosed garden.

There is nothing quite as beautiful as fantails flying in the open skies. They have a poetry of their own, made even more fascinating by the way they manoeuvre their 'peacock' tails. This freedom comes at a cost, because like all domestic and wild birds they are subject to predator attack from both above and on the ground below.

 Free as Air - Pigeon Pas de Deux or rather de Trois

 In the next series of blogposts I will be sharing how to create an environment in which they can freerange safely, discussing how to minimise predator risk and suggesting what to do when things go wrong.

 

Preamble

I've been raising fantails for over fifteen years, it wasn't exactly a planned exercise. I was only going to collect a Frizzled hen from a smallholding/homestead, where the owner had sadly died and left a collection of animals and birds in need of rehoming. Somehow, whilst we were packing up the Frizzled hen, six white fantails segued themselves into the deal. Luckily someone was there to scoop up the goats, swans, geese, guinea pigs, ducks and peacocks... It was one of those situations where you couldn't say, "No".

These are my first  Fantails, one male and five females. All I knew about them at the time, was that they had lived in an aviary and never bred any young. All I knew about fantails, or pigeons in general, you could write on a postage stamp. I was and still am adverse to keeping creatures in cages unless there is no alternative.

I did a lot of research both in books and on the internet and came to the conclusion that fantails, would suit me very well as they would thrive in a non-aviary environment.  I believe I even read how they would neither breed nor even make nests if permanently enclosed. However, not wanting the fantails to be further stressed by a complete change of environment, they had already had to cope with being moved, I placed them in a decorative welded arbour Andy had made for the garden. A couple of days later, when they seemed settled in, I just left the door ajar and watched and waited to see what would happen. After half-an-hour the male led the five females to the door and in single-file the rest followed him out on a short trip into the garden. Their return after the first foray was, I guess, just to make sure the house hadn't vanished whilst they were away. Once this fact had been established, they went off out again, this time in another direction. After they had completed these few short trips and obviously now believing themselves to be safe, they settled down perching on and around the dovecote. One thing I had realised very quickly from initial observations, was that their whole lives were centred around their new home. In my researched I had indeed read that they were originally bred to adorn buildings and sacred sites. The experiment being successful, I then dismantled the arbour and they were free to come and go at will. Over the years I have only lost one fantail and he actually formed a pair with a wild pigeon and was seen afterwards in the local area. I bought him from a Paris show and had just let him out to be with the others. Instead of remaining with them, as I expected him to, he kept to the roof and finally flew away.

Early days  and observations

Once my original six were free, they started a flurry of nest building. I decided to add to my little group and bought a black and a blue male, each of which added their own style and savoir faire to the community. Over the years, left to their own devices, these new males have created various shades and patterns of fantail.

From the blue male, the group learned to forage for edible greenery, slightly to my chagrin with regards to our wallflowers, lemon balm and michaelmas daisies but much to the benefit of their health. The blue male also taught the rest to consume oyster shell. I actually observed them watching him intensely as he pecked at the provision I had left out for the hens

With the advent of both the blue and the black male, the fantails became more demonstrative in display and courtship. The blue one was more static in his penchant for 'showing-off', mostly perching, 'puffing up', leaning backwards and frequently losing his balance. The black pigeon was more elegant in display and quite fascinating to watch as he danced a flamenco around the astonished females. 

The black pigeon was also more adventurous than the rest. It was through him the fantails began to explore more areas of the garden, roof and the lane in front of the house. It was thus through him initially that I began to think more about how my future gardening design plans would impact upon their lives.

Fantails and Forest Gardening

The relationship between keeping poultry and planting a forest garden is a symbiotic one, the former provide a richer compost for trees, fruits and vegetables. They also carry out very valuable pest control. The garden provides them with shelter and food and most importantly, a safe environment below a canopy of trees and bushes, which is the very essence of the forest garden. You can arrange your garden in such a way as to provide clearings, in which the poultry can sunbathe and in the case of pigeons add a bird bath. 

Bathing is an integral part of a pigeon's life and it is one of the times at which it is at its most vulnerable, as logically with its feathers dampened, it can't easily escape by flight. There is also a social side to a bird bath, I call it the "pigeon lido", and preening, courtship and sunbathing are all part of the activity. It's something therefore you need to provide for but you should equally be aware of the dangers it entails to a freeranging flock.

So, although my pigeon lido is in the open it is lightly but adequately obscured by a Kiftsgate rose. This vigorous, sinuous climbing rose, prevents the ingress of a bird of prey by creating a thorny and complex barrier. I know from experience, as will be discussed in the next post, what happens when you block flight paths by the physical presence of thickly  and/or asymmetrically planted trees and bushes.

When freeranging fantails you can not protect against every eventuality. Dogs, cats, rats, birds of prey and martens are opportunists. Dogs can be restrained by physical barriers and the others, in my experience, prefer easy pickings. The more difficult you make it for them to succeed, the less you leave your pigeons open to attack.

One of the greatest problems we have had here, is that the  architecture of a longère both attracts the fantails and leaves them vulnerable to airbourne predators. A bird of prey attacks by flying at the pigeon and hurtling it to the ground. However, the Forest Garden still prevails, as the terrain is difficult to negotiate and the fantail, on its home territory, has every chance of escape.

In conclusion 

Our experiences over the years have proved to us that fantails love living in a forest garden environment. It gives them the freedom to express themselves in all aspects of their daily life whilst still protecting them from its hazards.

Now, if you'd like to, sit back and enjoy the film on how we set up a forest garden from an abandoned field in order to grow food for ourselves and create a safe haven for our birds.

    

Next time:

Beautiful but deadly and how I came to have a bird in the hand just because we had planted so many bushes.

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Until next time, all the very best from sunny Normandie! 

Sue

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© 2013 Sue Cross