Dove Care
If the parent is not feeding the baby within the first two hours of birth, you can try opening the parent dove’s bill and inserting the baby’s bill into the upper corner of the parent’s mouth and support the baby to hold it in the proper place as described above. Often the insertion of the baby’s bill will stimulate the parent’s regurgitation process. If you are hand feeding, there are many baby bird mixes available at most major pet store chains. Don’t wait until the day the baby hatches to go out and buy the food. Keep some on hand in case the parents reject the baby. Hard boiled egg mixed with pieces of bread and water will work in a pinch. The water dish should be at least an inch higher than the nest to keep the babies from falling in and drowning. The food should be warm but not hot. You should be able to stir it with your little finger without burning it or feeling uncomfortable. (yes, use the little finger. It is less likely to be calloused or desensitized.)
Be careful not to let the baby aspirate the water into its air system where it will die of pneumonia. Try letting the baby sip a small amount of warm water from a teaspoon or the water dish. Doves drink like an anteater by sucking through their bill like a straw or lapping like a dog so don’t squirt it in their mouth where it might get into their windpipe located on top of the rear of their tongue.
If you do not have a proper veterinarian’s feeding tube, even a newborn baby can lap up the food from a teaspoon or edge of a bowl while you are holding the baby in your hand. It just takes a while and care should be taken to keep the baby warm and dry while he is eating. Keep a tissue handy to wipe them off with and keep their nasal openings on their bill clear. Dove babies do not open their mouths wide or chirp for food like other baby birds. They poke with their bill to search for the food. You have to teach them about food by feeding them. You judge when to feed them by checking the crop for fullness and feeding them at least every hour or two, but don’t let them become empty or dehydrated. Care should be taken not to get food into the windpipe on the back of the baby’s tongue where it will aspirate and die in less than a minute. If using an eyedropper to feed the baby who is not eating, it is easier to allow the food to dribble in the tip of the baby’s bill so it can control the passage past the windpipe. If you have to put food farther back, try to get it into the back of the throat past the air hole on the tongue.
If the baby is getting weaker instead of stronger, he is likely not getting enough water as the 1st cause or food as the 2nd cause and then keeping him warm and clean. These are the 4 critical elements to keeping the baby alive.
It is very important that the babies get proper vitamins and minerals or they will end up runts. Not all vitamins contain calcium and the baby food may not have enough. You may have to add some. Be sure to read the nutritional requirements for baby doves and also about the hazards of overdosing vitamins which can be just as bad or deadly. Do not put honey into the food of a baby dove.
Birth – The larger the egg, the larger and more developed the baby will be. Eggs that are too small tend to bear undersized, under developed weak babies. In the photos on the right, the lighter color baby was larger than the dark baby on the day it was born. Even a full day behind, the lighter baby was larger, stronger and more developed, having come from a much larger egg. The darker baby had much more of an egg tooth than the light baby. If the baby emerges before absorbing the yolk sac or if the membrane bleeds more than a couple drops, the baby will die within the hour and it is unlikely that it can be saved.
Day One – have baby bird mix on hand ahead of time in case the parent does not start feeding the baby within 2 hours of birth. The baby’s head will wobble due to weak neck muscles and will have trouble holding up its head long enough to be fed. The parent sitting on the baby should nibble at the baby’s bill to encourage it to insert its bill into the parents bill to eat. I have been able to teach inexperienced parents how to feed the baby by opening the parent’s bill and inserting the baby’s bill into the corner of the parent’s mouth. Often the touch of the baby’s bill inside the corner of the parent’s mouth against the tongue will initiate regurgitation and I hold the baby in place until the parent has finished regurgitating food. Keep a close eye on the baby by checking the fullness of its crop every couple hours and watching the parent to see if the baby is continuing to be fed. If not, try holding the baby in place and insert its bill into the parents mouth to see if the parent will feed again. If you are unable to get the parent to feed, use the baby mix VERY Watery consistency and let the baby lap it off of a teaspoon. The food should be warm but not hot. If the baby still looks full two hours later, it is probably dehydrated and needs water to help dissolve the food in the crop. Most of the time, the parents do not give the baby enough water. Allow the baby to drink the warm water from a teaspoon. A doughy feeling crop needs water. As long as the baby is full and hydrated with water at midnight, it should be able to last until 6AM before the next feeding. The baby should be fed no less than every two hours after 6AM. The first 3 days are the most critical. If the parents are actively feeding the baby, the crop is pumped so full by the parent that the baby is filled to the brim until it is ready to pop and is quite heavy. Massive growth takes place overnight at this young age.
The first two days are the most critical, but the baby is still vulnerable for the next week or two. Protect the baby from falling out of the nest, especially until it grows feathers to enable it to regulate its body temperature.
Be sure to keep the nest clean of faeces and be careful of cuts in its sensitive skin often caused by parents sharp claws. Some parents are more careful than others.
