hand raising pigeons. INFO NEEDED!

[flyingduster]

background: we've tryed to keep free ranging pigeons at our place rather unsuccesfully, our last attempt we had 10, but even after being locked in a shed for a number of weeks, most of them flew home again (which wasn't very far from our place). However one pair DID stay long enough to start nesting. They hatched one chick, which died the next day. They layed 2 more eggs, nothing. they layed another two, and at last, both eggs hatched, and both chicks thrived.

Well anyway, about a week or so ago, i realised I had only seen one of the two pigeons around. Often one would be up in the trees or something, but no, only one. After a few days, of seeing only one, i figured that one of the parents had gone, leaving the other to look after the chicks. It was doing fine at it too!

Today, I decided to get some dutch formula, to help supplement them. At only 3 weeks old they're massive, and being two of them, and only one parent, i figure a little supplementing by hand feeding wouldn't go amiss.

So I go out and check on them. They beg for food when they see me, like they usualy do (dunno about other birds, but pigeon chicks will beg for food if hungry or not!) I picked them up and checked under their new feathers so see if thier crops had anything in them. NOTHING. Then I think back, and I realise when I checked them this morning, there was no parent hanging around. When I went out tonight, also no sign of the parent, and the food i'd put in that morning for it, was uneaten.

I'm HOPING that I'm just being paranoid, and the parent is still around I just didn't happen to see it in the trees or something... I did attempt to feed the little guys, and I did get some food into both of them. I'm going to leave them out there, hoping, like i said, that the parent is still around. But I think, if there's still no sign of it tomorrow, I'm going to have to start hand feeding these guys full time.

So, I need to know if dutch formula is ok for them (I'm in NZ, I dunno if you have dutch forumla there?), how much to feed them, and how often. They're 22 days old today. I know that they're supposed to leave the nest in about 2 weeks.

I'd appreciate ANY help, even if you haven't done pigeons before, but done another species, it might give me a rough guide at least to how often!

[DizzyDezzy]

hey

I used dutch formula to handfeed some budgies and they did very well on it, so it should be fine for the little pigeons

[phoenix fire]

Just wonderin, what is Dutch formula?

[DizzyDezzy]

"dutch formula" is a local (New Zealand) brand of formula for handrearing chicks and supplementing breeding birds.

[featherjinxer]

First: I know NOTHING about pigeons.

Would the place they keep flying back to know anything about handfeeding them? Perhaps they could also help...