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COPYRIGHT 1996
Anthony Olszewski
The most commonly kept doves, the Ringnecks, Diamond, Cape and Crested are
extremely easy to feed. A menu of seeds suits these birds. The two larger
species, the Ringneck and the Crested can be kept on a diet of fancy pigeon
seed mix with popcorn. You must insist on the popcorn, for the regular
poultry corn is too large for the delicate doves. This mix will consist of
the following seeds: milo, millet, wheat, peas, and popcorn. Some seed
suppliers blend special vitamin, mineral, and protein enriched dove mixes.
These foods, the product of millions of dollars of scientific research, are
the Fanciers best bet. Many manufacturers have developed nutritionally
complete pellets for cockatiels that can also be used for similarly sized
doves. Make sure that your birds are freely eating the pellets before
removing all seed.
The Cape and the Diamond doves are two miniature bird species. They
heartily enjoy a vitamin, mineral, and protein enriched parakeet (Budgie)
seed mix. A high quality, fortified, finch mix can be offered instead of
the 'keet mix. Both will be made up of mixed millets, canary seed, and oat
groats. The difference is in the varying percentages of ingredients - for
the parakeet mix, larger seeds will predominate. If you are keeping your
toy doves with smaller finches, Australian finches or waxbills, for example,
for the sake of convenience, feed them all the same mix. If the doves are
being housed with larger, more robust finches, like Java Rice Birds, Whydahs,
or Weavers, all in the aviary will enjoy the variety of the two seed mixes.
As a supplement, pellets for finches and parakeets can also be used
Greens, fruits, high-protein nestling foods, and live foods can be offered
to the above species. In most cases, the birds will ignore everything but
seed. These species will thrive and rear their young on plain seed diets.
All seed eating birds require grit to help digest their food and to provide
minerals. This is particularly true of the seed-eating doves, for these
birds swallow all grains whole. They don't hull the seed, remove the outer,
indigestable part, as do most cage birds. The seeds go to the bird's crop, or
gizzard. There in the crop, with the help of the sand and gravel in the
grit, the seeds are ground into a digestible mash. Grit also contains
calcium and trace minerals, to ensure that the diet is balanced.
The basic diet of the majority of wild doves is the fancy pigeon mix.
The care of Fruit Pigeons will be covered in a future article.
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