Pete is limping and Peppi is naughty (6 weeks)

From the

Diary as of  9/1 – 9/3/09

9/1 Pete is still limping a bit but it is definitely better than yesterday. So I don’t think I need to be worried.

I cannot believe my eyes: Peppi mounted Pina and this at a tender age of 6 weeks!!!! I have the proof on photo!! What the hell  did they put into those pills they had to eat these days??? I really want to know.

The Ritual

…continues

…mounting…

The climax

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9/2 The vitamins finally arrived. All pijjies seem to love that stuff. I put it into the drinking water. We’ll see whether it does them good. I really hope so.

For the first time I offered them peanuts today. I crushed them of course because in total they would be much too big of course. But it’s not a problem and easily done in my mortar. This I have also learned from the Pij’n Angels Forum. So I gave it a try. I would never have had this idea. The result:

Pete and Emma love the crushed peanuts – Willy and Winnie are reluctant, so are the babies. But who knows… Pijjies are always very conservative – they are very careful when it comes to try new things. But I find this excellent. Better to be careful than regret it later.

9/3 Day begins as usual: up 6:30 and letting the pijjies out on the balcony. It is quite dark and it is raining – so they are not very eager to go. But half an hour later it brightens up and both, Pina and Peppi, are flying around, coming back, having their breakfast and are out again.

They love the little foodie pots in the hanging flower pots where it is easier for them to defend their food – LOL.

Peppi is already courting his mom – besides Pina – and receives a slap with the wing for his cockiness!

I did not check the babies again. Their behaviour tells me that they are doing very well. They eat like a horse, they drink with deep gulps and they fly around like stunt pilots. You can really see how much joy that is for them. I do not want to distress them if there is no signal for a problem.

Whenever I have the opportunity – while I give Pina her little strokes or when I “fight” with Peppi – who has become quite snappy – I touch their bellies to feel whether there might be a problem.  And there isn’t. They have conquered the canker and they are healthy happy little pijjies who enjoy their young life! Oh how happy I am to see them doing so well. I love them so much…

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Begging Grandma for Food and eating on their own (16-17 days)

From the

Diary as of  8/5/ – 8/6/09

8/5 The parents Willy and Winnie are  feeding like crazy now. One could get the impression that they do it every half hour or so which is nonsense of course.  But each time I look towards the babies I see Willy – mostly Willy – feeding them.

Winnie laid  egg #8! in the second small nest beneath the bicycle. Apparently she is competing with Emma. Oh my, we have two egg laying machines now…

8/6 The babies are now 16/17 days old and Winnie tries to lure them already out of the nest! Isn’t this a bit early? My goodness – their childhood is short enough anyway and they had to suffer enough already.

Both babies have started their wing muscle training. They are able to flap their wings each day a bit longer and quicker. It makes a lot of sound – like a group of bats flying somewhere  - and they have started to eat seeds of their own. Doesn’t work yet with everything – they are choosing the small ones but I have seen that they actually managed to swallow them. What progress!!

Today – when Emma came in to go to the foodhouse – she was literally mugged. Both babies begged her for food and Emma was quite irritated about that. It was very funny. And while Emma ate her seeds in the foodhouse the babies watched her closely. The she changed to eat from one of those foodiepots and also was closely observed by the little ones. When Emma flew off again both babies started to pick their own seeds from the foodiepots. How sweet.  I have documented this in this little video:
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But they did not even start to eat on their own but I saw Peppi drink from the water on his own for the first time. What an achievement!!

In the meanwhile Peppi weighs 290 gr and Pina 275 gr. Not bad – isn’t it although they are fed merely by Willy only. Winnie did not feed them once today. She is so busy with her new eggs. Strange behaviour. Poor Willy – all responsibility is on him now. But he loves his little ones – you can see that.

The funny thing is that Willy must accompany everything with pijjie comments, not only when he is feeding. All the time when he is here to feed the babies he grunts and growls as if he were a mad dog. Even when one of the babies sticks his beak into Willy’s beak he does not stop to grunt and growl as if he were a bit nuts. But he IS nuts! I have never heard a pigeon before making these sounds – not pigeon-like at all – he has a very croaky voice although he can coo with wonderful sounds as well…

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Horror: little Pina got nearly scalped by another Pigeon!

