To keep the pigeon?

[Slippersandacuppa]

I didn’t know where to put this!

Had a frantic call from eldest DS while I was collecting second DS from after school club. On his walk home from the bus stop, he’s spotted an injured pigeon sitting on the church wall. He’d tried to catch it to bring it home (we are a family of rescuers) but it flapped under a neighbours hedge and he didn’t want to trespass so walked home and called me.

After chatting it through (which mostly consisted of me reminding him to use his manners), he got the neighbour’s permission to crawl under the hedge (in the dark) and fish the pigeon out, with the neighbour’s readily offered help.

We arrived home to a very injured but cozy looking pigeon in a cat box in our downstairs bathroom. He has straw, fresh water and some porridge (which I have swapped for bird seed). Of course, all of the children are now convinced that he is some sort of dove of peace.

I’ve since been to book club (should be renamed booze club), have come home and checked on him. He’s got a ring, which I’ve reported (the owner lives in Yorkshire!), several bloody holes in his body and an injured foot. Plus the whole house smells like pigeon. Which is not entirely unpleasant.

We are going to take him to the vet tomorrow but my AIBU is this. I remember reading a thread on here a while ago and someone said that owners aren’t very sentimental about their birds and will often euthanise rather than spend money on vet bills. Is this true? If so, WIBU to pay for the vet fees and offer him a home here? Obviously I have no idea how that would work and have a husband who isn’t hugely fond of pigeons (weirdo) so we couldn’t have millions of them. But two or three? What are the rules? I don’t want to send him back just for him to ‘disappear’.

He’s white and beautiful, if a little bloody. I can’t help thinking that the racing industry (birds, not horses - don’t get me started on that one) sounds very cruel.

Well, this particular pigeon's owner might be delighted to get their pigeon back. I guess they'll contact you tomorrow?

Ah what a lovely thing of your son to do! I’d go with your gut instinct and take him to the vets anyway. See what the owner says and take it from there. Compassion to any animal is massive in my eyes!

Good luck!

Have you named it yet

Photo evidence...

Of course, he could be a she?

It sounds like he has been mauled by a cat and he needs to see the vet for antibiotics. You wot know if the owner will pay his vet bills until the vet has spoken to them.
The vet will tell you how much it will cost. Mine would do it for a nominal fee to cover the cost of the drugs, but I can do basic nursing. You can always be cheeky and ask for a discount as its a found animal.
If he were a wild bird you could nurse him for a week or so, then release him where you found him.

There is a great FB group if you're on fb- 'pigeon rescue and action group' or similar. I would ask on there-there's likely to be someone in your area who has knowledge and can help. He's beautiful btw :)

I tho

I thought most vets gave free treatment to wild/rescued animals. He's gorgeous, I love pigeons

Thank you all! Will look on Facebook, see what the vet says and keep you posted. Poor old pidge.

I’ll ask what they’ve named him tomorrow.

This is a first for me! Much more urgent than the time we found the skull.

Night all!

This might be wrong... but when we rescued a bird we were warned it might die during the night of shock (and it did ) so maybe don’t get super attached until morning...

Some vets won't do anything for pigeons. I've rescued lots of them. the last one, I took to amazonia rescue in blackpool, and I have a local lady who's very knowledgable and has medicine aimed at birds. There's usually someone about who you can take them to for proper care. Hope it lives the night.

Nicey birdie.

I've rescued a few birds in my time and I think only one made it through the night.  Or maybe I'm just bad at rescuing birds?

We neeeeeeed the skull story! 😱💀

Speak to the owner, explain your concerns but be aware that as soon as bird is well enough it may make its way home regardless, as it is a Hmong pigeon. We rescued a pigeon once, sweet little thing, not a racer and def went back out once we’ll enough. Hope yours does well.... don’t forget he skull story , please and thank you 😄👍💀

Much more urgent than the time we found the skull.

come back!

He’s alive!

He’s looking perkier, not sure if he’s eaten though. I did wonder if we’d lose him overnight. All the kids wished him good morning. He’s making some very cute noises.

Right, the skull. I’m not sure how to link to old threads but I’m sure if you searched you’d find it. We found the top of a human skull in our garden. Cue lots of excitement (the whole village wanted to see it). The police came and after quite a lot of standing around and conferring, they took him off in his little Clark’s first walkers box. I think I probably remained a suspect until we heard that he’d gone up to Durham for testing. It was determined that he was over 300 years old.

I’ve just remembered I never update the thread! Anyway, he’s now next door, awaiting his reconsecration ceremony, to which we have all been invited.

The kids had lovingly named him Yorick Slingshot.

Eldest son is adamant that the pigeon is a dove (but it has a dove’s beak mummy!) - do people race doves? We’re in the midlands - I can’t imagine those (very cruel) dove release doves would wander that far??

Actually I do know some people who keep doves

They release them at weddings and the doves fly back home

That bird looks badly injured; I'm sorry, but it looks like it has been bitten by something and if the chest cavity has been punctured it will probably be kinder to euthanised. The chances of infection will be very high from a bite, and it will be in a lot of pain.

What’s the name of the film about a messenger pigeon in WW2? Valiant, I think? Animated film? Out a few years ago? Finding him lost and injured this time of year I would take that as a sign, name him Valiant and build him a retirement hut (coop? Pigeon house?) in the back garden!

I do hope he is ok today and vet visit goes well!

Here - found him - this is the film I was thinking of:

In my experience (same situation a few years ago) the owners stop giving a shit if the bird can no longer make its own way home. They just told us to leave it...

We rescued a pigeon once that landed outside the garages to our block of flats and appeared unable/unwilling to take off again. He was very tame and our friend (whose father was a pigeon fancier) told us he was likely to have strayed from a flock belonging to someone and got disorientated. We had him a couple of days (in our flat) and tried feeding him birdseed, etc but he wouldn't eat much. Didn't stop him pooping every 5 mins though. We called him Cedric. Eventually our friend took him to live with his sister who takes in loads of stray birds and had aviaries. He got on much better there but then he fell off his perch one night and the ducks living in same enclosure beat him up. He then went to live with the pigeon-fancier relative and one day just disappeared. I don't think he was a great success as a pigeon, really.

Sorry but the vets will likely euthanize. The owner won't want him back and he can''t be released into the wild, so there won't be any other choice.

He also looks quite badly injured - that could be a pellet wound on his side.

My mum made me do a 30 mile round trip to take an injured pigeon she found to a bird sanctuary.

The operated on the bird and discovered it had been shot by an air gun. Couldn’t fly anymore but lived rest of its life with the other birds that couldn’t fly.

Cost me 30 quids worth of petrol and the fifty quid I donated but was worth it

It looks like he's been shot poor thing! Please let us know how he is and what the vet said