I found a baby bird, it has its feathers but its small, what do I feed it, and how do I care for it?

Find a wildlife shelter in your area and take him there asap. Read this:

Caring for Baby Birds, diet , feeding, finding a baby bird, what to do

Wondergirl, I have to spread some more rep around before I can give you more, but wanted to give you a thumbs up for your response. That is a helpful website and you gave a quick response. Good thing you were around.

I have used the wildliferehabber website for birds before and it was really helpful to me.
Wildlife Rehabber-The FIRST thing to do if you have found a wild orphaned baby bird or songbird - General Wildlife Info - Wildlife Info

This one also will give you some other resources to contact:
Birder's World - What to Do if You Find a Baby Bird -

connectuwright, let us know how you are getting along. :)

In Ohio we have these rescues but I found some black starlings a couple of weeks ago and they would not take them in. because they are not from Ohio and they kill our birds here. I tried to help them but they died. I thought how odd for a wild bird rescue group.

It sounds like the bird had fledged the nest, which means he left home, not yet able to fly properly or fend for himself but the parents were near by, had I have got to the post as soon as you found it my info would have been as long as he is not injured to put him back where you found him, it is fledging time and the parents will most certainly be around somewhere and be looking for him... :( however if a center took him in good luck to them and hope he makes it :)

Katie

Most birds will eat cat food soaked in water until it is soft. The type of birds that will eat this, will open their mouths wide when you approach them.there are breeds that must be tube fed, and you will have to find a rescue site willing to spend time caring for these birds.baby birds must eat every 2 to 3 hours,so I wish you luck.They will need water also.

Pomp, that is what they told me to feed my birds. Mrs, I wish I had known about putting them back, but I was afraid that the cats would get them, How small can they be to put them back? 1 of mine had lots of feathers and I go it from the cat.. it's wing seemed to be hurt a bit and the other fell from the neighbors, gutter very small almost no feathers. I thought if we touched they would not take it back. So should we have immediately replaced it? also someone said that if they are ill the mother pushes them from the nest is this true?

Hi bushg,
In your case the birds could not have been put back for the reasons below so don't worry about it.. you did the right thing ;)

If the nest is easily accesible then they can be placed back in the nest, depending on species of bird some are more temprementle than others, so may reject a very young chick and throw it from the nest if it has been touched by humans, however if the parents are off the nest it is usually quite safe to add the little feller back at any stage of development, however if it fell from a gutter the nest would not be easily accesible and taking it to a wild life rehabilitator would have been the best thing to do..
If the chick has no feathers then it has either been thrown from the nest this could be for one of many reasons i.e. illness (parents can detect this you are right ;) ) or it could have been thrown because the parents want to start breeding again or it could have been thrown by another bird trying to steal the nest site..

Or it could have accidentally fell, if the parents claws are to sharp sometimes they can catch them when leaving the nest and accidentally pull them out of it ,

However if the bird has a lof of feathers even though it is small the chances are that it has fledged and the parents will be feeding it from above, sometimes the chicks are caught up by cats but this is nature... the parents will keep an eye and try to drive off smaller threats i.e. cats and magpies , but they won't come down when people are their, they will try to hide the chick but as with all animals and people they don't like doing as they are told and do tend to venture out into the world, but do try and hide again in nearbye cover at signs of danger...

If you watch a baby bird that has feathers you will see that every now and again it will make calls out to the parents to let them know where it is so they can feed it :)

However if a bird is injured it is usually best to either leave it be for nature to take course it will either heal or it will die :( unfortunately not a lot can be done but with more serious injury like broken bones as you described above the bird can be took to a wildlife rehabilitation center, there are quite a few of them around and they will do all they can to help and rear the bird...

Hand rearing is not as simple as what it sounds and even after 20 years of doing it we all still have accidents or make mistakes... some ending in fatality, some are to weak to make it through the fight and stress of bieng somewhere strange...
If you feed a baby bird the wrogn way it can kill it in seconds or even linger a death on with illness for days by causing pneumonia or impaction...
This is why it is always important to leave the job to somebody who knows how to do it properly and is trained in that specific area.. as much as we try and help by trying to feed them often this can end up with death :(


As mentioned above some will have to be tube fed and others don't have to be, it differs on age and species of bird,
If you can't get a baby bird to gape (open its beak wide and beg) the chances are that by trying to force it eat will kill it as they will not have the swallowing reflex that shuts off the tube to the lung... if the bird gapes well it is possible to feed them either with worms or by soaked dogmeat... the worms fed from hand the dogmeat fed by tweezer or spoon... or even a syringe..

