food and care


Food and Care
1. Food Doves are typically seed eaters and not husk the seeds before eating them. Most breeders prefer to make their own combinations from various types of seeds. A short seed unpolished rice, before feeding dove they like to wash seeds from dust and hays. keep seeds in a dry place or a closed bottle away from humid air and insects. Giving many kinds of seed can keep dove a good health. grass seeds help digestion, rye give nutritions for it's feathers, beans is a big source of protein , sesame seeds have oil which helps bird to preserve a strong feathers. The most common seeds offered to medium sized doves (i.e. ringneck, spotted neck dove) are milo, wheat and millet. Small birds (i.e. diamond, zebra dove) prefer millet or canary grass seed but will often eat milo and wheat if offered. in thailand we give rice as major food for dove and have other seeds as supplementry in a separate container. do not mix other seeds with rice because dove will eat only cereal and this makes dove fat and not healthy. 2. Water provide dove a clean water , if use a tap water should leave it in the open to wait it free from clorine. if your cage expose to the sun light often , you should change water everyday to prevent dove from dry throat symtoms. 3. Lights Your birds should receive a few hours of sunlight every day. place a cage in different place can make dove more cheerful and healthy but their cage should be located to they can get out of the direct sun and into the shade if necessary. Your birds will probably lay down in the bottom of their cage and fan their wings and tail to get rid of insects and clean thier feathers. If you can not provide sunlight, then should get full daylight spectrum light bulbs as a sunlight substitute. If your cages are located in a dark area in your home or if the area becomes cool, you may want to add lights in each cage in a proper distant. © CopyRight, All Rights reserved. สงวนลิขสิทธิ์ในนาม nokkhao.com ตามพระราชบัญญัติลิขสิทธิ์ พ.ศ. 2537	4. black soil - in thailand we have black soil specially blended formula of herbs and minerals is designed to creating a solid foundation for health and voice of dove. it is include a calcium source, substances that may be included are; special mixed soil and tiny bits of charcoal . dove in nature eat soil and stuff like salt licks in the wild to get nutritions to keep them healthy. 5. Doves in the wild require grit for food grinding because of the hard and older seeds they eat. Doves need calcium for egg shell production and for feeding squabs, which need it especially for producing bones . Female dove physiologically will remove calcium from their own bones in order to give enough to their progeny. If this calcium is not replenished, reproduction will cease until the diet can re-supply the need. The charcoal helps in digestion and the sand helps grind up the seeds in their gullet. Grit should not be mixed with their food but offered in a separate food container. 6. Salt is a necessary mineral. dove usually get small amount of minerals from food but not that enough. the elements such as iodine, manganese, cobalt, etc. deliberately added to salt for livestock are also very good . a fresh salt from the sea have a full minerals for dove but give dove too much salt would make dove voice decreased . it's good to give salt just once a week in a plate and remove it in the next day . 7. Night Frights In the wild when a bird roosting in a tree is frightened they will fly upward to escape dangers. Sometimes dove in a captivity can have night frights that u can notice broken wing feathers and blood on the head and body. This happens when the bird is sleeping in a very dark environment or new obtained doves in a new circumstance. Dove have poor night vision, they will be frightened by every noise they hear and will thrash about and perhaps seriously injure themselves. Of course if caged doves try that feat they will surely hurt themselves as they thrash against the cage bars. The solution is to provide a night light of sufficient intensity that allows them to see their surroundings but is not so strong as to not permit them to sleep. or seal a cage with a cage curtain to keep them from shadows, noise and stuff that can frighten them. 9. Temperatures Zebra Doves and Spotted Necked Dove have less tolerance to the cold temperature . when the temperatures drop below 10 celcius, doves will fluff and if temp below 10 celcius they could not live. breeder should provide them light bulb or lamps in cages . Since they are a tropical bird , they can live in a hot environment with temp up to 42 celcius.