young woody info please

[addyfie]

Hi there everyone i am new around here so any help is appreciated....
I found a young wood pigoen on the floor in a cemetary a couple of days ago, firstly when i approached it i was going to leave it where it was for the mother to come back to it but when i looked closer it had something wrong with the back of its neck (it had feathers missing and the feathers that were left were clumped up with dry blood).Strangly enough when i got closer it just stayed where it was and let me pick it up and it perched on my hand quite calmly, it also seemed very weak like it didnt have the energy to run away so i didnt want to risk leaving it there for a fox or a cat to have so i took it home with me.
For the first day or so the poor thing wouldnt eat anything so i did some homework firstly i worked out hat it must be around 15-20 days old and i looked for what they eat and found something saying they can eat baby rusks and suet with wealworms so i mixed it up and put mixture into icing sheringe, the bird wouldnt take it from the end of the shringe so i held it and opened its beak and the mrs placed small amounts in the birds mouth and it ate it, which we were happy about at least it ate something... Anyways next day i all i had to do was show it the sheringe and it was streight over feeding directly from it (didnt have to open its beak), thing is i dont want to over feed it or under feed it.
I have a few questions here goes
1 Does anyone know how often they are supposed to feed?
2 Do they clean or bath themselves and how can i encourage this?
3 How soon should it be returned to the wild (still doesnt have its tail feathers dont want to let it go if it cant fly)
4 Is it possibly the weak chick and the mother has left it? i cant see what has had it round its neck that hasnt killed it and just left it there where it was.
5 What are their sleeping patterns in general and If there is anything else i have missed please feel free to let me know

Any info is much appreciated i will post a few pics of the poor little xexexexexexe so you guys can see how old it looks for yourselves

Thanks Adam

[RKB]

You should return it to the wild asap. It isn't injured badly enough to need care, so you should return it so that it can have a normal life. It's only been a couple of days so the parents will still be around and will still feed it. It has probably just been pecked or grabbed by something, or grazed itself - birds do occasionally get into scrapes, and young woodies often fall from the nest a bit early and wander around the ground. As long as it isn't badly injured then this is the best course of action.

Give it a big feed before you do - water mixed with porridge oats etc into a watery paste, then put into the throat as you have been doing. Nothing salty. The crop is a bag that holds food on the front of the neck, above the chest. When you feed it you should be able to see/feel the food under the skin in this area. It will bulge quite a lot, and you can give it several big feeds per day - feed when the crop is empty.

But you really do need to put it back - it is clearly getting quite tame already, and it will have no chance if you carry on down this path. Many thousands of woodpigeons are shot for food and sport - not just in the country but also by airgunners in the suburbs. It needs to learn to be wary of poeple, and also needs to learn about Sparrowhawks etc.

You know where it's from, it isn't badly injured, the parents will still be there, so there's no reason at all to keep it - all the boxes are ticked for putting it back. Take it to exactly the spot you found it, first thing tomorrow, look for nearest big dense bush or tree (6ft plus), and put it as high as you can off the ground. A gentle under-arm lob will be fine to get it to the top of a dense bush. Then go away completely and don't return, as the parenst will be extremely wary.

This really is its best chance. A tame woodpigeon is a sitting duck, so to speak.

[Littlesparrow]

For more information goggle, Pigeon and Dove Rescue, a very useful site.
Good luck.

[addyfie]

Thanks for the info i will feed it as often as it likes from now till tomorrow and then let it go back where i found it hopefully the mother will go back for it
Cheers Adam

[werdnal]

I beg to differ from the previous advice, but it is unlikley to survive if you put it back in the wild. Although pigeons are very good attentive parents, it is possible this bird has been taken from the nest by something like a kestrel or sparrowhawk, or even a magpie, and dropped because it was too heavy to carry away. It may have been pushed out by a nestmate, or even abandoned by its parents as if it has fallen whilst they were away from the nest, they may not recognise it as their own. The adult birds will leave their "squabs" for some time once they are feathered and go off to feed, returning several times a day to feed them.

We had one dropped into our garden like this a couple years ago. The injury you saw on his neck is a sign it might have been attacked. As you found it in a public place, the attacker (bird of prey etc) was disturbed and left the scene.

You are doing well with the feeding. I have raised 3 young woodies in the past, all starting around the age of yours. You should feed it atleast 3-4 times a day, using the mix you have been giving it, but you can include wild bird seed. It you gently open its beak, and use a small spoon, you can literally pour a small amount of seed into its throat, and it will swallow once its beak closes again. Birds have a "crop" or food sack in the front of their chests, and if you squeeze gently you can feel when it is getting full. Pigeons are greedy and will take quite a lot of food at one go. Also you should ensure it has water - this is a little difficult as the entrace to their windpipe is inside the base of the beak, and it is easy to get the water into their lungs. If the bird won't drink when you drip its beak into a saucer of water, then you may have to get a fine tube and gently push down its throat, past the windpipe. If you get a fine syringe, you can fit this to the tube and give it a few mls of water at the end of each feed. It should also have some "grit" mixed into the food. You can get this from pet shops, as they sell it for budgies and caged birds. It helps with their digestion as they "grind" the seed in their crops.

