Abstract
For many years, I had been nurturing the desire to import a gene from America. The gene has the name "indigo". It can produce many beautiful colors in pigeons - for instance, in conjunction with black (spread on blue) it creates "Andalusian Blue". And since I had seen "Andalusian" chickens, I wanted to experiment with the same color in pigeons.
Through correspondence with Tanner
S. Chrisler in St. Louis, I learned that indigo was available in a few Kings, and Mr. Chrisler sent me the address of a knowledgeable breeder who had Andalusian Kings - Earl Deal in Wichita.
While I knew that is was possible to import the live pigeons I wanted - with considerable expense in air freight, tariffs, etc. - I believed there surely must be a simpler, more effficient way. Why not bring in eggs, fertilized with this gene, and avoid all the hassle? The fact that I did not know of anyone having done this before was not the sightest deterrent. The intuitive logic of the idea appealed to me. "There must be a way'', I thought to myself. So I began writing to Mr. Deal. And to my delight I found him to be a man
of venturesome spirit, ready to be helpful to a fellow breeder - even though the fellow breeder was on the other side of a great ocean, and the fellow breeder was a "she"!
Before shipping any eggs, Mr. Deal had taken the trouble to do two things: first, he had separated several pairs of indigo Kings, then remated them, so that all the hens should lay eggs at about the same time; secondly, he made a special shipping container for the eggs. The package arrived in July, 1978. By air mail it took just four days from Wichita to my home, 110 km (about 70 miles) from Paris - fast delivery by any standard. The box was huge, just the size limit that is accepted by the postal service. It was made of thick cardboard. Inside the big box there was a small box, fastened to the outer box at its eight corners by rubber bands, and filling the space in-between there were styrofoam pellets. These were designed to deaden the bumps along the way. The small box was divided into nine carefully stuffed cells. In each cell was one pigeon egg - all nine in perfect condition, at least in appearance. Everything had been minutely planned.
As I removed the eggs from the cells, I candled them and saw that the shells were not of uniform tint. There were spots that suggested that the membranes were no longer adhering to the shells. Immediately, I placed all nine eggs under hens that had just started incubating eggs of their own. After five days, I candled them and found that, of the nine, only two contained live embryos; and of these, one seemed very small, as though it was abnormal. The other seven eggs looked "blank". If they had been fertilized, the germs were dead, and it looked as though the yolks had been broken and mixed with the albumen. It was obvious that the eggs had been subjected to severe trauma en route. In other words, "scrambled". How sad.
At the end of the incubation period, only one of the eggs still had a living embryo. It was the smaller of the two that showed life. As it began to pip, I found it halfcrushed by the heavy Mondain that was setting on it. So on the 18th day I decided I was obliged to help it out of the shell. After extracting it with the greatest care, I had in my hand an extremely weak little pigeon, breathing with great difficulty. It took a breath only every three or four seconds. At that moment, I realized that I was about the lose the last fruit of a great deal of work, unmeasured care, and unbounded hope. Here was a live baby, that had crossed the ocean as only a fertile egg, and I ought to try everything I knew to save its life. It was 11 :00 at night. I knew it needed constant heat and no more trauma. So I put it in a transparent plastic incubator, which I had used before with baby chickens. I checked the temperature every five minutes for the first two hours and found the incubator was working properly. So I watched and waited. For several hours its breathing remained weak. But by 5:00a.m. ithadlifteditshead. And by8:00 a.m. it had visibly moved forward; so I made it a nest in the lid of a box, in the incubator. It was alive, but it was far from being saved.
Soon my new baby would be hungry.
What was I to do about food? It was so small and frail that I did not dare give it back to the massive Mondains. It needed a foster mother of calm and gentle disposition, which had just hatched a squab of her own. But I did not have one. The closest I had was a pair setting on an egg that should have hatched two days earlier. So I tried putting my new baby under them. After a while, I realized that the baby was not getting any milk - just a greyish liquid that I could see through the skin of its crop. Probably, the crop milk in this pair had stopped, because their egg was long overdue. I decided I could not leave my
frail friend there any longer. What was I to do? To keep it alive, I gave it a little warm water from a teaspoon, and I decided to leave it there overnight. The following morning, it still had not received any milk from the parents. Bad.
