What are Morning Doves suppose to eat?
Weaned/Adult birds eat wild bird seed, small rocks for grit, random wild seeds and possibly a few little berries here and there they find. Occasionally a little bit of leaves and greens. Squabs still being fed by the parents are given crop milk, or ‘pigeon milk’. This is mostly made of a secretion from the linning of the parents’ crop. They regurgitate this nutritious meal into the young’s beak. As the babies get older, the crop milk they are fed has more and more solids and seeds in it. Then around 3-4 weeks old, the babies are out and foraging just like their parents. Also just for the record, Mourning Doves are technically illegal to keep as pets. They’re game birds as well as native birds in the US, so they’re protected.