I see you are keeping it indoors. It would be better to keep it somewhere away from your daily activities to prevent it getting to tame and aclimatised to people. I kept mine in a cage in our shed, covered with a towel at night for extra warmth. This helps keep them wild and skittish, rather than to much of a "pet". It creates problems with feeding as they struggle more when being caught and held, but better for the pigeon in the long run. Only "visit" when you have to feed it and stay away as much as you can. To keep it calm if it struggles when you do have to pick it up, wrap it securely in a towel.

I think you would be best finding a wildlife centre locally who would take it. If you ring the RSPB they will give you numbers of people who rehabilitate birds in your area. The first 2 I had went to a lady who took in all sorts of birds, and had a couple of aviaries where they could learn to fly in safety and she could wean them off her feeding before them went back to the wild. I fed them first until they were taking an interest in feeding themselves, as she had so many young birds at the time she couldn't take on any more. The last one I had I kept until it was ready to fly, they let it go in our garden, putting plenty of food out to help it get used to being in the wild. After a couple of days it disappeared, but there were a lot of similar aged woodies around at the time, and I think it just joined up with them and went on its way.

Hope you find someone to take it on. It would be an ideal situation to take it back where you found it, but as it can't fly yet, it would end up staying on the ground, and even if its parents did return and take it back, it wouldn't last long without being able to get away from danger. Good luck!

[RKB]

A Kestrel or Sparrowhawk or Magpie wouldn't be able to lift a squab of this size, so I don't think it has been carried anywhere by a predator. It may well die if put back, but it will at least have a chance of a normal life - whatever that entails. If it is hand-reared, it will have even less of a chance and will potentially suffer more. It is a wild bird - it belongs in the wild.

It looks around the normal age of fledging - such birds 'branch' around after shuffling off the nest platform, and often fall to the floor. All they require is putting back in a bush, somewhere a bit safer. Woodpigeons nests are very flimsy and vulnerable, and the young leave them as soon as they can. They are not accomplished fliers for some time after fledging, so finding a bird of this age is not unusual and does not necessarily need drastic action such as hand-rearing.

While the urge to help is commendable, we must ask oursleves what we are trying to achieve. No matter how much effort people put into fledglings, they are not birds and they cannot do half as good a job as the parents can. In the interests of the bird, it deserves every chance to get back to its natural parents asap. Why give it to a human in a wildlife centre when it has its own parents down the road?

[werdnal]

Our opinions obviously differ here. OP asked for advice and we have both given our own interpretations of that advice. Thats the perils of posting here as different people have different views on these things.

I do know that pigeons fledge and branch without being able to fly properly at first. I have also witnessed a sparrowhawk dropping a pigeon of a similar size to this in our garden. I don't know where it came from so obviously could not return it to its parents - I saw the s/hawk struggling to carry something, and had I not been there to pick the squab up, it would have no doubt followed it to the ground and eaten it.

I found yet another "fallen" young woody earlier this year, but knew where the nest was (in the lane approaching our house), and picked it up and threw it on top of the hedge to prevent it being run over. I am confident the parents were around to look after it then, but it is not always so.

By all means put the pigeon back and give it a chance in the wild, I was not suggesting getting the bird tame, or hand rearing to be used to people - none of the birds I have raised were tame enough to pick up without a struggle, even after I had fed them for a few weeks, several times a day. Once they had started eating for themselves, they were left totally alone, without any human contact other than food and water changes, until it was time to move them on to soft-release, or as in the case of the last one, I released it myself.

I would suggest that neither of us is strictly "right" here. Intervening with wildlife by helping lost or injured fledglings is probably wrong, as its all part of nature and perhaps we should turn a blind eye and leave things alone. On the other hand, when you are faced with the chance to help something which may struggle to survive on its own, we have to make a decision, if only to convince ourselves that we have done the right thing. I did what I thought was right, and would still do the same again if the need arose.

[Littlesparrow]

Any updates on young Woodie.

[animartco]

I'm going to get shouted down here but I AM going to put my oar in. Please, as an animal behaviourist my advice is do not put young birds in dark silent places alone. Would you do this to a human infant? All young animals need love and affection and all this talk about making them too tame is just nonsense. When the bird grows up it will naturally gravitate towards its own species.
Taking them to animal rescue centres is always a good idea though, because they have a lot of baby birds in together so that they are not lonely. With their own or similar species to keep them company they will not pine if the handlers stay at a distance, but reared on their own they will be less able to relate to their own species or any other species especially if they are kept in solitary confinement.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by animartco

I'm going to get shouted down here but I AM going to put my oar in. Please, as an animal behaviourist my advice is do not put young birds in dark silent places alone. Would you do this to a human infant? All young animals need love and affection and all this talk about making them too tame is just nonsense. When the bird grows up it will naturally gravitate towards its own species.

Sorry, but this is just ridiculous to the point of hilarity. I have never seen a Woodpigeon reading a bedtime story, and I wonder how a human infant would react if a large predator started looming over them, giving "love and affection". In human terms, this Woodpigeon is about 16, so all it needs is some pocket money, a lift down the shopping arcade, and a lecture on safe sex and the perils of alcohol.

Love and affection indeed