What should I be feeding my dove, anyway???

[hiriki]

As we all know, bird diets are woefully understudied... in an industry where most money and resources go toward investigating better lifestyles for our dogs and cats, bird diets get neglected, although we've learned a lot in the past few decades!

I've found though that even in the bird world, there's some species bias! I can't find any resources about columbidae birds (pigeons and doves) and what they should be eating

Some vets have told me my doves should be eating a seed diet, which I disagree with. Some vets have told me they should eat primarily pellets, which I also disagree with, because it's hard for me to believe that a formula made for hookbills would resemble what my doves need. I've had at least one vet just laugh and admit they had no idea lol.

Currently, my doves have a bowl of seed (pigeon/dove mix), a bowl of fruit blend budgie size Zupreem pellets (they ignore pellets that don't have dye, I've tried lol), and a bowl of chop, which they do pick at but of all of my birds they show the least interest in fresh food. Oh--and of course calcium grit. I've seen many folks recommend clay grit over calcium grit but it's so damn hard for me to find.

When I think of what mourning doves eat, I think they eat a decent amount of bugs, so I do wonder if what I give my doves is light on protein. I don't know. I know this is parrotforums.com, not pigeonforums.com (lol), but I'm curious if anyone has any tips or ideas.

Other than one of my doves having chronic conjunctivitis from a traumatic injury several years ago, there's no health issues to speak of that has me wondering about diet, it's just often on my mind.

 

[Jcas]

Although I’m no expert, we do have a thriving “wild” pigeon ( Rock Dove) population living in the outbuildings on our farm. I don’t know if they entirely count as wild because they live in such close proximity to humans. However, we don’t do anything to assist the population. I can say that our pigeons are huge grain and seed eaters. They clean up spilled feed, cracked corn, and pick seeds out of leftover hay. I never see them eating bugs or fresh stuff, though I imagine they do a little bit. Through the winter though, they seem to survive entirely on grains and seeds. Based on the number of pigeons we have ( with more babies constantly happening!) I would say they seem pretty healthy on this diet! One place you might check are forums dedicated to racing pigeons. I would think people who race their birds would have some good ideas regarding nutrition.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

As we all know, bird diets are woefully understudied... in an industry where most money and resources go toward investigating better lifestyles for our dogs and cats, bird diets get neglected, although we've learned a lot in the past few decades!

I've found though that even in the bird world, there's some species bias! I can't find any resources about columbidae birds (pigeons and doves) and what they should be eating

Some vets have told me my doves should be eating a seed diet, which I disagree with. Some vets have told me they should eat primarily pellets, which I also disagree with, because it's hard for me to believe that a formula made for hookbills would resemble what my doves need. I've had at least one vet just laugh and admit they had no idea lol.

Currently, my doves have a bowl of seed (pigeon/dove mix), a bowl of fruit blend budgie size Zupreem pellets (they ignore pellets that don't have dye, I've tried lol), and a bowl of chop, which they do pick at but of all of my birds they show the least interest in fresh food. Oh--and of course calcium grit. I've seen many folks recommend clay grit over calcium grit but it's so damn hard for me to find.

When I think of what mourning doves eat, I think they eat a decent amount of bugs, so I do wonder if what I give my doves is light on protein. I don't know. I know this is parrotforums.com, not pigeonforums.com (lol), but I'm curious if anyone has any tips or ideas.

Other than one of my doves having chronic conjunctivitis from a traumatic injury several years ago, there's no health issues to speak of that has me wondering about diet, it's just often on my mind.

I just looked up the diet of wild mourning doves on Cornell's paid subscription only website and it said that their diet is 99% seeds and grains as determined by looking at "stomach" contents. There are few "songbirds" that are "true vegetarians" as most feed heavily on insects especially when nesting and feeding their young. Parasitic brown headed cowbird chicks perish if their eggs are laid in the nests of American Goldfinches as they are true vegetarians and do not feed their chicks high protein insects. Mourning doves are not on the lists I've seen of host birds. They are rather large birds and cowbirds usually parasitize nests of smaller birds. Anyway, I don't know what species of dove you keep but if you let me know I will look up their dietary habits on this web source.

 

[hiriki]

I just looked up the diet of wild mourning doves on Cornell's paid subscription only website and it said that their diet is 99% seeds and grains as determined by looking at "stomach" contents. There are few "songbirds" that are "true vegetarians" as most feed heavily on insects especially when nesting and feeding their young. Parasitic brown headed cowbird chicks perish if their eggs are laid in the nests of American Goldfinches as they are true vegetarians and do not feed their chicks high protein insects. Mourning doves are not on the lists I've seen of host birds. They are rather large birds and cowbirds usually parasitize nests of smaller birds. Anyway, I don't know what species of dove you keep but if you let me know I will look up their dietary habits on this web source.

Oh, sure! My pair are ring neck doves!