Feeding a baby dove?

We recently found a baby dove in our backyard that can't fly yet. We think it fell out of it's nest and the mother abandoned it.

How do we feed it? What do we feed it? What do we feed it with? Any advice at all??
Answers:
awww poor nick! his mommy abandoned him?? :*( keep him alive. :)

---

They eat doves milk- basically it is regurged from the mother's crop. You can buy dove milk replacer if needed, but it is hard to find.

Are you sure that it still needs it? Doves start eating solid food at less than a month old- you can try putting some soft grains or pellets in with it and see if they will eat it. Another choice is insects.
Here is a recipe, you can modify it a bit- if the bird is fully feathered, it should be eating solid food by now.

MacMilk: Crop Milk Replacer Recipe

1 jar (71 grams) strained chicken baby food
1 hard-boiled egg yolk (16.6 grams)
1 tablespoon low-fat yogurt (15.3 grams)
录 teaspoon corn oil (1.13 grams)
247.6 mg calcium carbonate
2 drops cod-liver oil (from gel cap)
1 drop vitamin E (diluted 1:10 in corn oil; see notes)
1 small pinch vitamin B complex (see notes)
25 mg. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)


Method: Mix all ingredients in a blender. Allow the digestive enzymes to work on the food for 陆 hour before using at room temperature. Warm it to 'wrist' temperature before feeding.

MacMilk庐 Astrid MacLeod and Janine Perlman, 2001漏


Feeding a baby bird is not to be done by beginners- it is very hard- too much and you can overfill the crop, and too warm, you can burn it and permantly damage the bird (it will die)

---

well at pet stores they sell food for baby birds so u can try that. it usually has instructions and u can buy something to feed the baby bird. my first dove was hand fed and she's doing alright.

Good luck

---

Chances are the bird is a fledgling and is not abandoned. Put it back outside in the morning and watch from inside to see if the parents come to feed it, they should. If they don't in a couple of hours then call a wildlilfe rehab, DO NOT TRY TO FEED IT YOURSELF. Many people try to help these birds and end up killing them through lack of knowledge.

For tonight, offer it some water from a CLEAN eyedropper and leave it in a box in a quiet warm room.

---

Give it a chance to live by taking it to a wildlife rehab center.

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~devo0028/contact.

www.wildliferehabber.org

www.wildliferehabber.com

Call them and they can tell you what to do.

---

go to the vet clinic or the pet store, you need a dove milk replacer. the vet will also give you an empty syringe. mix the supplement as directed. keep in mind that the mixed amount cannot be reused later, so mix just enough for one feeding. to warm it up. pop it in micro wave for 15 seconds. test it on the back of the hand. not the wrist. back of the hand is more sensitive. mix once more to be sure the temp is evenly distributed then take the syringe be sure you get both mixture and liquid. when you feed the chicks, i found that if you put the beak between the fore finger and the middle finger with the back of the hand facing the chick, it simulates a bird's beak making the chick open the mouth wide. you place the tip of the syringe to the side of the beak straight up and down and slowly press the plunger. the crop will show up in front of the breast bone. it will look like a bubble. for the age and the size of the crop, if all the little one has for body covering is pins then the crop should go no bigger than the top of your middle finger. if its still pink with no pins, it would be the size of the tip of your pinky. half pins and half fluff, the size of the tip of your thumb. you get the idea.
and feedings should be about 3 hours apart til the pins begin to fluff out.
i'm talking about the pin feathers.
at full fluff it can be every 4 hours.

i hope that helps. when it proves that it can eat seed on its own then slowly taper off the feedings. by the time it gets its full flight feathers and starts to try to fly. the formula should be done. you can also begin to introduce it to live foods