milk

[dwh]

does pigeon start to produce milk when the egg strarts chipping or 2/3 earlier?

[Guest stb-]

yip just at start of chipping m8 they feel the movement in the egg

[dwh]

yip just at start of chipping m8 they feel the movement in the egg

 

cheers big lad

[greenlands]

yip just at start of chipping m8 they feel the movement in the egg

my thoughts aswell mate.

Lindsay.

 

 

[stan p]

i was allways told  they  make milk from 14 days sitting

[Guest IB]

They start making crop milk in the first week of sitting. I'll post up more later.

[Guest mick bowler]

I thought they start producing it just a couple days before hatching. Ive fostered eggs out to pairs sitting just 7-10 days and had no problems with the YBs, but i made sure they were sitting foster eggs for at least 4 days before they due to hatch.

 

I'm probably wrong but works for me.

[DOVEScot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_milk

 

Pigeon's milk begins to be produced a couple of days before the eggs are due to hatch. The parents may cease to eat at this point in order to be able to provide the squabs (baby pigeons and doves) with milk uncontaminated by seeds, which the very young squabs would be unable to digest. The baby squabs are fed on pure crop milk for the first week or so of life. After this the parents begin to introduce a proportion of adult food, softened by spending time in the moist conditions of the adult crop, into the mix fed to the squabs, until by the end of the second week they are being fed entirely on softened adult food.

 

Pigeons normally lay two eggs. If one egg fails to hatch, the surviving squab gets the advantage of a supply of crop milk sufficient for two squabs, and by the end of the first week it is almost as big as two "normal" squabs would be.

 

 

[Guest IB]

There is no single source giving all the information on this. Bit of a job piecing it all together. Wiki just uses a bit from Stanford, which just used a tiny bit from Wendell Levi’s book, The Pigeon, which in turn refers to other Studies.  

 

A pigeon website http://www.2racepigeons.com/Pigeon_Milk.html gives a clue where it all starts:-

 

Studies have shown Crop Milk is manufactured in the crop and the process begins while the parents are sitting the eggs. Soon after sitting the eggs the cell division of the crop increases about 600 percent. After about a week the process increases at a higher rate.

 

The author didn’t name the Study that this information came from. A different Study (that I have referred to before talking about crop milk) http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Wilson/v101n01/p0011-p0025.pdf to prove whether 3 or more youngsters could be successfully reared by a single pair of doves - involved floating lots of eggs from a lot of nests, and gives the number of days difference between these eggs,  short extract from page 5 (of 15):-

 

...all eggs were laid within 3 days at 6 nests (30%) 4-5 days at 6 nests (30%), 6-8 days at 4 nests (20%) and 9-12 days at 4 nests (20%) ...

 

As the Study sought to prove if 3 or more youngsters could be successfully reared in the same nest, the author must have known how much leeway he had with different ages of eggs in the same nest. He cites following ‘pigeon’ references:-

 

BEAMSH,  W. AND R. K. MEYER. 1931. The formation of pigeon “milk.†Physiol. Zool. 4:486-500.

 

PATEL, M. D. 1936. The physiology of the formation of “pigeon’s milk.†Physiol. Zool. 9:129-152.

 

Wendell Levi’s book, The Pigeon, also cites one of these Studies.

 

Page 267, paragraph 356:-

About the 8th day of sitting the process for the formation of milk commences. The lobes of the crop begin to increase in size. By the 12th day, the lobe walls are obviously enlarged & thickened, even to the naked eye. As the process continues the lobes form into folds and ‘milk’ sloughs off them into the crop. At 18 days the lobes are at their greatest development and occupy a major part of the crop, and there is already sufficient sloughed-off milk in the crop to feed newly hatched nestlings for their first few days.

 

Page 269, paragraph 359:-

The breeder should be careful where eggs are exchanged, that the date of their laying has been marked and that they are exchanged only with eggs that are within a day of the same age. If eggs are exchanged which hatch before the 17th or 18th day, of the foster parents sitting, the milk will not have been created and only a thin watery liquid will be passed. This liquid seems to have little if any nutritive value, and squabs do not grow well on it.

 

Paragraph 356 contradicts 359 by saying that by the 18th day there is ‘already sufficient milk in the crop to feed newly hatched nestlings for their first few days’. Yet on 16th day ‘the milk will not have been created and only a thin watery liquid will be passed’. Wendell’s book was written in 1963 and maybe that was his experience back then.

 

Sometime after the 12th day sitting, milk starts sloughing off into the crop. My own experience shows that when eggs hatch under feeders up to 5 days before feeders’ eggs are due to hatch, those feeders always have milk available to feed the youngster.

 

Lastly, it is the act of sitting eggs for a few days that triggers the release of the hormone prolactin, that kick-starts the process of milk production.

 

[adam owen]

a few days before chipping mate

[Guest stb-]

They start making crop milk in the first week of sitting. I'll post up more later.

 

well why is it if you put babies under a pair thats been sitting only 14 or 15 days they dont have crop milk and try to feed regurgitaded feed to the babies which they dont thrive on

 

Tried it loads of times before and it dont work,    it does work for a few days oversitting eggs

[dwh]

 

well why is it if you put babies under a pair thats been sitting only 14 or 15 days they dont have crop milk and try to feed regurgitaded feed to the babies which they dont thrive on

 

Tried it loads of times before and it dont work,    it does work for a few days oversitting eggs

 

dead right there  

[Guest IB]

 

well why is it if you put babies under a pair thats been sitting only 14 or 15 days they dont have crop milk and try to feed regurgitaded feed to the babies which they dont thrive on

 

Tried it loads of times before and it dont work,    it does work for a few days oversitting eggs

 

That quote you used of mine should have read 'process starts after sitting a week'.

 

Our experiences differ.  

 

I breed off selected pairs only and as I said in my last post, every year I float eggs, up to 5 days early, and not once has the feeder pair not had milk.

 

I have come a cropper twice though when 5 days late ~ not about milk this time ~ but trying to set up two hens on a small youngster for the longer races . Sitting tight the night before (4 days overdue) egg chipping away strong, both hens rose on 5th morning, and started to go back down with their cocks, and nothing I tried stopped that happening. Thats why I know the posts about chipping eggs sparking milk production don't ring true. Doesn't even make them sit a day longer to hatch them out.