Injured pigeon brought home; what to do?

xha1r

Hey,

An injured pigeon was brought back to our house last night as he was walking around on a busy road and was unable to fly. No vets were available so he stayed overnight (under my bed). Now, he seems quite healthy, and can flap his wings but not take off. He's quite calm and his sitting in a baskey we have, remaining still.

We called a number of vets today and they all said they would put him down if we brought him in. I understand that can be humane, but we'd prefer to try and do something for him; one idea being to take him to a local park and leave him near the pond.

I'm not sure what kind of pigeon he is, but he has a light orange chest and is quite tame (he was sitting on my lap for 15 mins without a problem).

Is there anything we can do? Are there any organisations or people who would take care of him and try and get him fit and healthy again?

All info and help is appreciated,

Regards,
JB.

moneyblues

Phone the ISPCA and ask for advice. Unfortunately we don't have wildlife centres or rehabilitators in this country - just a few caring individuals who do what they can. Some vets are more wildlife friendly than others - for example Lissenhall vets in Balbriggan might give you the name of someone who can help.

There's bound to be a pigeon fanciers club somewhere that could advise. If the bird is that tame it might not be a feral pigeon.

If all else fails there are lots of sites on the net. The Americans in particular go in for wildlife rescue and rehab in a big way. Here's one site to get you going.
http://www.ehow.com/how_1812_care-injured-bird.html

Good luck with the pigeon - hopefully it was just stunned and not injured internally.

Just for reference, if anyone else comes accross a stunned bird (perhaps from flying into a window) the general advice is to place it in a covered box in a warm place overnight. Don't give it food or water. With luck it may have recovered in the morning.

l

Dyr

Has it got a tag? It might have stuffed itself silly and not be able to fly just yet, Apparently common for pigeons who've flown across from france or england. TBH get shot of it, the little begger will have colony of pigeons hanging out of your house if he takes up residence :mad:

lphchild

also if you have any other pets, you may need to wash anything fabric-y on a high heat that the pigeon was in contact with as the potential for the transfer of fleas is pretty high ( speaking from experience :rolleyes: - a seagull in our case.. )

moneyblues

TBH get shot of it, the little begger will have colony of pigeons hanging out of your house if he takes up residence

It doesn't sound like a feral pigeon to me. Not if it has a yellow chest. In which case the "colony" won't apply. In any case I hope by "get shot of it" you meant find it an appropiate service!

luckat

http://www.pigeonnetwork.com/admin/clubs/clubs.cfm
seems to have a list of clubs - there's a couple in Finglas you might try to contact.

http://whitedovesociety.com/lostpigeon.htm
has good advice on what to give a lost bird you find.

My own bird experience tells me that a frightened, sick bird will often improve radically if you feed it warm water with sugar in it.

Many birds (again, I don't know about pigeons) need to eat their own bodyweight in food each day or more, so you'd better find out about how to feed your bird fast.

http://www.rpra.org/strays.html
This is a British site to report stray pigeons, also gives good advice, and has these addresses:

IHU - Irish Homing Union, I.H.U. IRISH HOMING PIGEON UNION. K. McConaghie, 38 Ballynahatty Road,
Belfast, BT8 8LE. Tel: 028 9064 4231.
Serial letter 'N' rings to be reported to J. Hughes, 44 Ashbourne Park,
Lambeg, Lisburn. BT27 4NS.
Serial letter 'S' rings to be reported to S. Lehane, 69 Lorcan Crescent,
Santry, Dublin 9, Eire. Tel: 00353 1421391

Hope that's some help.

Dyr

moneyblues wrote:

It doesn't sound like a feral pigeon to me. Not if it has a yellow chest. In which case the "colony" won't apply. In any case I hope by "get shot of it" you meant find it an appropiate service!

Doesnt have to be feral, we took a injured racing pigeon in under similar circustances, he liked it so much that he never left and we were plagued for years by the buggers who joined him. :mad:

FranknFurter

Sounds like your best bet as said is to get in touch with a pidgeon fanciers club.

B

(NB: Anyone advocating the harming or killing of an animal on this board will get an immediate ban, whether its a pidgeon or a guppy).

Huggles

Thats gas. same thing happened with me and my Mum. We brought a pigeon home, he was very young and tail feathers hadn't grown properly and couldn't fly (could this be the case?)

Anyways we kept him for four weeks, feeding him seed you can get in supermarket, and water. We tried him out flying a few times but wasn't strong enough then after a month he was grand and now he is living in the garden

Dyr

FranknFurter wrote:

Sounds like your best bet as said is to get in touch with a pidgeon fanciers club.

B

(NB: Anyone advocating the harming or killing of an animal on this board will get an immediate ban, whether its a pidgeon or a guppy).

"get shot of" means "get rid of" not kill it. BTW from personal experience if you take a pigeon like that to a pigeon fancier they'll probably offer to ring its neck for you :eek:

Incidentally from memory pigeons will eat barley and grains like that. No idea if its good for em

FranknFurter

Bambi wrote:

Incidentally from memory pigeons will eat barley and grains like that. No idea if its good for em

I think thats right, any comercial wild bird food from your local supermarket should do the trick for the short term.

Bambi, np. I figured as much but just wanted to pre-empt the inevitable "they are vermin shoot em all!" muppetry.
In some parts of the UK and Australia its actually illegal to feed pigeons and ya can be fined for doing it! :eek: Unbeliavable but true, just lucky we dont have that here yet.

Love to hear how this turned out xha1r

b