Then I had an idea. Baby pigeons need milk. Where is the best source of pigeon milk? Answer: in the crops of four or five day old, plump, healthy squabs. So I selected a donor, the plumper of two in a clutch from a pair of a Cauchois mated to a Carneau. Using a sterilized razor blade, I made an incision one-half centimeter long (about 114 ")in its crop. The I gently squeezed it and collected the precious food in a spoon. Pigeon milk looks like creamcolored granules; it contains mostly proteins and fats - no carbohydrates. I crushed the granules with a clean finger in another spoon and mixed the "milk" with a few drops of warm water. My baby pigeon drank hungrily. A few hours later it looked invigorated; it was nodding and asking for food again. So I gave it some more. In between feedings I kept the tiny supply of pigeon milk in a refrigerator, but the milk I got by surgical extraction lasted only one day. After that was gone, what was I to do?
I remembered reading in the American Pigeon Journal that some breeders had used a special type of baby food with good results. So I went to my pharmacist and asked him to mix something for me that would closely approximate pigeon milk. He gave me something from a powered baby formula, and I went home eagerly to try it. Little did I know. It nearly turned into a disaster! The baby pigeon could not digest it, and the poor little creature looked exhausted. But it was stronger than I thought, and it lived through is ordeal.
Luck began to smile on me, I thought.
The next day, a pair ofCauchois had two babies hatch; so I moved them to another nest and replaced them with my weak little import from America. I watched from a distance, and to my great relief, I saw the cock begin to feed it. After a while I went back to check everything. I was nervous and more than a little bit frightened. Lo and behold, my fears were justified! Instead of seeing cream-colored pigeon milk through the skin of the crop, I saw grains! The baby was only three days old, and I was sure it could not digest grain yet. More problems. What could have happened. The only explanation I could think of was that animal instinct is not infallible, and this foster-father had made a mistake. He had still been feeding an old squab when his new babies hatched. He must have filled-up on grain, thinking he was still feeding the old squab, then went to his nest
to set on the new baby. I made a point of watching him closely during the next few days, and he never made the same mistake again (with his own babies, which I put back under him), but after the first mistake I could not trust him with my frail import. So I removed my ill-fed traveler to the incubator.
At this point, it seemed to me I was running out of practical options for feeding this little creature, and I feared the grain in the crop might be the beginning of the end. So I decided to consult the top authority in France. This was Dr. Stosskopf, a veterinarian who specializes in pigeons. I phoned him, long distance, and told him of my predicament. I can recall his every word, "The grain has come in; it can go out. Make the squab drink some water; then press its crop gently to make it regurgitate." I tried the good doctor's advice several times, but I could not get the grain to come out. I was very worried.
I went to bed that night, but I could not sleep. Finally, about five o'clock in the morning, I decided to risk an operation. I knew that it would be more dangerous to open this little fellow's crop than it had been with the previous patient. The first one had been very robust and healthy before the surgery. This pathetic creature was already four days old, and it was hardly any larger than at the moment it hatched. On the other hand, it was becoming weaker and weaker, and it would surely die of an occlusion, it I did nothing to help. Therefore, no more hesitation! On with the operation!
First, I cut through the skin - then into the crop. I must be honest: I could not help trembling. I made the opening as small as possible, just large enough to pick out one grain at a time with a pair of tweezers. When the job was finished, I had plucked out 26 kernels of wheat (swollen with water) and many globs of curdled baby formula, which could not be digested. To close the wound I first stitched the crop, then the skin separately, with one suture in each, applying an antibiotic ointment between the two layers. After this the patient was returned to the incubator, very tired and weakened. Two hours later, it looked better and could drink a little water.
Later that morning, I placed the baby under a pair of Carneaux which had just had a new pairof squabs hatch. I removed their babies to other parents, so that my under-nourished little friend could get all the milk from both of its new fosterparents. Success, at last! For several days its growth was very slow, but its vigor improved. Finally, some feathers started to appear, and I believed it was safe!