Help caring for a collared dove?

A friend has brought me a young collared dove (looks like it hasn't quite grown all its feathers yet) after waiting at home for two days for the RSPCA to show up and not hearing anything from them. Apparently her dogs brought it in. At the moment it's in a small cardboard box in my shed, with bird seed and a bowl of water, while I figure out how best to care for it so it can go back into the wild. It seems very tame even though as far as I know nobody had any contact with it before my friend rescued it - whenever my friend tried to get it into a tree, it just climbed back down her arm and rested on her shoulder, and when she was holding it it never struggled or tried to escape. It doesn't seem hurt in any way and looks quite relaxed.

What should I do to care for this bird? I know it should have been left near where it was found, but my friend's worried her dogs will get it again if it's left near her house before it can fly, whereas my shed is in a tall, fenced-off compound which was designed to be as predator-proof as it can get since it also houses my guinea pigs and rabbits. 

  • Hi Lucky and welcome to the community, I have hand reared baby pigeon from a few days old, but yours sounds to be a fledgling that will need seed and grit, can you take a pictures of it so we can see how old it is. If your thinking of feeding it yourself it may never want to leave the area so you may have to put seed down for it in the future. this vid will show a way of getting it to eat seed.

  • Thank you for your advice, everyone! The RSPCA just visited a few minutes ago to pick it up and take it to a proper wildlife center. It was definitely old enough to be eating on its own, it had eaten the full bowl of bird seed I left in the box for it so no worries there! The woman that picked it up said it looked perfectly healthy so they expect to be releasing it eventually.

     For those who wanted a picture, here it is! Please excuse the fact it's on my hand, I had it outside for a little while so it wasn't cooped up in that box all day and could get some fresh air. It refused to get off of my hand and at one point when I had my other hand near enough it rubbed its head on my palm. 

  • Well done, Lucky. We all like a happy ending.
    It makes me wonder whether it had previously been in captivity. It's very unusual for a Collared Dove to be so tame.
  • Lovely photo lucky and good to see the Collared Dove looking in good health, hopefully rspb will give it the once over and release it as soon as its ready, very well done for your efforts.
  • Unknown said:
    It's very unusual for a Collared Dove to be so tame.

    This has been a wonderful story, thanks for caring Lucky!

    I have always found CD's to be highly jumpy TJ but since I have a big glass fruit bowl full of sunflower hearts & suet pellets on shelf right outside my kitchen window they regularly visit to feed & getting bold enough to stay even though they see me looking, making eye contact & carrying on feeding, getting some lovely views!

  • Well done Lucky, another happy ending to a rescue story.