Help Fledgeling brought in by cat

[fairywishes]

Many thanks for all your replies :0) he/she seems quite happy sitting on my hand or runs up my arm onto my shoulder much to my husbands amusement.
He completely agreed re oral antibiotics and felt that birds have a very fast metabolism hence you see infection rather quickly he says he is trying to reassure me we don't need antibiotics as he thinks it'd have been ill all day.

Although he has been bright and wolfing food down all day by this evening he was refusing food :0( I fear the worst that infection may have taken hold wish now we had given the injectable antibiotic yesterday. Although as my husband says that in itself could kill the bird.

My husband says i should not be dispondant it might just be he/she is going to bed for the night he pointed out the window and said see no birds

I'll let you know how things go keep everything crossed its such a lovely little bird.

Thanks again

[fairywishes]

Originally Posted by Lance Morgan

Your husband could always give the cat an injection
Runs away.....

Tell me about it i really like my neighbour and i love cats i have 2 myself ( they stay in) but i can honestly tell you this cat is a menace everyday it brings at least 2 birds and a few mice not the mension the whole rabbit the other day :0(
Funnily enough my husband said the same thing about a big injection for it

[jetz]

Thi bird looks definitly like a dunnock. I have been a wildlife carer for about 4 years with high sucess rate of hand-rearing orphans. Firstly if the cat had caused any damage then the bird woul have died hours later, due to the poison on the cats teeth and claws, not as a common deception of shock.He looks to me like he could still be feeding from mum so firstly if hes warm then try a little bit of formula mixed with water in a 1ml syringe. I have sucessfully used a hand rearing formula from most good pet stores called EXACT made by Kaytee. Its a good food with all the vitamins it needs as well as mixed seeds, fruits and insects. He might gape for food but quite often for the first feed you have to force feed him, gently open the beak at the base, and put a small amount of the food into his moth. Once he gets the taste of it he will readily take food from the syringe. But as hes weening it may be a good idea to place some mashed up cat food along with a sprinkling of a food called BOGENA which you can get from a good pet store. He may feed himself if left in the quiet for a while. If you are feeding from the EXACT mix then he wont need additional water, but if he does eat the cat food then he will need a small bowl of shallow water too. Ive often found its best for shallow water as quite often for some reason they try and drown in the water if its deep. I have had 50 cages of 80+ bird with a sucess rate of only 4 dying, the reason i had so many birds was that the wildlife hospital i worked in had a fire. i wish you all the luck, and good on you for giving this chap a chance. You could also place a small bowl of live mealworms in it, they are an excellent source of natural food.

[Cazzie]

So how is Skeet doing now fairywishes??

Update please!

[RAINBOWRUSSELL]

Originally Posted by fairywishes

Tell me about it i really like my neighbour and i love cats i have 2 myself ( they stay in) but i can honestly tell you this cat is a menace everyday it brings at least 2 birds and a few mice not the mension the whole rabbit the other day :0(
Funnily enough my husband said the same thing about a big injection for it

I love cats & at one time had 5 but they never bothered with birds,maybe cos I had 2 canaries(Fido & Rover) and an aggresive budgie callled George Angus Fraser Russell(Jock to his mates) who used to peck their paws if they went near his cage!!But one of them ate my fish Erik after he had passed away & I had put him on the side to go dig a hole....
Then one day I found a liitle black kitten..called Tyson..cos she bit me...she dragged home baby bunnies,rats,mice,duck chicks & even a nightingale..it was a nightmare..most of them were bigger than her!!Glad to say they all survived as she liked to bring them to 'mummy'alive!
Pills in a duly spat out makes 'em run too!!!Unless you hide them in a piece of cheese!

[bunny hugger]

Hi.

Do you have an update on the dunnock? Coincidentaly I ended up with a dunnock nestling (it could be a robin but I doubt it as there are two dark dots at the back of the tongue) three days ago....also in the Falkirk area.

