birds eggs

[cody-600]

we found two birds eggs on our patio this morning - perfect and not cracked - pure white and approx 3 cms.
We think this is possibly the work of a cat or fox maybe as the eggs were not dropped in anyway.
At the moment we have them under a light in a box of cotton wool. can anybody tell me how to care for them or where I can take them or whether it is worth it as they may have been on the patio all night long?

[burnhal]

they sound very much like pigeon eggs.
What you do with them depends very much on what you want to let yourself in for.
If you dont want the sleepless nights of trying to raise two helpless squabs then bin them.... nature has already taken its course and in the normal run of things these would be just two failures amongst many.
Depending on whether these are new laid or part way through incubation - you may be able to see movement if you hold them against a strong light which would tell you if they were fertile or not.
I have never raised a chick from hatching- have raised a starling of about a week old and it was non stop all hours feeding. Being perfectly blunt there are plenty of pigeons and two missing eggs isnt going to make a lot of difference

[cody-600]

thanks for your advice - think you are right about them being pigeons eggs - and i can see some movement in them so i just cant bring myself to dump them - looks like im letting myself in for some hard work!

[Schutzengel]

Good for you for trying to save the chicks, they deserve a chance at life. Just make sure you get some good advice from a vet or bird breeder (before they hatch), as to what, and how, and how often they should be fed. So that you are well prepared in advance. Good luck.

[wildwood]

Obviously, if you can see movement the eggs are still viable. If you don't have a thermometer you can use a human clinical type thermometer to guess the egg temp and to adjust the distance from the light. You need to keep them in an 36� environment and provide a high humidity - container with water in box. Incubating eggs from birds other than ground birds is not easy. If they do hatch (I doubt it though) and are pigeons you need to get some handrearing food specially formulated for pigeons, no other food will do.
Pigeon parents grow a special liner in their crop wall near the time of hatching, this disintegrates and is fed to the squabs as a high protein 'pigeon milk'. There are foods available to imitate this. Once you have that food the young are very easy to rear in comparison with other birds. If you get them past the first three days they only need feeding every 4 to 6 hours and after a week they will last 12 hours on one feed as they will take a lot of food in one feed.

Good luck.