Orphaned Baby Pigeons: What to Do About Them

In reality, you shouldn't touch any orphaned baby animal that you come across, for a number of varied reasons. The mother might come back for her young at any moment. That youngster may have been abandoned because of injury or illness, the mother choosing to spend her time taking care of the fit and healthy squabs instead. It could also be the case that the pigeon got brave before its time, leaving the nest before it could fly fully, or before it was smart or old enough to fend for itself. Similarly, predators can tear young pigeon squabs away from nests, and the same for mothers, leaving too-young squabs to then fend for themselves.

If you are responsible for the orphan situation, such as, removing the mother without first checking to see whether or not there were other pigeons (squabs in a nest), or killing off the adult members of the flock, then you will need to make sure that the nest full of youngsters is dealt with properly.

There are two outcomes for orphaned baby pigeons. You can either destroy the animals humanely, solving the pest problem and the mother-less problem, all in one. Alternatively, you could go on the hunt for a rehabilitator that works specifically with pigeons to rehabilitate and then release the birds. If you can't find a local rehabilitator that deals with pigeons, your only option is to call in wildlife removal. Either that or you'll need to figure out what to do yourself — leave the birds/nest where it is and let nature take its own course, or try to rehabilitate the young birds yourself. As you can imagine, trying to rehabilitate them yourself is usually a long and pointless exercise. If those pigeons are too tamed by the time they are ready for release, they'll likely die very soon afterwards. They won't have a full picture of the big, wide world, untaught the important "pigeon things'' by their mothers, and they'll be vulnerable and unable to take care of themselves properly.

If you *do* decide to do something about the orphaned pigeon situation, make sure that you protect yourself. You will need gloves, eye protection, clothes that you don't mind throwing out, footwear that you don't mind throwing out, and a breathing mask. This might seem like a MASSIVE overreaction, but you are protecting yourself from diseases such as E.coli, salmonellosis, and histoplasmosis, among many others.

You will need to have a container (with a lid and breathing holes) ready to pop the young squabs into, and you'll also need to know where you are going — where you are going to take them. Releasing them back into the wild too young will result in a very quick death, usually from predatory attack. Releasing them when they are underweight, injured, or sick will also have the same outcome. If they are old enough to take care of themselves and last longer than a few hours or days, there's a pretty good chance they'll just return home to the roost. That's your property. If you have not sealed up your property effectively enough, or taken away the places that these birds roost and perch, you won't have gotten rid of the problem at all. In fact, you'll just have made it worse ... You'll be a lot more frustrated.



Also read our other bird tip: Should I feed pigeons?