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welcome to this evening's
video here believe it or not
are our tiny little dove babies that we
found
a little while ago these are the guys
that were barely as big as my
fingers at all like they were like what
the size of two quarters
look at how big they are now such little
sweethearts
aren't they just so cute and they're
super healthy and they're doing
super well so
what is it hey charlie
now today charlie and delta are going to
get some raspberries
fruits are a very important part
of a dove's diet and when they're fed by
their mommies
they receive food from mommy
and mommy brings them fruits
so what i'm doing right now is i'm
actually getting their taste buds
used to what fruit tastes like
because once they're released back into
the wild
they will need to know what to eat
so for anybody who doesn't know how to
raise doves the way you get them to open
their mouth is actually not by showing
them food look i'm showing them the food
i had no idea what to do with it not old
enough yet
fluttering their wings not understanding
while i'm not feeding it to them
and this is what most people run into
they see the food they want the food
but there's nothing they can do about it
so
come on nineties here's how it works
i put some food in my finger ready to go
and what you actually need to do is you
need to cup
around their beak and the beak will open
because no you don't get to eat out of
your brother's crop
there you go now the reason you have to
do this is actually because
the mother's beak does not go into their
baby's
mouth the baby's beak
goes into the mother's mouth and the
babies drink
from the mother's crop and the things
that the thing that they drink from
there is actually called crop milk
it's something that doves
provide for their babies again
it looks seed like they want it
they recognize that it's food they can
even lick it
a little bit but other than that they
don't really know
[Applause]
how to eat it so open the crop
let them work it off there you go
another way you can teach him to eat is
actually
i need to be careful with this because
you don't want them getting the junk
that's too big for them
see they recognize it and my fingers to
them
is like the mother's beak they're
constantly trying to find
this use of food source of food see that
they're shoving their beak in between my
fingers
to try and get food here's another way
that's a good way for them to learn
now you'd be surprised what a baby bird
can actually swallow down
they can swallow anything
that is the size of their beak when
their beak is open
so look at the width of the beak
right here anything that is the width of
the beak
or can form or can conform down to that
size
they can eat it so don't panic when you
see a size like this
go into their mouths watch a couple of
bird feeding
videos where mama birds are feeding
their babies
i'm not joking you can find um
like what are they called um
robins that are feeding their little
babies
like full-sized grapes imagine that a
full-sized grape
into the beak of such a tiny little
thing
and they can eat it they are capable
of consuming a full-size grape
is not amazing what they're capable of
nature can really surprise you sometimes
can it come in
come closer there you go again i'm
opening the beak
i'm letting them chew from it and the
great thing about the raspberry is it
very easily kind of comes apart
now these guys are old enough to chow
down
some solids they've already had some
formula so this is not all they're
eating
this is just the second part of their
dinner right now
and let me tell you raising these little
doves has been
an adventure first of all you need to
make sure to feed them
approximately every three to four hours
you want to pay attention to their crop
now i know i keep mentioning the crop
and for anybody that's new
you're probably wondering what in the
world i'm talking about
if you're not familiar with birds
doves are some of the birds that have
crops
now not every bird has crops the crop
is basically a bag
that is right in the front right here
i'm grabbing it right now
it's nice and squishy and the doves
actually have a pretty large crop
it goes all the way down to here see
that it's like a
balloon bag in the front you can really
feel it
and actually if you find a lost baby
bird or you're raising a bird
that's what you check to see if the baby
has eaten recently
or if they're starving hungry
if they need to eat immediately
see they recognize my hands and the
whistle
as being a sign that it's time for food
all right all right all right
no no
more
i'm gonna get that little seed nope that
didn't work
that see did not go in your mouth little
one
see when i do that over and over again
it means you didn't get the right spot
they're opening your mouth it's being
triggered
there you go and you got to see in your
mouth
how adorable are these guys huh
they're like so silly looking look at
you guys you're always jelly looking
look and i find it so cute when they do