A parent will reject a baby bird that is ill or very very weak, this can happen at a young age as soon after birth or it could be noticed late on, either way they will stop feeding the bird and/or throw it from the nest and let nature take its course, as the bird doesn't know what medication it it can't help and some or most of the illnesses can be very life threatening, contagious or cause severe deformitys that would make it unsuitable for adulthood..

I don't know if this confused anybody as I've lost track of what I wrote lol but if you want me to try explain further on any part let me know and I will do :)

Katie

Mrs, thank you for your help, next time I will know how to better handle the situation, I will also be sharing this with my neighbor, she loves animal and birds also, we are partners is saving the helpless creatures in our neighborhood. :)

Your welcome :)

And thanks for sharing the info with others, for every bit of info passed on it does some good out their as people will then pass the info on to others if they hear of somebody in the same prediciment :)
As for the helpless creatures of the neighbourhood I know what you mean , I get every baby bird, chick, fledgling , cast away pet birds, birds who can't be looked after anymore.. sent to me that everybody around here finds :lol: with the fledglings I make sure they go back exactly where they are found and wait it out for a reunion with the parent , but all the others have to be helped, sometimes I can't personally deal with them due to what I'm doing at the time so most of them go to the rehab center for wildlife but I do sort some of them myself, with having 4 kids a dog and my own birds to look after time can get short sometimes so have to do the responsible thing and pass them on to somebody who can give the animal the time it needs.

I also get brought every stray dog in the estate :o needless to say I can't look after them due to my dog not taking to adult dogs well so they have to be sent on to the warden (never the rspca) the ones with name tags that are injured I clean up and ring the owners up or find the addy..

So waifs and strays are definite in my house lol

I just released a baby collered dove back into the wide world after been rescued from a group of youths kicking it across the floor, spent 4 days with me recouperating its injurys and is now back with the parents :D the parents were atacking the aviary trying to get into her to feed her :) felt good to watch her go back where she belonged :)

If you need any more help on a bird subject let me know and I can do my best to help you,
I don't have all the answers but I have learnt a fair bit in 20 years, can't promise a miracle but can promise that I will always do my best to help where it comes to birds..

Other animals I'm not much good at ! But birds I can do

Katie

I want humming birds to eat at my feeder, but none ever come any suggestions, I have tried the liquid sold in stores , only ants visit. :(

Hi bushg

One good way of attracting hummingbirds is by using surveyors tape around your garden feeder, use the orange or red tape and drape it over, hummingbirds are sensitive to ultra violet light , this light will bounce off the surveyors tape and attract any nearby hummingbirds to the table or hopefully it will,
Also there are a load of plants that can help attract them to the garden also

Try planting fuscia, petunia's, foxgloves, cape honeysuckle, Texas sage (Salvia coccinea),
Scarlet runner beans and trumpet creepers in the garden,
There are many many more plants and shrubs etc that can be used to attract them but the list is rather large, but what ever you do , please do not be tempted to use pesticides the hummingbirds will digest it and it will either kill them or make them very sick, not to mention the hummingbirds depend also on small bugs for the protein during breeding season if you kill the bugs then less chance of having humming birds as visitors :(
They are attracted to and will feed off these when in flower..

Thhat is if there are any hummingbirds in your area, if there are no regular visitors it could take a while for a few strays to come across them but hold tight and within a year your garden should attract some humming birds :)
Humming birds usually follow a regular route (they call the regular route trapline)so if you happen to be in the way of the route you will have a visitor sooner or later

My friend passed this link on to me when I mentioned them , he used to live in canada and he saw quite a few but now he lives in the uk he said it will give you some info on the migration routes to see if you are on the area they go through :)
How to Attract Hummingbirds - How to attract hummingbirds part 1

Hope this helps
Katie

TAke him to the spca/ animal shelter as quic`kly as you can. They will be able to help it and release it back into the wild