From the

Diary as of  7/31 – 8/1/09

Horror story

7/31 I would never have thought this – but better to believe.
Yesterday in the afternoon we had our usual nap and I woke up, hearing the babies squeaking. I assumed that they were being fed. I got up but did not check the nest immediately because I thought everything is okay. I only saw in a blink that a foreign pigeon came from the nest but did not think anything bad yet. Sometimes they are just curious – but sometimes not . But this I did not know at that point.

I talked to my sister for a while on the phone – still thinking that everything is okay – and after the call I checked the nest and discovered to my horror that Peppi, the older baby, had a small punture wound on his head that was bleeding and some more on the elbows of his little wings. Then I looked at Pina, the smaller one and nearly got a shock – her little head was covered in blood, I saw several deep puncture wounds on her head, the blood was running into her eyes which she could hardly open, some more wounds on her wings but those were not as bad as the ones on her little head.

I immediately took both babies 10/11 days old out of the nest, put them on a paper towel and a warm water bottle and started to examine them both. Peppi seemed to be okay – he was feeping loudly – of course he had a shock. So I put him on a separate towel on the table. With trembling fingers I softly cleaned up little Pina’s head with a kleenex which I dipped in warm water and tried to remove as much of the encrusted blood as possible to see how badly she had been injured. I cleaned up her beak that was encrusted with blood and all parts of the body where something was sticking.

First I thought her left eye was injured too because it looked blind and the eyelid was swollen. But after the cleaning she had a blank eye again. With a Q-tip I then disinfected all the wounds with Bach Flower Remedies Rescue drops, hoping that this would support the healing process. It does with humans – so why not with little pigeon babies. The wounds were still bleeding and again and again I tried to stop this. Thank heaven it did eventually.

My sweet little Pina realized that I wanted to help her and she stayed totally quiet, although the Rescue drops must have burned because it is alcohol. But she did not even whine a tiny bit.

The little head was all swollen up but at least she looked a little bit better after she could open her eyes again and she finally moved around a bit. When I had the feeling that the shock subsided slowly I offered her a little water to drink – which she did by herself. I held a tiny glass with a little water at the tip of her beak so that she could realize what it was – so she swallowed a little bit all by herself.

I cleaned the nest, put a kitchen towel in it because I did not want that a piece of hay would disturb her or get into her wounds. Now I had the dilemma whether I should put her back into the nest during the night with her momma or rather take her in. But as it was relatively warm outside, I thought it might be better if she was protected and comforted by her own mother – so I put the nest with both babies back where it belonged.

I was afraid that the wounds that had stopped bleeding would crack open again when she was fed by her parents but on the other hand I thought it might be better to let her bleed a little bit but let her get all the energy this little sweet pigeon girl could get from her parents. And so it happened. She begged for food and ate – I took this as a good sign.

Every hour or so during the night I checked on the babies and was so relieved to realize that little Pina probably would survive this. It looked so hopeless yesterday and I was so terribly unhappy. After losing 2 babies in June this simply would have been too much. But after a good night’s sleep the situation would be different – so I thought.

8/1 The next morning I saw that Pina was feeling much better. And although her little head was still badly swollen as well as her eyelids and the sides of her face, she seemed to be quite okay and was moving around quite a bit. Also she did quite a lot of poop – and this is really a good sign – isn’t it?

I again cleaned her head with Bach Rescue drops and realized that the wounds were swollen but not as badly as yesterday and all were closed. So I assumed that the healing was in full progress. I only hoped that the many blood had washed out all bacteria so that this little sweetheart did not get any infection.

I assumed if the next day nothing had happened to the worse that the crisis had been overcome. I could only pray.

My assumption of what had happened:

a very aggressive cock was desperate to find a nest for the hen. So in a situtation where the babies were left alone this was the opportunity to take over and try to kill the babies. I have never heard of this behaviour before. DID YOU? At least not with pigeons. I know it from diurnal birds of prey but from pigeons or doves?

