1 week old pigeon fell out of its nest- twice! (2 Viewers)

[anvi]

There's a pigeon nest on top of the air conditioner in our balcony, they've been there for over a year now, and laid eggs many times.

A baby pigeon (after some research online I concluded it's about 7-10 days old) fell on the sink last night. It didn't look injured so my dad put him back into the nest safely. In the morning I found the baby crawling near the balcony door and squeaking loudly. Seems like it fell again. Or was rejected by it's mother?

I didn't want to risk him falling for the third time and seriously injuring himself this time so i prepared a bedding for him and kept him inside my room. My vet recommended feeding him a homemade formula since we didn't have any bird formula on short notice, and he seemed to enjoy it.
I had no prior knowledge about caring for a pigeon so young, so I've been trying to learn online how to care for him.

Should I try putting him back in and hope he'll be cared after the mother this time? Although I doubt it because now that I've fed him formula he probably smells different and the mother might not recognise him. Should I care for him on my own till he is grown and able to fly? Is there anything else I can do? We don't have any animal rehabilitation centres. So I'm on my own..

Also he doesn't look injured, although I'm not quite sure.. I've never really looked after a bird, and it's hard to tell from his mannerisms. Is there a way I can check him for injuries? There's no blood or scratches on any part of his body but could he have broken bones or internal injuries? Any kind of behaviour I should look out for? He's squeaks for some time once in a while, even tried to get out of the basket i put him in. Generally calms down after being fed.

Any reply and advice would be helpful. Thank you.

 

[delia todd]

Hi Anvi and a warm welcome to you from all the Staff and Moderators. We have some general guidelines here for the care of injured and baby birds. I hope you find it useful. Perhaps you'd like to come back with other questions once you've read through it; as any more advice would very much depend on what stage he is at. He might now be strong enough to actually remain in the nest so that would be the first thing to try.

I'm sure you will enjoy it here and I look forward to hearing your news.

 

[anvi]

Hello, thank you for the reply and the info has been quite helpful! I'm considering putting him back in the nest. i just hope he doesn't fall back on the ground again. Not sure why that keeps happening.

My only concern with putting him back in his nest is whether the mother will accept him now that he's been fed by us and probably smells a lot different than he did before? Could the foreign smell cause her to reject him and push him out of the nest?

 

[delia todd]

Most birds don't have a strongly developed sense of smell I don't think. Is it the only chick in the nest?

 

[anvi]

No, there's at least one more, I can hear the other one's squeaks from the nest throughout the day.

I read on some sites that pigeons happen to have a really strong sense of smell. So if that is true, this could be a problem.

 

[Kits]

Welcome to Birdforum.

Put him back in the nest. It’s an urban myth that birds will reject a chick because it smells different. 🙂