How to take care of a baby bird

I HAVE FOUND A BABY BIRD AN DONT KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF IT WHAT DO I FEED IT?WHAT DO I DO I AM ONLY 11 I HAD OTHER PETS BUT THEY WERE ALSO WILD CATS,DOGS,RATS,AN ALOT OTHER I NEW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THEM BUT HOW TO TAKE CARE OF A LITTLE BABY BIRD? PLZ HELP ME

You can start by pressing the Caps Lock key...

You can call the animal shelter or Tierheim near you. They should be able to help you or refer you to someone who can.

It's probably very tricky.
That little bird needs food almost constantly.
I read somewhere that people have done it with minced meat. They fed minced meat every daylight hour, every day, using a syringe without a needle.
Also, keep the little bird warm.

Your taking the piss, right? An 11 year old on here at 12:54am!! An 11 year old on here at all...

I also saw on a zoo show that baby birds don´t stop eating when they are full, so you need to be careful not to overfeed it.

You should call a wildlife rehabilitation center, zoo, or veterinary clinic near you. If the bird is uninjured and healthy and you know where the nest is then you might try to return it. The adults are much better equipped to take care of the youngster than you (during both the nestling and fledging period). The adults shouldn't reject it- the whole idea that birds reject their young because a human has touched them is a fallacy as most birds can't smell particularly well (New World Vultures and Seabirds excluded). I DO NOT recommend taking care of it yourself as they require constant feeding during daylight hours (every 10-15min for some species) plus if it survives to fledging you'll need to get it self-sufficient (which is no small task and dumping them out into the big wide world without this training is a death sentence). DO NOT FEED IT MILK, BREAD, or MINCED MEET. You need to know what species or group you're dealing with to determine what its food needs are. A raptor obviously needs to consume meat but many other birds do not. Plus, most birds feed their young insects while they are growing (though pigeons and finches do not). This is one of the reasons you should try to get some expert local help.

Don't wait on doing any of this too long as birds have a fast metabolism... These guys also tend to have a fairly high mortality rate when not cared for properly. You're welcome to PM me though call a vet/zoo/rehabber first.

I feel compelled to say this: Wild birds do not make good pets so don't think of keeping it as one (and probably illegal-it is in the US).

My neighbour always takes care of baby birds given to her by some kind of animal shelter in spring. She told me they have to eat every hour and they need to be warm. She has been very successful sometimes, but sometimes they just die unexpectedly, maybe from internal injuries or birth defects. Unfortunately I can't talk to her right now but I remember she told me she feeds them "Mehlwürmer" from a petshop or all kind of insects and grubs she finds in her garden.

Feeding frequency depends on the species and age of the nestling. Swallows need very frequent feedings whereas something larger like a jay or blackbird will need to be fed less. They do need to be kept warm (but not too warm) as nestlings can't thermoregulate (usually until they start growing in feathers). We used a heating pad under a towel (kids were in a tissue lined plastic container. The tissue does need to be changed frequently as it tends to get soiled).


The food required depends on the species of bird that is being fed. Not all birds feed their nestlings the same thing so you need to know what it is that you have. I did baby bird home care for rehabilitation center for 3 years (and now I'm doctoral student studying birds), and I've seen and had to deal with some of the permanent damage caused by an improper diet being fed to baby birds by well-meaning people (feather barring, improper bone growth, retardation, death). This bird needs to be taken to someone with experience in this sort of thing.

Injured baby bird fallen from its nest, Advice on how best to help it.

I love when we get wacky, obscure specialists on TT (as opposed to those who THINK they are a specialist on any given topic ).

how abt a BBQ?

I agree with you wren, baby bird care should be left to experts. Here is a list of places near Bonn: http://www.wildvogelhilfe.org/aufzucht/plz5.html

As in Baby Bird Quiche?

Thanks, I think.

My bird iz still alive after 2days when i found it the vets were not open so i have to wait till tomorow i hope my bird lives till then

There must be 24-hr vet in Bonn. It's a big enough city. Plus, marie-claire provided rehabbers in your area. They tend to have a hotline number to call (which would be active even over the weekend). It may be too late now but it's worth a try. Here is the site of one such group: http://www.wildvogel-pflegestation-kirchwa...FS_KW_Start.htm

If you solicit people's advice in a situation like this, you need to give us some indication of what you're doing with the bird and follow-up in a timely manner. If you are 11, are your parents assisting you with this? They should be writing here instead of you. Do they even know that you have it?

A wren giving advice. How apropos!

It's really a shame that kid picked up the bird. It would have done fine on its own, I bet it's parents were nearby. Zatiya, I'm sure you meant well but please leave baby birds alone in future!

Yep I agree Gills, 11 is a little young to be picking up birds

sounds better

No, a cat or a marten would have had it. They are even better at picking birds than humans are.