| One time or another, almost
everyone comes in contact with an injured adult songbird or a
hatchling, either fallen out of the nest, or also injured. The initial
care given these birds will many times determine whether they live or
die. As with all wildlife, shock will kill a bird long before a wound.
Upon finding a bird, care should be given, not to handle it more than
absolutely necessary. In the wild, the only time wildlife is grabbed is
when it is about to be eaten, so the more it is handled the deeper into
shock it will go and more than likely die. As soon as it is picked up,
check for injuries, then place it in a towel, taking care that there
are no loose threads that can entangle the birds legs or neck, then put
it in a box or similar container that can be covered and put into a
dark, quiet, and warm place until you can contact your local wildlife
rehabilitator to take it. If it has been attacked by a cat the wounds
will always become infected and will need to be taken to a veterinarian
for an antibiotic. Any wildlife will have a far better chance of
survival in the hands of someone experienced in caring for them rather
than a novice. If, however, there is no one in your area to take it to,
then all you can do is try to care for it yourself.
First of all, when is it appropriate to
pick up a bird and “rescue it”? An adult bird, unable to fly is
obviously in need of help. On the other hand, a young bird on the
ground may or may not be in distress. If it is obviously very young and
fallen out of the nest, you should intervene. If the parents are in
evidence and attempting to feed it on the ground, then you should
attempt to either put the bird back into the nest if possible, or
create a substitute nest to keep the hatchling safe from predators and
allow the parents to continue to feed and care for the babies. This can
be done by putting nest material into a hanging plant pot, hang it as
close to the original nest as possible and leave it for the parents to
take over from there. The main thing at this point is to keep it high
enough to keep cats and other predators from getting to it. The
maternal instinct is very strong and as long as the parents can find
the babies and they are not under undue stress from loud noises, etc,
they will continue to feed and care for their young.
If on the other hand, the young are on
the ground, very active, flying around, close to the ground, with
parents in evidence, then they have fledged the nest and are on the
ground, with their parent’s supervision, learning to hunt for their
food and gaining their survival skills and should be left alone.
This does pose a rather dicey problem
since neighborhood cats are usually allowed to roam at will and can
decimate an entire family of baby birds. If it is your cat or a
neighbor’s cat try to keep them inside until the babies are not on the
ground anymore. This is usually a matter of two or three days. If all
attempts to get a baby bird back into the nest, or to clear the area of
predators fail, then it will be necessary to hand rear it. By the time
a baby bird has fledged the nest it is wild and very difficult if not
impossible to hand raise due to the stress of being handled and caged;
therefore, every attempt should be made to let the natural process play
out.
Proper diet for a baby bird is absolutely
crucial to its survival. Without a balanced diet the baby will not
thrive and will get metabolic bone disease, or rickets. Once this
condition sets in, unless corrected immediately, it will be
irreversible. If a healthy, active baby suddenly does not stand on its
legs and behaves sluggishly, then you MUST adjust the diet as soon as
possible.
At the end of this chapter is a list of
diets for both insectivores and seed eaters. Baby birds should be fed
every 30 minutes during the daylight hours, then covered up and warm
for the night. Mother does not feed at night. Rehydrate with 50/50
Gatorade and filtered water, or Pedialyte, both purchased at the
supermarket.
It is also important to keep the baby
warm. By the time a human comes in contact with wildlife it is usually
dehydrated and the body temperature is very low. The easiest way to
warm them up is to sit their box on a low heating pad or a lamp with an
incandescent bulb about two feet away. Monitor the temperature often
until you feel it is right, so that they do not get too hot. If it’s on
a heating pad make sure that they are on a thick towel, so that the
bottom of their container does not get too hot. Do not try to feed
until you are able to get the body temperature up and is showing signs
of recovery. If you attempt to feed a cold and listless baby, it may
not swallow and the food will go into the lungs and kill it. If, on the
other hand, it is a nest of hungry babies, with mouths wide open, then
choose a diet at the end of the chapter and feed immediately. If there
is a question of an injury or illness in the baby bird there are
usually a number of vets in most areas who are willing to look at
wildlife for you and provide medication.
If you are fortunate enough to raise a
healthy baby bird to adolescence, the next step is just as important as
the proper diet, perhaps more so, because if not done right, all of you
efforts will have been for nothing.
When a young bird fledges the nest, it
stays with the parents, in a flock, most of the summer. It learns
slowly all of the skills necessary to survive on its own. When hand
raised by a human, it has to learn these skills on its own, which takes
much longer than in the wild. The bird may look like an adult, but will
still rely on you to feed it. You MUST be sure the bird is eating well
on its own. It may continue to open its mouth for you to feed it even
though it is eating on its own. At some point you must ignore this just
as the mother does and wean it away from being hand fed as long as you
are positive it is getting enough to eat on its own.
Before release can be considered, your
bird must be fully adult and begin to show signs of becoming wild. If
you try to take your bird from its cage and simply put it outside, it
will not know what to do. Release is a slow process and some birds
adapt quicker than others. You will need to slowly acclimate it to the
outdoors and it will more than likely come back to its cage in the
evening for several days. If you’re not able or not willing to let the
bird go into the wild at it’s own pace, then you should find someone
who can do it for you, otherwise you’re going to have a bird sitting on
a limb in your yard, squawking for you to fly up and feed it, and it
might not make it overnight without the instinct to go for cover. Food
and water should be put out close to the old release cage until they
stop coming back to it, which may take several days. Release is risky
even when everything goes perfectly. There are no guarantees, but wild
birds have no quality of life if they cannot live free.
If you have an outside cage big enough to
allow the bird to flutter around in the daytime and get used to being
outside make sure the mesh is 1/2inch or less. Anything larger will
allow snakes to get in or cats and raccoons to stick their paws
through. They should be brought in at night to keep predators from
climbing on the cage and literally scaring them to death.
Click here
to see recipes and advice for songbirds
Click
here to see the list of diets for many wild birds.
Return
to Table of Contents
|