Foreign pigeons (apart from “our” family) which came to our balcony have always respected the nest area and have never tried to go into it, not to speak of taking it over. I was really shocked.

Here are some photos from the day after….

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This is Peppi’s injury – you can see the small puncture wounds but I think his quills have saved him from worse…

This is Pina badly injured. The puncture wounds were deep and she bleeded badly. Her little head awfully swollen still…

In comparison – Pina was not so well covered by quills yet – the reason why she was injured so badly…

look at Pina’s poor little head and how swollen it was still on the next day. But at least the wounds were closed…

Poor little sweetheart. Deeply in shock still. I was so very much worried about her. She definitely had a trauma for some time….
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Babies are so small – are they behind? (day2 to 7)

From the

Diary as of  7/22 – 7/28/09

7/22 The babies are sooo small still. So tiny and so vulnerable. But look how adorable they are still with lots and lots of yellow “fur”.

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Jimi and Joey are now coming in the morning for food and later on during the day or late afternoon again. They are both eating like crazy, they are even smacking and are in such a hurry that they eat the corn crossways, no matter how big it is. I would never have thought that they can eat such big pieces!!! I suspect that both have babies because they only eat as much as they can and then are off again in a hurry. Normally they would stay for a while and listen to me chatting with them. Now they have no time for me! Both are in the moult – especially Joey – he looks really awful, totally ragged and Jimi is missing a lot of feathers around his mouth.

7/23 Emma has laid her second egg – it is #27. How many still?

7/24 – 7/25 The babies are still very small – I am a bit worried because they are much smaller than their parents have been and the others. I compared the photos.

7/26 Today I weighted  Peppi – he has 100 gr – Pina has 90 gr after 6/5 days – is this good or bad? I have no idea how much a feral pigeon should weigh after that time.So many things to learn still. I decided to do a regular check on their weight until I am sure that everything is okay.

7/27 Unbelievable but both made a giant step. Peppi has 110 gr now and Pina 105 gr. So it seemed. I have yet to keep in mind that I do not know any more whether I weighed them yesterday before or after feeding.

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7/28 Peppi and Pina are both growing better now. It’s day 6 and 7 now. Quills are coming out and their poop – a lot – looks very fine – as it should: round, brown green little heaps with a white top. Perfect!
Willy and Winnie are wonderful parents although they are still so young and although it is only their 2nd clutch. The behave as if they had done nothing else. Remember – their first child was incredible Angelo! They do care a lot:  f.e. when it was windy and a bit cool today Winnie came more often and warmed the babies.

Both parents are feeding them simultaneously now quite often. One can see that the babies need much more food now. Winnie and Willy are often coming into my studio to “ask” for sunflower seeds. As if they exactly know how they could boost up the growth of their little ones. These little buggers know so well how they can make me weak!!

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Emma is okay again and Willy’s new Babies have hatched!

From the

Diary as of  7/15/ – 7/21/09

7/15  – 7/18 Emma’s poop is  still a bit thin but she seems to be okay again. I am so happy. She recovered very quickly.

7/18 Big highlight of today was: Angelo jumped on my hand in order to eat his beloved seeds directly there !! I tried this a couple of times, laying my hand with the seeds on the balustrade as usual and then moving it slowly further away until he could not reach it any more, making his neck as long as possible without falling fromthe balustrade. So he had to make a decision – either no seeds any more or jumping on my hand to reach them again. I know – I was mean but it worked:  today he was couragious and jumped on my hand. What a feeling this is.

Joey not coming for breakfast….

7/20 Yippee – Willy’s first baby of the second clutch has hatched during the night. Sooooo tiny but so full of golden hair….. thank heaven it is warm again!

7/21 Second baby hatched too – how wonderful. Willy is behaving like a berserk – protecting his precious nest and fighting everything and everyone who dares to come near.

Joey appeared this morning again to get food!

Emma laid an egg: it is #26! She will be ruining her little body if she continues like this…

And now I want to introduce Peppi and Pina to you:

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Now look at these lots and lots of golden “fur” –

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