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bootsbrisket New user 67 Posts |
What food/treats do your doves go crazy for? Looking for suitable bribes to convince my new dove friends that the big, weird, upright animal approaching them equals the arrival of especially yummy snacks.
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Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
My experience was that doves don't respond that well to treats. You just handle them, by removing them from the cage. When they realize this is a safe finger to set on, then they will stay on your hand, arm shoulder, just fine.
As for something different, they like meal worms, chopped up hard boiled egg with shell removed. Then take a roller and crush the shell when dry. It works the same as grit, and helps the digestive system, plus gives them vitamins. |
Michael Baker Eternal Order Near a river in the Midwest 11172 Posts |
My doves would always go for chopped hard boiled eggs, but they never would eat meal worms, even though some of the books said they would.
~michael baker
The Magic Company |
Bob Sanders Grammar Supervisor Magic Valley Ranch, Clanton, Alabama 20504 Posts |
Dove are strictly seed eaters.
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Dave Scribner Assistant Manager Lake Hopatcong, NJ 4849 Posts |
This question used to come up quite often but not in a long time. Here's a list of treat I always gave to may doves. One thing tough. Doves aren't like dogs where you give them a treat after they do a trick. Treats are offered in their cages as a supplement to ther regualar food.
Leaf lettuce hard boiled eggs frozen peas peanut butter apples millet meal worms (occasionally) These should be given to your doves no more than once or twice a week however.
Where the magic begins
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Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
When I had my doves, my wife at the time came in from outside and put 2 long worms in the cage. The birds gobbled them up like steak. I looked everywhere even bait stores and could never find meal worms.
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Dave Scribner Assistant Manager Lake Hopatcong, NJ 4849 Posts |
Meal worms are usually readily available in bait shops whenever trout fishing season is open. It is more difficult to find them them at other times.
Where the magic begins
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Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
Maybe that is why, no Trout around here, just Catfish. We have a lot of lakes up North, but only stuff like Blue Gil and the like.
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bootsbrisket New user 67 Posts |
Thanks for the ideas!
I'm going to try a number of treats in different bowls and see what they like best. In addition to the items listed by Dave, I'll also try almond pieces and safflower seeds. I wasn't planning on using the treats as rewards, exactly, as in dog training, but as one more way for the doves to associate me with something positive. So not "I get a reward if I do what he wants," but "Oh goody! It's that big thing that gives me treats!" rather than "Oh no! That big thing is coming again!" I've tried superworms (just like mealworms only bigger)and also wax worms. (I thought maybe they would like wax worms because they are soft and small.) They have no interest. I will try the regular sized mealworms. Bill - Mealworms can be found at large chain pet stores. They usually have them in or near a freezer near the reptile section. |
John T. Sheets Inner circle Las Vegas, USA 1105 Posts |
My doves go crazy for this type of seed, which I only use during training, as it's not their regular food/seed.
It's called "Kaytee Fiesta Fruit & Veggie Parakeet Treats" http://www.petco.com/product/6271/Kaytee......teSearch I hope this helps! Magically, John
www.johnTsheets.com
See the "Quantum Bender 3.0" trailer here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkTVw9FjonE See my Dove Act here... https://youtu.be/Ms7_u46Qpp0 See the "Energy Bender" trailer here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpJOfL0k8xA See the "Table of Death" in Las Vegas trailer here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YivizLAKD7I |
Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
Quote:
On Jul 26, 2015, bootsbrisket wrote: Make sure your Sunflower seeds do not have the shell on them. Soft bill birds cannot crack the shell open. Sunflower seeds are not considered a treat, but a staple food source. The treat is the egg and greens which spoil after few hours out of the refrigerator. Grit is very important to a doves diet to digest the seeds. They also eat their poop, this gives them vitamin B. They can only handle baby check grit, not the large chicken grit. And of course the finely crushed egg shells. The grit they sell in pet stores is to fine for doves. Have to get pigeon grit from a feed grain store. I think your idea of setting out several cups of treats is a bad one. This is treating them like pets, and birds used in a magic show are not pets. They cannot be both. You have to spend time with them, and only give a small amount of food each day, and a trick once or twice a week, while you are their with them. Food is not left in the cage for more then 5 minutes, or what they can eat within that time. You have to feed them everyday at the same time, and they will be ready and waiting for you. Pick a time and stick with it every day. They are not like cats and dogs, that come begging when it is time to be fed, so be mindful of their needs. You have to be a responsible parent. |
bootsbrisket New user 67 Posts |
Thanks for all the advice, Bill!
