They were tiny. They were just beginning to grow feathers, but were mostly just covered in furry yellow down. I took one look at their beaks, with big bulges at the nostrils, and decided they must be doves. I did not know which type, but knew they must be a lot smaller than domestic pigeons, having raised one a year ago, which was huge.
My sister had started feeding them on chicken food (broiler starter crumbles) soaked in water, which she says is excellent food for baby birds. She asked if I would like to take them on and I said I would love to. I have raised wild doves and domestic pigeons before and it is great fun. Seed eaters are so much easier to look after than insect eaters. They also tend to be quite tame.
We first started feeding them by hand. Having made a paste with the chicken food and water, we held it between the fingers and the chicks pecked it out of our hands. Pigeons and doves naturally take food out of their mother’s mouths, unlike some other baby birds that just hold their mouths wide open for the mother to drop the food in.
I soon resorted to a method we previously used on a pigeon, using a plastic syringe, which is much easier and less messy. I cut the end off a 2ml syringe, so that it becomes a tube of equal diameter all the way along. Then suck the food paste up and it serves as a mother dove’s beak. The baby bird pushes its beak into the end of the syringe and starts gulping the food down.
I feed the birds three times a day – about 10-11 syringe-fulls at a time. My children help me, as it is hard work feeding twins! One baby is slightly bigger than the other. We do not know if this is because one is greedier than the other.
The baby birds live in a tiny cardboard box, lined with old rags, which serves as their nest. This is put, together with more cloths and two hot-water bottles, inside a plastic shopping basket. I keep the lid on just in case of cats. They are very quiet, but usually start calling gently around feeding time – a very soft “chwee, chwee”. When I get them out they get all excited and start feeling all around with their beaks for the food. I change the hot water bottles after feeding them. I also change their “nappy/diaper” (the cloth they sit on) after each feed.
