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Old German Owls – Page 47 – Purebred PIGEON
B
reed of
the
I
ssue
- O
ld
G
erman
O
wl
Tips in Training Young Birds
to Eat Early
Picture 3: Babies learning how to eat. They just wait
for the tray in the morning and evening.
Picture 1: Starting to get the
feeling of the food tray
Picture 2: Feeding the baby by hand,
just to make sure they can feel the
food grain.
More of Bern Gloede’s Old German Owls or Altdeutsches Mövchen as they are known in
Germany. The German club has a website at
https://www.altdeutsche-moevchen.com/with many photos of their birds
By Baskar Anjappan
O
ld German Owls have small beaks but they
are decent feeders. However, parents may
face trouble feeding the babies when they
are two to three weeks old. The parents will not
feed enough or they start laying eggs again. In my
first year of OGO breeding, I found that some of the
young birds needed extra support in feeding.
Young birds can start eating early by doing a
little training. Here are a few steps you can follow
to train young birds to eat on their own early:
Place the baby birds in a tray with feed covering the bottom.
Day 1:
Babies (12 to 14 days old) may not know they are in food tray. They
just need to get used to the environment.
Day 2:
Babies feel comfortable in the tray and start looking for food. Using
your hands present the food to the babies in the tray. (Picture 2)
Day 3:
Continue presenting the food to the babies to show them how to pick
the food from the tray. (It helps if you have young birds who know how to eat
already; leave them with the younger babies trying to learn.)
Day 4:
Same as Day 3, continue the process and leave the young
birds in the tray for 7 to 10 minutes.
Note: When the babies are still trying to learn how to eat,
supplement with other baby food. Once they start eating grains, give
them 25 ml (1.5 tablespoon) of required water to digest the food.
After 4 to 5 days babies will start eating on their own.
To avoid baby droppings in the food tray:
a. Pick up the baby from nest bowl and leave it on the floor be-
fore putting them in the food tray. In general baby pigeons poop once
you take them out of the nest.
b. Babies may drop one time in the tray; remove the dropping
and food grains underneath.
c. Leave the baby in food tray only if crop is empty.•