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Wed 5 May, 2010 01:06 pm
Today my cat caught the same baby bird twice!
I had to walk to school to pay the lunch lady and when I got home I found my pets enjoying the hopping, flapping, skweeing sideshow of baby bird. I shooed the knuckleheads out of the house and watched the bird for a bit to make sure it wasn't hurt. She seemed perfectly fine if the size of the tantrum she was throwing is any indication.
I caught her, put her in a deep box and put the box in the hedge hoping that she would get her wits about her and fly away.
She tried to hop away instead where Biscuit caught her again and brought her inside for another show. So I shooed the knucklheads away, watched the bird, yadda yadda yadda.
Only this time I drove her to the pet store for advice. Judging by her age, the shop keepers felt bird was a bit over-confident in her abilty to fly and took a dive from the nest. Their expert judgement is that after about another week bird should be a-okay and ready to fly. They gave me a great deal on a cage, some seed and several types of worms.
Now bird, aka Hope, is sitting her dainty cage skweeing her crazy head off in an arhythmic way that's making me a bit nuts.
She isn't much interested in her worms or water, skweeing seems to make her quite happy though. I think her skweeing is bird for "Payback time, assholes".
Here's is all I know about birds:
1. There is a bird in a cage on my mantle that makes a LOT of noise.
So.... how do I get through this week of caring for Hope who is a sparrow? swallow? starling? robin? some kind of normal type bird.
All bird care advice appreciated.
@boomerang,
well, knowing what kind of bird it is would help in finalizing its diet without killing it. A bird in the wren family wants mel worms and not seed.
WSame thing for thrushes like robins.
@farmerman,
Mealworms were one type of worm that I brought home.
I'll try to get a photo of her in a bit!
Didn't Shewolf have a whole thread about raising a baby bird? I wonder if there are any ideas that would help there? Hers was a baby blue jay.
yep - found it
http://able2know.org/topic/133238-1
@boomerang,
Worms - ugh. Birdie is probably more inclined to eat breakfast cereal (in case you don't want to go shopping) or just plain bird seed, available in all pet stores. Put tiny little bowls with a variety of thingies including bread crumbs, slices of fruits, carefully-rinsed-off cereal if it was sugary (remember NO salt, sugar, or fat, they're poison) inside the cage and see what happens. Don't forget water!
And btw, that's subject to Squeaky's / Chirpie's / Birdie's (can't remember what you called it) but I know this feeding system worked with assorted birdies with broken wings - of course all this subject to pic being posted so someone can identify its relatives.
@High Seas,
Yeah, the worms are pretty yukky.
I don't have any cereal other than granola but I'll try some bread crumbs and fruit!
I'll put some various foods in and try to get a photo.
Thanks!
@boomerang,
Would covering the cage get thing to shut up? Making it think it is night time and time be quiet?
@boomerang,
boomerang wrote:
Here's Hope:
...and here's Hope again - that bird sure got lucky with its finder
Do you think something drastic might be wrong with it, like a broken wing? Hope looks fairly robust to me, but I'm no avian expert - let's hope Farmerman comes back to examine the pic. As to noise, can't you hang up the cage outdoors, high enough so cats etc don't bother it?
I can't seem to find shewolf's bird thread but I'm going to keep looking.
I tried covering her up and it still yells and yells and yells and yells.
I don't think she's injured. She was flapping her wings like crazy and doing little take-offs and such when I was catching her. Biscuit the cat is actually a very gentle hunter -- most of her prey escapes without injury.
I've thought about putting the cage outside but it's pretty cold out. It is supposed to warm up later in the week so I'm hoping to get her out of here. I don't want to go through all this just to have her freeze to death.
<sigh>
Mo will be home from school soon. He's going to flip out over this. We are the catch and release kings. Last weekend it was a snake. I had a hard time sleeping in the house with that thing and it didn't make any noise at all!
@boomerang,
Looks like toothmarks at the top of the beak near its head. Im gonna say that this is something in the grackle family (However, Im no bird expert). It has a robins speckled breast.
Why not mix the mealworms with a little water so they arent crunchy when you bite into em.(theyre usually freeze dried) Then do the crispy granola thing and see which one it prefers. Not a lot of food. People kill more birds by handling and overfeeding.
You may need some medicated water with an eyedropper.
Can he see? Hold your finger close to each eye and see if it blinks or moves away.
If it cant see, Its gonna be a ward of the state.
@farmerman,
My wife thinks its a thrush like a robin or a warbler. (Good thing is that theyre all meatatarians) so da woims is not a bad choice.
Ohhhh! I might have found mommy bird!
I fixed up this little ledge and put the cage outside and immediately noticed Biscuit chasing around a bird. I brought her in and watched as the bird went to the cage and "talked" with Hope.
Maybe mom will bring the right food!
I'm going to hang out for a bit and see if I can get a photo!
@boomerang,
keep the damn cat away from em.
@boomerang,
boomerang wrote:I can't seem to find shewolf's bird thread but I'm going to keep looking.
mismi posted the link in this post
http://able2know.org/topic/144547-1#post-3981673
Oh thanks! I saw mismi's post but didn't see the link.
Here's mama bird (?)
Now there are two adult birds out there fretting over Hope but it has started raining pretty hard so I brought her in. I hope that I can get her back out there pretty quick.
So it turns out my next door neighbor's nanny's mom does bird rescue!
She said since it seemed that adult birds were paying attention that we should give it a few days to see what happens. If they feed Hope then we should be okay.
If they don't she will take Hope to care for.
Even if they do and it turns out the cat damaged Hope and Hope can't fly then she will take Hope.
I'm trying my best to keep the cat away, farmerman. When the bird is out, the cat is in. Please give my thanks to Ms. farmerman for her help.
@boomerang,
Good luck, boomerang.
And good luck, Hope! (aw, poor little bird.)
I'm very relieved (& I'll bet you are, too!) about your bird rescue neighbour. What a stroke of luck!
Shewolf is obviously much better at this than me.
Following the advice on her thread I did get her to eat a bit of ungodly smelling cat food mush.
But she's still shouting but the tone seems to have changed a bit.
I'm going to try her outside with her family a bit again tomorrow. Hopefully she'll be flying very soon.
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