Hatchling found in nest and children now have solidarity and feel responsibility for doomed animal. And I can’t fight it. So I tried dead worm and rotten soft banana through a syringe (the bird plainly expects something shoved down its throat). I either fed it or so traumatized it that it will never eat again.
What should I use. What is roughly equivalent to a mother bird vomiting down your throat?
I’m looking forward to the video of you teaching the little birdie to fly 🙂
Seriously, what kind of bird? Sometimes it takes the runt a day or two longer to fledge. Are you sure the nest has been abandoned? If it has, I think this might be the time for the momma bird knows better than us speech.
Mark,
Here’s what you need to do. Find several LIVE worms, chew them up finely with your own saliva, then slowy and carefully (so as not to frighten the hatchling), drop in close from left to right until you’re about an inch from the bird’s beak. Then carefully but evenly re-gurgitate the chewed worm into the hatchings mouth. You should repeat this process every 3-4 hours (24/7) for the next month.
That should do the trick. Or the bird could mysteriously disappear having flown off to Valhalla.
“If it has, I think this might be the time for the momma bird knows better than us speech.”
Oh, that will be fun. This is where all the Bambi and Charlotte’s Web I’ve allowed in the house really comes back to haunt me.
The nest was found on the ground.
And Garret, my finger hesitated when asked to clear you or mark you as spam…
Human saliva will kill the bird. Take the poor thing to a vet.
David
Being a bird (and all around animal) lover, it was a mistake to take the bird, but I understand. Now that you have it, you have to try.
I doubt you have a ground-nesting bird. It probably got knocked out of a tree during the storms. Ground nesting birds don’t typically weave a nest of grasses, etc., they dig a depression & line it. So if this was a typical woven nest, you’ve probably got a fairly common back-yard bird. It could be a sparrow, cardinal, blackbird, or robin.
Is it newly hatched? You need to get to a pet food store ASAP and get baby bird formula and some advice on what to do. The little guy will need constant feeding. And don’t put it on a heating pad!
Before trying this stuff yourself, call the local pet shop or Wild Birds Unlimited and find out if there’s a bird rescue operation in your area. This is what I did years back when I found a sick bird in my yard. Then you deliver the bird to the rescue person, give a donation for its care if you’re able, and tell the kids you’ll call in a day or two and check on the bird.
Bird problem solved, pleading-eyed kids problem solved, and the bird’s in better hands than you could provide yourself.
The bird would have probably died in the wild because either his mother would not have been able to get him into a new nest or more likely some animal would have had him for lunch.
Don’t prolong the bird’s suffering. Fill a bucket with water and hold him under. It’s quick and merciful. It’s a bird, not a child. A lesson for the kids.
There ya go, pentamom… that’s a great idea.
Jeff, I don’t think drowning is a particularly merciful way to dispose of unwanted baby animals.
It might be overkill (ahem), but it would be far more merciful to shoot it in the head with a small caliber gun or a higher-powered BB gun (with steel BBs, not plastic), .
One of our cats occasionally presents us with gravely injured critters; my husband dutifully takes them out back & euthanizes them with a .22.
Man, oh man. Drownings, BB guns to the head, all with the kids watching. If you want to be merciful and pain-free here’s what you do. You spark up the BBQ, run a vacuum cleaner hose out of it to a zip lock bag. Put the bird in the zip lock bag and the caron monoxide will slowly ease the lil’ guy off to winged heaven. It’ll only take about 3 hours to complete. Oh yeah, the kids can watch and take notes for their science class. Good enough, Jeff?
Ha! Those FV types want to save themelves through OT lawkeeping….I knew it! Now, I’ve got it on record: they’re arguing about the best way to sacrifice small animals!
Wait until those goes into the next anti-FV expose (and possibly a committee report or two)… 🙂
Small birds drown in about 5 seconds. We do it to the English House Sparrows that we trap in the Spring.
FYI – English House Sparrows are vile nasty birds that destroy the habitat of native birds. They are nor protected and you are doing the bird world a favor every time you kill one.
In our local reserves, the staff pull the invader House Sparrows out of the Bluebird boxes & wring their necks. One second… instant.