The following story was shared with us by the Wildlife Rescue Association in British Columbia, Canada.
In early January of 2020, the Wildlife Rescue Association of British Columbia received two nestling rock pigeons that had been found in a garbage bag after their nest was destroyed to put up pigeon spikes. Rock pigeons nest all year in the lower mainland of British Columbia, so Wildlife Rescue sees many nestling pigeons all year-round.
Upon examination, one of the siblings had developmental issues formed in the nest and unfortunately passed away. The other sibling had mild anemia and mildly low total protein. The nestling was started on a tube-feeding regimen of baby pigeon formula twice a day as well as EmerAid Intensive Care Omnivore once a day to support healthy growth.
EmerAid IC Omnivore has been a wonderful tool for us when we receive pigeons that are needing extra nutritional support to get them back to optimum health — support that this nestling needed to grow healthy and strong.
After 10 days of tube-feeding three times a day, every day, the nestling pigeon started to gain an interest in the adult pigeon diet that we offer by starting to eat a few seeds here and there. In response, we decreased the frequency of tube-feeding to encourage it to keep eating on its own. The nestling quickly clued in on our plan and started to completely eat on its own!
The nestling, now a fledgling, no longer needed our attentive nutritional support. Its blood values had improved to normal levels and was growing up beautifully and quickly!
Our young pigeon is now in an outdoor enclosure with many other pigeons that we have cared for, all of which are preparing for release back into the wild.