Some babies will peek open a tiny slit in the eye on the first day but most will wait until day 3 or 4. Some babies start clutching the nest materials with their feet on the first day. Others will wait a couple days.
Day two – the baby will try to crawl and use its bill to pull itself along. It will start to poke its bill under the parent, but will still have an unsteady neck and closed eyes unless it started peeking early. The baby will require more food and the parents will start adding seed into the baby’s crop. Water will be very important at this point. If the skin on the baby’s abdomen looks dry, it needs water.
Day three – More feathers will form. Baby should be eating much better now and neck should be stronger. Change and clean the nest, preferably by switching it with an alternate and similar nest so the parent is only disturbed for a minute. You don’t want to cause the parent to stop sitting on the nest, so the change needs to be done quickly, yet quietly and so that the parent does not notice the difference in the nests. It is critical to clean the baby faeces from the nest twice each week or the baby could die from bacterial infection. I use identical nests (see nesting section of website) and I clean the soiled nest with Clorox and rinse well and thoroughly dry the nest and alternate the two nests twice each week. I put a little clean straw in the bottom (which you can find in the ferret section of the pet store).
Day four – The eyes should be open a peek by the fourth day, just a peek and should be able to grasp a stick in its feet. The water will be pooped out very quickly leaving a thick mass of seed that will become doughy. I cannot emphasize enough about having the baby drink water every couple hours.
Day five – The baby is quite heavy with a huge appetite. Parents are constantly feeding the baby seed slurries. Feathers are rapidly growing on wings, back and belly. Eyes are more alert. Baby will look twice as big as it did a couple days earlier.
One Week – At a week old the baby becomes quite lanky and should continue to gain weight each day. The tips of the feathers are beginning to show. The degree of exposed feathers will depend on how much preening that the parents do on the baby’s feather shafts. The baby is quite active now and real difficult to keep from climbing out of the nest. Keep an eye on the baby because they frequently fall out of the nest from this point on and will still chill easily. The only feathers on the back are down the spine. The rest of the babies body is still naked except for a fringe of feathers around the abdomen shown in the photos. In fact, two babies would completely overload the nest and you may have to resort to the cardboard version to give the babies and parents more room but it is hard to change a cardboard nest each day to keep it clean. A 3 to 4 inch tall plastic egg holder for the refrigerator shelf works good as a larger substitute nest if you put small sticks and straw in the bottom. Secure it to the side of the cage so it wont fall down. Alligator clips and other homemade devices should work well as long as you make sure that there is nothing that will harm either the baby or the parents. Both the baby and the parent will have more room.
1 1/2 Weeks – At a week and a half or 10 days old as seen in the photos to the right, the balance is much better and the parents start to encourage interest in seeds. The babies eyes are wide open but focus seems limited to near objects. The baby is much more active at this point, wobbling its wings with excitement and moving around a lot under the parent, poking out its head. In fact, the baby is now getting too warm under the parent with its new feathers all fluffed out and preened so it keeps crawling out from under the baby. This is an indicator that the baby needs a larger nest so it can sleep beside the parent rather than under. It will still crawl under the parent when it gets cold or distressed. See the photos in the feeding section of this page for photos at a week and a half to two weeks as both parents get into the nest at the same time and encourage the baby to eat from the seed dish and may start ignoring the baby and not feeding it enough. You may have to supplement the feedings but keep it to 2 or 3 times only so that the baby will learn to eat the seed when it is hungry. Try mixing the small seeds in with the baby food mix. The baby starts taking interest in the seed dish but does not eat at this point and will crawl into the dish to sleep if it is too hot under the parent. He will get cold so put him back in the nest if he starts to sleep.
Around 12 days old, the baby will start wobbling its wings and peeping when it sees either the parent or human who has been feeding it. He will also start preening his feathers, stretching his wings and legs and the parents will stop wanting to sit in the nest. The baby’s feathers will keep him much warmer now and will actually get overheated under a parent, but there are those times when it is cold or frightened and will hide under the parent’s chest even though it is now too big to be sat on.
The parents will start ignoring the baby and will leave the nest to encourage the baby to start getting onto the perch, learning balance and exercising. The baby will be on its own in a couple days and has to learn how to fend for itself unless you want to end up feeding the baby forever. We have had our first set of babies without parents that ended up being hand fed baby mix for 4 months because we did not force them to learn how to eat seeds on their own. The babies grew up to be runts so this is not a good choice.
On day 13, the baby will start pecking at the seeds on its own but will not have adequate intake to satiate its hunger so it will still need supplemental feedings by the parent or the human. It is important that a small seed & water dish be placed on either side of the nest at nest level where the baby can reach them. Since the parents are not sitting in the nest, it is ok to use the small nest again where the baby has his own place to sit, preen and place the dishes next to it. Move the perch next to the nest so the baby can come and go as he likes. Babies will not be able to reach the adult dishes so it is very important to place these were the baby has easy & safe access. The smaller feathers under the wings will start to grow in at this point.