I should have been more specific about setting out several cups of treats. I didn't mean that as a permanent arrangement, only as a brief experiment to see which one(s) they are most attracted to. I'm using the Hi-Calcium Grit for Small Birds by Kaytee. I was referring to safflower seeds, not sunflower seeds. Amos Levkovitch on the DVD Wings said his doves went crazy for safflower seeds, so I thought I may give that a try. I will not feed them seeds with shells intact of any kind, as you stated. I have already started feeding them at set times. Dan Sperry explains the benefits of using set feeding times in conjunction with training birds on one of his DVDs. He shows the day-by-day gradual progress of the birds, during the course of about a week, using the same feeding and training time every day. Very interesting stuff. John Sheets - I tried that exact same treat, but they seemed to ignore most of the larger stuff in it, flicking it out of the way to get to the smaller pieces. That seems to be the case with their normal Kaytee dove mix as well, they leave the larger stuff behind. |
Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
Now I am concerned, Doves are not considered small birds. The picture on the package, show to small birds HARD Billed birds. These types of birds, crack open the seeds and take the soft inner part out and do not eat the outer shell. Thus they do not need grit to grind through the outer shell of all seeds.
My doves were 12 inches long when full grown from beak to tail. They are not considered small. If the grit is like sand, then it will not grind up the seeds in their stomach. I don't know about DVDs, as I had my birds before DVDs. I got my information from breeders and reading an number of books at the time. As for vitamins, all you do is get a good liquid mixed vitamin and an eye dropper, then put it down their throat, and squeeze the bulb. I did that once a week. My birds preferred millet, and they loved hulled sunflower seeds. They lived for 22 years. |
Bob Sanders Grammar Supervisor Magic Valley Ranch, Clanton, Alabama 20504 Posts |
Commercially there is a feed called Game Bird Breeder. It is crumbles that has worked very well for my four decades of dove magic. Keep it away from the water! Basically milo makes the bulk of my doves' diet. Some of my doves are over 20 years old!
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bootsbrisket New user 67 Posts |
Thanks again, Bill. I will certainly look into a good liquid vitamin.
The grit is larger than sand, for sure. It's hard to describe the exact size - it's sort of like the size of the little chunks of salt that you would get from a salt grinder set on the coarsest setting. Around 2mm or so? The grit is hard, but not super duper hard. If you press down hard on it with the bowl end of a spoon against a counter, it can be crushed. I have noticed they like the millet seeds the best in their dove mix. I will try some hulled sunflower seeds, as you suggested. Bob Sanders - I will certainly look into that feed. Thanks! I think between all the great advice here, and my being a bit OCD about trying to get everything right, my birds should do quite well. |
Dave Scribner Assistant Manager Lake Hopatcong, NJ 4849 Posts |
There are several types of vitamins, both are liquid. One type is added to the water and the other is added to the seed. My birds would never take the water type. It turns the water slightly yellow. I put a few drops on top of their seed and they didn't know the difference. You only need to give them vitamins once a week.
My birds loved milet strips. I'd hang one in the Café and about 15 minuts later the strip was empty. You can give them as much of that as you want. Unlike many other dove workers, I put one small dish of seed and one small dish of grit in the cage. I left the seed there for one day but no longer. The grit stayed for several days. Doves will eat the grit when they need it. They aren't stupid. They know when they need to grind up some seed. You've described the proper size of grit to use. When I started keeping doves, I could buy oyster shells and that was great. About 7 years or so ago, oyster shells could not be found. As for the actual seed, you can buy dove mix from most larger pet shops. Maybe even from feed and grain stores. It comes in 25lb bags and lasts a very long time. I had 31 birds at one time and a bag of this seed, made especially for doves, lasted about 1 1/2 months or so.
Where the magic begins
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Regan Inner circle U.S.A. 5726 Posts |
My doves love miler too! I also give them a 'treat' seed mixture that I bought somewhere. I only give them small quantities, and only occasionally, but they love it. Some of my doves love grit, and will actually eat too much sometimes. I have to monitor their grit intake! Speaking of grit, all my doves love ground up egg shell. I wash the used egg shells, allow them a lot of drying time, and then pulverize them...very fine! Like Dave, I use the liquid vitamins mixed in with their seed.
As for mealworms, I don't feed them to my doves but I used to feed them to my tarantula, Fangora. I could usually find them in some of the pet stores in my area.
Mister Mystery
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MagicalMotivator Veteran user 310 Posts |
Shredded cheddar cheese - from time to time they really enjoy.
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Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
On the road, in rural America, I ran low on grit. I found some UNCOLORED AQUARIUM GRAVEL, in, I THINK, WALMART, and, it worked fine. My "girls" stayed healthy and lived nearly 20 years. Neil Foster had one dove that lived to 25! BTW: Neil never used a bird in his working act!
SHELLED, SUNFLOWER SEEDS==YES! "PLAY" with them! Once, mine got to "know" me, they were "family"!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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