And now it is this.
So now Anna is feeding her little squab every two hours like a momma dove. Doves regurgitate food that has been in their crop grinding up and is called crop milk. Anna doesn’t chew up grain and then, uh ya, anyway the feed store sells replacement formula for birds as well as puppies and kittens so we ran up there as soon as it was obvious that yesterday afternoon’s rescue was going to hatch.
The mom, the real mom, incubated the egg up until the last day then she left, and wouldn’t stay when Anna would replace her. The father (yes, the father sits on the eggs too) didn’t care to stay either. So last night the girls and I stayed up until 2 am waiting for the incubator to settle in at the right temperature and move the egg into the incubator from the tissue box under the reading lamp.
Now tonight the girls get to sleep in the living room, near the incubator, and get up every few hours to feed their little squab and wait for the next one to hatch out. The one still in the egg is making good progress and has almost circumvented the egg with its pecking.
Anna is being brave and is more willing to risk trying to raise these squabs herself than to try the parents again. She says she won’t be too sad if they don’t make it and I am hoping that I don’t have to put my momminess in high gear. I prefer working in my typical economy model mode.
