Buddy brought in a live baby bird, advice needed (pic)

[siligut]

This little bird can hop well, but cannot fly. I put him outside, keeping the cat in, to see if there was anyway he could make it. He was calling for his family, but they didn't respond. I put him back in the crate and gave him sunflower seeds and water. He is in the garage now, still calling for his family. I live in Seattle, it is warm here now. I am concerned that he is too young to feed himself the seeds. Maybe I should mush them up in water?

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[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Do you have a wildlife rescue organization in your area?

Taking the bird there would give it the best chance of survival - they know what to do.

[siligut]

2. Yes, I will call paws

I went to their website and it seems that I have done as much as can be expected, so I will call them now. Thanks

[Walk away]

3. You can soak dry dog kibble in hot water and make a paste, add a crushed Tums and.....

roll tiny little balls of the mixture. He has feathers so he should be good with "solid" food as long as it's mush. The Tums help him digest it. In the wild his Mom would be doing the digesting and she would regurgitate into his mouth. You don't have to do that. Just hold the food balls between your thumb and forefinger and gently rub it under his chin. He should open his mouth and look up. Pop in a tiny food ball. Repeat!

[Walk away]

4. p.s. If you decide to foster him you will eventually need to find a wild bird rescue person who...

will put him in a flock before he is too old. He doesn't look old enough to fly. Can he?

[siligut]

5. He couldn't fly yet, but he hopped real well

I think Buddy was gifting him to me, so he really wasn't injured. I took him to the paws wildlife rehab center. She said he is a "tooie", I recognized the picture of the adult bird as one I have seen in the yard. He will grow up to be orange-breasted.

He is an insect eater and he was probably just learning to fly when the cat found him. They give birds who have been caught by cats antibiotics because the microbes in a cat's mouth will kill them. So I am glad Velvetocelot, sent me there, though I considered trying to foster him just so he could stay near his family.

[Walk away]

6. The last little guy I fostered recovered but was rejected by his flock.

They chased him away and he ended up back on my porch. I had to take him to a woman who took birds like Larry and kept them in large, secure outdoor environments until they formed "flocks". Larry fit in right away with a group that was released a week later. As far as I know, Larry lived out his natural life in the rafters of her barn with his adopted family.

I had Larry for the longest of all my baby birds because he started out very weak and small. By the time he took off he was a strapping little guy.

[siligut]

7. Good work, Walk away

Susan Hampshire in The Three Lives of Thomasina was my role model when I was young. I wonder how many veterinarians and animals caregivers were inspired by her role as the "witch" who healed animals. You helped Larry live a good life.

The woman at paws said they had another Towhee bird and that once our guy was cleared of any pathogens, he could be placed with him. After Buddy brought him in and I found he was still healthy, I tried putting him out so his family could claim him.

I left him calling-out for three hours, while keeping Buddy in. Not a single bird came to him. So I decided that he wasn't going to be safe by himself and while I hadn't touched him without gloves, Buddy certainly had, and maybe that made him an outcast. So I trapped him and requested advice here and of course Velveteen Ocelot gave me the practical advice I didn't want to hear, but needed to.

I made a donation to help with his care, we have donated to paws before, but I wanted to do more to help this little guy and really appreciated the people at paws. Everyone we encountered was helpful and thoughtful.

And lastly, I told Buddy that while I appreciated his gift very much, next time I will just play with them outside. He does wear a bell.

[IrishAyes]

8. Sounds like everyone's doing great!

St. Francis will bless you for the rescue.

I never would've thought of adding Tums to a food mixture. Doves once built a nest on my porch and a neighbor's free range cat wiped out the entire family except for one little hatchling. There were no rescue groups within reach, so I did what I could. Dug worms and put them in a blender, etc. Also fed a little bit of canned cat food. But I never would've thought of Tums.

Yes, I'm sure the little bird was a gift from Buddy.

Baby Thomas, the 1/4 bobcat, used to bring me gifts like big dead wood rats and leave them on the front steps. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Mob!) The Chows caught things too and would leave them at the door if they had leftovers. That was all when we lived way out in the boonies, of course.

[siligut]

11. Yes, the people at paws felt quite positive about his prognosis

Yes, Walk away provided some interesting information regarding what to feed baby birds. The gal at paws told me that Towhees eat insects. But worms in the blender? That image is quite humorous to me.

Buddy brought me a mouse once, but because it was in the middle of the night, I was sleeping and ignored his meowing. We only discovered the mouse days later and returned him to the great outdoors.

Do you by chance have pictures of Baby Thomas? 1/4 bobcat?

[IrishAyes]

12. Worms had to go in the blender - I don't care for them myself.

As for Baby Thomas, I have a precious picture of him in bed with our 4-yr-old son the first night we brought the cat (not the kid) home. Baby Thomas refused to be comforted by the usual methods, and we knew he wasn't dangerous, so we put him in with J.E. The picture shows J.E. asleep on his stomach with Baby Thomas' head just poking out from under the covers. Once we hit on that mutual arrangement, the cat stayed perfectly content.

At first we'd joked about how maybe the mountain folks we got Baby Thomas from had just cropped his tail to make him look wilder, but when his screaming started that night, nobody ever heard such a noise from a fully domestic cat. It was wild. BT grew to a slender 25 lbs or so and lived a good long life with us out in the country. We had him spayed so he stuck around and behaved in the house.

Ah, the picture... I've never scanned it but will someday soon. Need to anyhow for safekeeping. All this stuff about natural disasters makes me a bit uneasy.

[siligut]

15. Sweet story about Baby Thomas

That kitten must've been missing his pack and felt a kinship with young J.E., youth would seem to offer a better unspoken communication between species.

IrishAyes, I am sure I am not the only DUer who is quite interested in seeing that picture of Baby Thomas and J.E. sleeping.

You can just take a phone picture of the picture of Baby Thomas. That's what I have done to put some old pictures into electronic form.

I read in your profile that you are living in the Midwest now. I can't quite imagine the sort of stress you are feeling this time of year with the extreme weather you are experiencing. I hope you have a safe place for everything, including yourselves.

[uppityperson]

9. What type bird is he? If you ever find a baby robin on the ground, leave it or put in a safe outside

place as robins are known for raising 2 hatches a year. Both parents sit on the eggs of the first clutch. When the babies are feathered enough, they get flung out of the nest to live on the ground while the second clutch is laid, incubated. Mom sits on the second clutch while Dad takes care of the babies on the ground.

If you find a baby, listen and you will probably hear dad bird calling nearby. Only move them a short distance (while dad can see) to a safer place, off the road for instance.

Lots of baby robins die, which is why they do 2 raisings a year, but kicking them out causes many to die, so they raise 2 sets a yr, circular sort of evolutionary thing .

[siligut]

10. He is a Towhee and the cat brought him in

But thank you for the helpful information regarding robins, I didn't know that.

[uppityperson]

14. Ah, that makes sense. They are so pretty.

And congrats on being parent bird, good job, worms and all.

[IrishAyes]

13. Lots of new info for me. Thanks.