this
they do this like where they kind of
crouch down
if i don't stretch their head they go
backwards
they put their wings up like this
how cute are they
also when you're hand rearing these
little babies you want to make sure that
you don't like
cuddle with them too much i know you see
me pet them here and there
this only happens during feeding time
every four hours
they get a little bit of attention they
get to eat some food
and then they go back to the nest and
the reason why
in the nest meaning their cage or their
enclosure i just call it a nest
the reason why is because these guys
are gonna be set free and we don't want
them flying up
to a bunch of random people out there
and we don't want them flying up to
predators you dropped
both of them silly
feeding dubs is an art
i'm telling you i'm feeding any kind of
baby is an art
it's important that you pay attention to
them
that you try to read their body language
that you learn as much as you can about
them
just as you would if you had a human
baby anyways
we don't want them to become completely
tamed now right now they're going to
recognize my hands as a sort of
source of food but that's going to start
ending once they start picking up and
eating on their own
and my hands are going to completely
disappear out of the picture
and they're going to be strictly
receiving food
that's going to be placed on the floor
actually on the ground
of their enclosure in the beginning i
will show them
you know peck at it you know because
they're going to see my hand as the beak
and i show them a peck at it and right
now they don't really know what i'm
trying to tell them
they're still too young they're not even
really fledglings yet they're
almost there and they're just now
starting to fly
but once they get a little bit older
yes yes you'll get your food yes you'll
get your food
yes
once they get a little bit older
they'll be able to figure out how to eat
i'll teach them
and then my hands will no longer be in a
picture and then they'll be eating on
their own and once they've established
the ability to eat on their own
i will do a soft release now we had a
soft release scheduled for the two
older doves that are already ready to go
but sadly one of the doves
um sustained an injury on its chest due
to what we believe is an infection
or bird pox and yes we're being very
careful to not cross contaminate
and we are currently i'm having this
birdie be treated
and hopefully alpha will survive
and will be okay because bird pox can be
deadly
for the birds if the infection is
internally
in their um respiratory tract so
hopefully it's externally which in that
case
they can survive it and build an
immunity to it and it'll be the last
time you'll ever have to deal with it
again
anyways this everyone
is uh how you raise little dove babies
make sure you don't handle them too much
handle them only when necessary
look into the hard release and the soft
release trust me the soft release has
been
found by many rescuers and scientists
biologists
actually be more successful in the
rehabilitation of uh
hand-reared birdies which means
hand-raised baby birds
and uh make sure that you pay attention
to what kind of birdie you find if you
find one if you're raising one
because it makes a big big difference if
you're coming in with food
and they're opening their beak or
if they try to shove their beak between
your fingers
to open the beak it's important
to find out what kind of food they need
to eat
and how much food they should be eating
at what age
if you want to see these guys as little
hatchlings go back a couple of videos
i believe the videos titled oh my
goodness
and you'll see how tiny they were
literally like the size of like half of
my thumb
and look at them now how much they've
grown in such a short time
just to like think like two weeks
something like that
look at this and
on that note let's end this video with a
beautiful little picture of the baby
opening its mouth at you all so you can
see what it looks like what i look at
every four hours
are you ready
how cute is that alrighty guys if you
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leave us a comment if you have any
suggestions
any input or any thoughts you'd like to
share
and share the video with your friends
and family so they too can know how to
take care of baby dubs
since it has been breeding season in
different areas of the states
and a lot of these dove babies are being
found and sadly
are not successfully
helped because people don't know what to
do
and don't know that they're
rehabilitators and rescuers out there
that they can turn to
alrighty guys and also i just
made the pretty bird instagram that's
right we started instagram for pretty
bird
it's pretty bird the hybrid pet goose
i'll have the handle for the instagram
in the description
please come join us and uh
we hope to see you there alright bye
everyone
say bye bye okay bye bye
bye bye
goodbye boy everybody
bye waving are you waving
you wave too goodbye
