Chook Me!

Will it help keep it warm or what?

For those who have been following my pigeon questions, here's another one: I plan to get a pigeon(or egg) from a friend who onws a pair(she's mostly likely gonna trade them in for a different pair, these will probably be purebreds since the female is a mixed breed and male is a purebred roler, their baby died cause she had deformed head. I have a sport heating pack that stays warm for 8 hours. If I had to go out for a while...would this pack help incubate the egg if I had to leave the house for a while or what? I have made a homemade incubator using a large plastic box, some towels a heating pad a container of water for humidity. I tried it out and it works but I HAVEN'T tried out on a fertile egg yet. (And yes I've done my homework/research already) No jokes or wisecracks...thanks!

Public Comments

1. You should not be thinking about hatching an egg. You need to get a pair of adult birds and let them breed and let them feed the babies when they hatch. Pigeons and doves produce a "crop milk" that they feed their babies. It is the only thing the babies eat for the first 10 days of their lives. Then, slowly, the parent birds introduce solid food. The hand feeding formulas on the market are not high enough in protien and fat content to hand-raise a healthy baby pigeon. They are formulated for parrots and other birds whose nutritional needs are different from pigeons. I understand that you want to raise a baby pigeon, but do you want to do this so badly that you are willing to forfeit the health and well-being of the baby bird to get what you want? I hope not, or you will make a very poor pigeon owner. Owning a pet is not about what you want, and what makes you happy. It is about doing what is best for the pet, and doing what keeps the pet happy and healthy. A healthy baby pigeon is one that is fed crop milk by its parents and gets to socialize with other pigeons. It is not a pigeon that is being hand fed by someone who has never doen this before, has no experience and therefore will make mistakes, or one that is denied the socialization of its own parents and siblings - something that is very important for pigeons since they are an extremely social bird (with others of their own species). When I had pigeons, I had a few orphans - their mother was killed shortly after they hatched. I was forced to hand-feed the babies. They remained runty and had terrible personalities. I know I fed them properly, as I had successfully hand-fed other baby birds, so it was nothing I did wrong. They just weren't as healthy as the parent-raised birds, and - because I had to keep them seperated from the others to make hand-feeding easier - they never socialized as well as the other pigeons in the flock. They did not bond with me just because I hand-fed them - in fact, most of the parent-fed babies were friendlier and bonded with me better and faster than the hand-fed babies. You really should consider getting a pair of birds and start a flock of parent-fed pigeons. You won't regret it!
2. IMPORTANT FACT: Pigeons are VERY sweet birds and getting a young bird after it is weaned will be just fine. They are very loving, loyal and will bond with you if you spend a lot of time with them. There is no need to hatch one as you have described~!! I would strongly advise you NOT to attempt to hatch an egg using the method you have described. I have hatched several thousand eggs using incubators and in fact had three running at the same time. Not once have I had all of the eggs hatch, much less all the chicks which hatched survive. The chance of you successfully hatching one egg as you described is very slim. To prevent the embryo from sticking to the side of the shell, the mother pigeon rolls the egg on a regular basis, something which you will not be able to do during the night while you sleep or while you are away from your home. If you are successful at hatching the egg, chances are the bird will be deformed. The best way to assure your egg hatches is to foster the egg out to a pair of birds who are sitting on eggs and have them hatch it for you. The owner of the birds can take this pairs eggs out and give them to another pair to hatch so that you will know which chick is yours without having to guess. You do NOT want to try to hand-feed a baby pigeon from the moment it hatches. This is a difficult task which requires skill, patience and dedication. The chances of the baby bird surviving, if it does indeed hatch, are slim.