upatsix.com - Your Source For Pet Bird Information

DEBBIE INGHAM wrote:I just tried him with bread dipped in milk but my mum was trying with soaked mealworms and other wild bird food soaked. However apparently swifts catch flies in the air as they never land so we had no chance of saving him. Not sure how old he was but was definately fully fledged.

Birds are lactose intolerant.... it could upset their stomachs greatly to give them milk... and bread is not the best of foods for birds... mealworms are not very nutritious... and wild bird food is not meant for insectivores.... let alone chicks that can't eat on their own...

I'm sorry you lost him, but for future references, if you find an insectivorous bird again, (a chick) then you should try using the formula on this website...
http://www.starlingtalk.com/babycare.htm (be sure to get the right dog/cat food)
Recipe: Handfeeding Mixture

1 cup soaked dog/cat food
1/4 cup of applesauce
1 hard boiled egg
Avian vitamins (follow dosage on package)
Around 750 mg calcium (I use Tums Smooth Dissolve tablet) ground to powder and dissolved in a little water.
Water

If this bird was an adult there may have not been anything you could do for him if he could not fly on his own....


If the bird eats seeds and insects, then a mix of the above mash with a parrot handfeeding formula would do... if the bird eats mostly seeds, then a mash made of mostly parrot handfeeding formula may be best.

Thanks for the information, i will print it out. It will no doubt come in handy for the next time. This was the first swift we have had and the poor thing was so traumatised it was difficult to tell what it was. It wasnt until it died that my mum was able to inspect it properly. My dad would have known as he has a keen interest in wild birds but he was in Italy at the time. We can all learn from mistakes and hindsight.

You know I hate to say it, but this sometimes happens. You did your best and you should feel better knowing you did all you could.

I had a baby Robin that showed up once at my back door. I think it might have heard my birds inside? It was following me around. It was the strangest thing. I called my mom, and she couldn't believe it was a wild bird. She though it had to be someone's pet. As it's tail feathers started to get longer, I noticed a very prominent stress bar across all the tail feathers. I fed it mulberries off the trees in the back yard. I would hold them above it's beak, and it would gobble them down. A local vet that does wildlife rehab (eagles, hawks, owls, etc.) suggested I use canned cat food, which I made into little balls to feed like the mulberries. Someone else gave me a bunch of meal worms. I put them on the ground, and the Robin would hop over, pick them up, and eat them. If it was in a tree, I could walk outside and basically call her, and she would fly down to see me and get fed. I was worried about what to do with this bird. If it didn't learn how to feed itself, I would have had to make a decision about taking it into my home come winter. I didn't think it would be happy inside. Gradually the Robin started showing up less and less, and after three weeks, I never saw it again. I still wonder about it sometimes.

Bet she's telling her babies about the wonderful human who saved her life once upon a time

Bluesbird Exotics wrote:Bet she's telling her babies about the wonderful human who saved her life once upon a time

I hope so. I admit I got a little too attached to this little Robin. I named it Cassie after the bird in a Winnie the Pooh cartoon. After I hadn't seen the Robin for a week or two, I came home one day to find part of a bird that had been killed. I couldn't tell what kind of bird it was, but I was still pretty upset, wondering if it was my little Robin. I buried what I could find just in case it was my little one.

That's so sad. A cockatiel I'd loved for many years died last summer. I buried her among flowers and covered her grave in pretty stones and a small statue, but even so, something dug her body up and had a meal. I was terribly stricken, reburied the remains with more stones for protection. The grave was ransacked again and nothing left. It took a lot of soul-searching for several days for me to accept that this is nature's way, and it was just her body, not her soul, not the bird I loved so much. It's very hard. I'm sorry for you.

Thats awful. I do strongly believe that the body is just a jacket especially in the job i do, they just seem like empty shells but even so the thought of anyone doing anything to hurt them is not nice. A friend of mine buried her horse in the field, when she came back in the morning his field mate had dug him up. She was distraught, had to fill grave back in and remove the other for a while.