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Babies Eating their Grit & Minerals
Patience is a virture, and how much do you have? Teaching my first new team of babies how to eat and drink feels like it will be a challange. and is it? It is written in their genes of these lovely pigeons from the begining of time, to survive and I'm here now getting these babies to trust me. I'll talk, whistle, anything, what ever it takes to get these babies to eat, and drink in front of me. In the past I never used to place the grit pot in front of them until they started to fly, and when I did that, I never gave them fresh grit daily. I place the pot of grit in front of them, and replaced the grit only when the pot of grit was empty. Yes, the birds looked heathly, but were they, I think not. I'm not an expert in this field, but I look at the droppings and it looks fine for a few days and then the droppings turn for the worst.
For a few years now, after talking to John Marles, I have only put just enough fresh grit with minerals in front of them to last a couple of days and then replace it, because the grit becomes contaminated with time combined with damp weather. So do yourself a favor and replace it, because the grit is just as important as food, and you'll notice the dropping will be drier, tighter, and the babies will become more livelier. I truly believe these first steps taken, HAND FEEDING, BONDING with your babies, and FRESH GRIT ever second day, is a good start to a healthier relationship with your babies.
I will feed these babies with Maple Peas for the first week, together with Primalac in the water spiked with apple cider vinager three times week, and the following week I'll treat these babies for the canker-causing organism. Canker is the name of the disease caused by the tiny parasite called Trichomonas gallinae. I'll treat these babies for 5 ~ 7 days, depending on how the weather will look like during that week.
