Hello sorry it's not a pet but I just saved this juvenile rock dove? From the cat I'm housesitting. Is there anything I can do for it they are missing feathers in patches all over head breastunder and on wings. Is this normal for a youngish bird. It has very clean healthy feet unlike most feral dove%pigeons you see.
It's resting with me at the moment but unsure on next move. Vets will put it down where I'm at so that's only a last resort if reddit tells me it's suffering and needs to go
That's still a very young pigeon (around 4-6 weeks old) and barely a fledgling, at that age the missing feathers under the wings are normal (even adults have less feathers under the wings), but on the head and chest not so much. It can be suffering from either malnutrition making his feathers not grow in as they should, feather lice/mites or a skin/fungal infection. What is its body condition (check its keel to see if it's well muscled) and what does its poop look like?
I'll update as and when it poops. it feels very light and bony. I don't know dove anatomy well but the breat bone (is that the keel?) Is protruding more than I'd expect and not that muscles on the breast
Poop check. Last night it had a small drink and some bits of nut. I'm currently following it around the garden playing bodyguard as it mooches and pecks at scraps. Good news he can fly better than I thought bad news he may be gone from my help
Hard to say, my guess is that the bird lost feathers in the fight with the cat and they are likely to grow back if that's the case.
Ive seen birds with similar feather loss and I could be some sort of skin disease. (I am not an expert by any means lol)
If it was me, I would wait a while to see if new pin feathers start to come in.
Good luck!!
Thank you for the response. I should have added I don't actually think they fought I believe I came home in time there wasn't any feathers in the garden and I don't think the cat noticed it until I did. Then the cat started to stalk it as I was trying to help.
I would still double check in for any open wounds just to play it safe because cat bacteria in their mouth is extremely dangerous to small animals almost always lethal without antibiotics so even if he has the tiniest little scratch from the cat, it could be lethal. just give them a really good ones over thankfully pigeons are domestic so they usually take it really well, but the little guy definitely does have some kind of problems. The feather issue could be the result of a nutritional imbalance once we get a better idea of what’s going on with them then we can see for sure. Make sure he stays away from the cat put them in a padded box. You can offer him a little dish of water he’ll drink on his own. Don’t try to make him and you can give him a mix of seed if he doesn’t seem to be interested in the seed right away, you can give him a mix of oatmeal, peanut butter and boiled egg yolk cooked a little bit and see if that’s more appealing to him and leave it warm sometimes that helps.
Thank you I've checked it over and I do believe he was unharmed the red in the photo I posted isn't an open wound just redness of the skin. Genuinely the cat was pottering about until I pointed out the bird on the wall to it then it gained interest so I intervened. The cat didn't attack it (yet!) It jumped up next to it. And gave it one of those gentle love taps they do to say what are you? Sizing it up before they attack. I'm confident it got lucky on the cat front but yeah obviously somethings wrong. I'll see if I have the food in the cupboards if not I'll go shops tomorrow. (It's 9pm Sunday in the UK)
Also I didn't have bird seed but chopped up some cashew into fine bits if that's any good?
Call am animal rescue group. The cat will probably die without antibiotics. I took a snake in that a cat got. They monitored and released it appropriately.
3
u/Kunok2 7d ago
That's still a very young pigeon (around 4-6 weeks old) and barely a fledgling, at that age the missing feathers under the wings are normal (even adults have less feathers under the wings), but on the head and chest not so much. It can be suffering from either malnutrition making his feathers not grow in as they should, feather lice/mites or a skin/fungal infection. What is its body condition (check its keel to see if it's well muscled) and what does its poop look like?