Diet: Zebra Doves, Spotted Doves and Pigeons

• Basic Diet:

  • Zebra doves, Spotted doves, and pigeons are mostly seed eaters but occasionally consume small insects.

  • Formula Options:

    • Kaytee Exact Baby bird Formula

    • Harrisons Formula

    • Hagen Tropican Baby Bird Food

• How to feed:

  • They have crops but do not gape until they know you have food. Doves and pigeons stick their beaks inside their parent’s mouths to get food from their crops.

  • There are different ways to feed a non-gaping bird.

    • Crop Feeding:

      • Fill a Ziplock plastic bag with formula. Cut the corner of the plastic bag to fit the size of the birds beak to allow the bird to suck the formula into its mouth at its own pace.

      • OR: Use a rubber crop needle to force feed the pigeon or dove

• How often to feed:

  • All birds need to be fed from sunrise to a couple hours after sunset.

  • Young hatchlings and nestlings: fed every 2 hours

    • Naked (non feathered) hatchlings should be fed every hour

      • Zebra Doves: 2-4 cc formula

      • Mountain doves: up to 10 cc of formula

      • Pigeons: 5-10 cc formula

    • Pin feather babies should be fed every 1 - 2 hours or feed again when the crop is empty

  • Young nestlings: fed every 2 - 3 hours

    • Zebra Doves: 5-8 cc formula

    • Mountain doves: 10-15 cc formula

    • Pigeons: up to 20 cc formula

  • Older fledglings fed every 4-5 hours if starting to eat on their own. If they are not eating on their own, feed every 3-4 hours.

    • Zebra Doves: Feed up to 8 cc formula

    • Mountain doves: up to 20 cc formula

    • Pigeons: up to 30 cc formula

  • Adults: every 3-4 hours crop feeding

    • Zebra Doves: no more than 8 cc formula

    • Mountain doves: 25-30 cc formula

    • Pigeons: up to 50 cc formula

• Food In a Pinch:

  • Crushed raw Oatmeal, mix with warm non-dairy milk (lactose is not good for them). You can also add one raw eggs so it binds the oatmeal and milk with an even consistency.

  • Infant cereal with soy milk, cream of wheat, non-dairy milk

  • Mashed cooked quinoa or rice

How to Ween:

• Nestlings will start to explore and naturally peck around the cage at different things.

  1. 1. Scatter parakeet seeds around the cage

  2. 2. Hang millet spray in the cage to encourage exploration in food or toss seed along the cage.

     • Your bird will begin pecking at the seed left in its cage and will make a gradual transition to being 100% self-fed.

• As you see your bird eating more seed/millet spray, start to slowly reduce formula amounts during each feeding session.

Helpful Tips:

• Check the birds crop to see when it’s full and to stop feeding. Over feeding Can result in vomiting.

• Begin feeding again when the crop is empty. If the crop is still full- food is digesting. Feeding too often may result in “sour crop” where undigested food spoils inside of the crop.