The one I have is younger than the one in your photos, with some still featherless areas. I too was frantic on how to care for it. It was tweeting inceasantly with its mouth wide opne waiting. The first thing I tried was raw, good quality mince dipped first in a tiny bit of water as I didnt know what else to try. It ate and then, as it was becoming evening, it fell very soundly asleep and woke at 5 the following morning tweeting for more food. I went out that day and bought tiny live larvae about 1cm long and slim. It ate those and I also ground sunflower seed hearts to a powder, (taking care that no pieces were still present that could choke it), added water to make it into paste and rolled the larvae / mince in the paste. That seemed to go well. It's appetite has been increasing. It eats until its crop bulges then sleeps. I got really worried today as it seemed to pass a whole larvae and I was concerened it wasnt the right food. I googled the subject and found this thread. I immediately mashed banana with sunflower seed paste and mince until it was well mixed and it wolfed loads. What a great tip.

I try not to handle it but it's happy to sit on my finger or in the palm of my hand when I'm cleaning out droppings and instantly falls asleep. While this is cute, my worry is imprinting. Will it go free ok? is there anything else I need to be doing?

Thanks for reading.

[valleyforge]

Hi there bunny hugger,

Sounds like you are doing quite well so far, but it might be better to replace the raw mince with mashed cat food.

Raw mince ... I'm assuming your using beef mince ... or raw meat of any kind, is just a bit too indigestible for a fella as young as you indicate yours to be.

Grinding the sunflower seed kernals is a good idea, as it wouldn't manage any pieces that are too large. Just make sure that what you are feeding has a reasonably high fluid content, as nestlings have to get all their water that way.

I'm concerned by what you describe as 'larvae' ... if these are mini mealworms then not too much of a problem, but you must not feed live maggots (as you might get from an angling supplier) ... if these are swallowed live, they could be capable of eating the bird from the inside!

Only feed fresh dead maggots (which should have been starved for a few days to ensure that the gut contains no toxins).

A much safer alternative is to use the mashed banana/mashed cat food/oatibix/water gloop as mentioned earlier in the thread ... reducing the amount of water in the mixture if the droppings appear too loose.

Please don't worry too much about imprinting at this stage ... the first priority is to keep the bird alive until it is able first of all to feed itself.

It is always best however, that you restrict the number of people who are around the bird to just the person feeding it whenever possible (the surrogate parent) and especially avoid contact with any of your family pets.

The bird will bond with you as the surrogate parent (and you with it undoubtably ... imprinting is a two-way process ), but that does not mean, in my long experience, that it will necessarily show any other person any less trust than a truly wild bird would. They are able to tell us apart you know .

Best of luck with your dunnock ... please don't hesitate to contact us if and when you need further assistance.

[Lance Morgan]

Could have saved yourself lots of trouble if you had left it alone so the parent birds could have fed it

[bunny hugger]

Dear Valleyforge,

Thank you for your reply and advice. I am putting it all into practice and the bird seems content. It has been preening its feather sheaths and looks like a proper little bird now. It is using perches and the droppings appear normal. No pet has been anywhere near it and the only person who has fed it or even seen it apart from me is my husband, but only on a couple of occassions. I'll let you know the outcome.

Lance, please be assured I would never take a baby bird from the wild. I have spent many years providing a garden environment suitable for maitaining and expanding the local polulation of wild birds, animals and insects here just as many others on this forum have and care enough about the natural order of things not to interfere. We do not even trim our hedge between March and August in order to avoid disturbing nesting birds. I have over those years been left with the very occassional casualty of predation or accident by a neighbour but I have never been left with a baby bird before. I was presented with no option other than to try to ensure its survival.

Thank you both for your comments.

[bunny hugger]

Just a brief update as promised. It’s been 8 days and the nestling is now almost a fledgling. Mini mealworms are being watched but left untouched so far although it is hopping around pecking on occasion at tiny pieces of earth or similar in the bottom of the cage. To help vitamin D production the cage, camouflaged with foliage, is now being hooked onto an outside wall out of the reach of predators for a while each day with a view of the garden bird feeders and checked every 15 minutes. The beak is a real beak now, the wing feathers are almost full grown (with some sheath still evident) and experimental flights (in a secure room) are stronger each day. It is preening regularly and seems in good condition. Once it’s feeding properly on its own (several days yet I suspect) I will have to plan for gradual introduction to the outside. I’ll post more later when I have more news.