Hand rearing a Great Tit

[bittys mum]

Hello,

Our cat brought in a Great Tit 9 days ago and it is doing really well. We are feeding hourly during daylight hours and would like to know how to encourage it to feed for itself and how to release it back to the wild.

It had no feathers and its eyes opened 4 days after we found it. It is beginning to preen its feathers and can fly a little.

Any advice on where to go from here would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,

Bittys Mum

[RKB]

It is still too young to have fledged, so I would be very eager to find a suitable Great Tit nestbox nearby and put it in with similarly aged chicks. It will be too old in a few days (once the tail is about 3 cm long).

Successful weaning is going to be very hard. In the wild they start picking at moving objects a few days after fledging, but are still fed by the parents for 2 weeks afterwards. They gradually take more of their own food during this time, and then disperse suddenly as soon as they are ready (c. 2 weeks after fledging, which should be at c.20 days old - your bird looks to be about 15 days old).

Without being able to learn how to find food naturally during this 2 week transition it wont stand much chance. It needs to have access to native trees and shrubs full of caterpillars, while still being fed by you, so that it can form its 'search image' of what food is and where it hides. So it needs live insects, and thousands of them, during this time.

[natasha38]

He looks great! Well done you! We had a similar experience last year. A neighbours cat had a blue tit fledgling which we managed to get off of him. there was no way we could leave it outside as the cat continued to prowl around so we decided to hand rear it.
We fed him every 30 mins on chopped meal worms initially then bought dried insects which I left lying around for him to find himself.
We then graduated to live insects that were placed around the bedroom (where we kept him, he had a box when he was tiny then as he got older he had full use of the room) - lovely for us sleeping in there!! We kept him in the bedroom which looked like a giant birdcage in the end. He was lovely & we eventually released him after about 4wks.
We continued to see him for several months afterwards but it gradually became less & less.
I got a bit of stick off people on wildlife forums when I was asking for advice regarding hand rearing but there was no way I could have left him outside for the cat & I was glad I proved everyone wrong who said he wouldn't make it.
I cried my eyes out when he went as I was so worried about him but he was fine.

[valleyforge]

Originally Posted by bittys mum

We are feeding hourly during daylight hours and would like to know how to encourage it to feed for itself and how to release it back to the wild.

Hi and welcome to the WAB forum.

First of all let me congratulate you on having got the bird to this stage ... that's really not an easy thing to have accomplished.

Encouraging a hand-reared bird to begin feeding for itself is not too difficult (in comparison to what you have done so far), but it does require a LOT more patience.

As the bird gets older you will find that its appetite naturally tails off somewhat and you don't need to feed it quite so regularly ... so begin increasing the time between feeds by perhaps 5-10 minutes each day, over the next few days, with the plan that by this time next week you are feeding at 2 hourly intervals, or longer.

At this stage in its development, you should also be making the feed mixture a little drier, and presenting it with a bottle-cap full of fresh water so it can start to learn how to drink for itself. Leave this, or a shallow container of water with it at all times now, but never try to force any bird to drink ... they can aspirate very easily on fluids.

As the bird develops, you need also to alter your feeding technique, such that instead of pushing food directly into the gape, present the food but at increasing distance from it ... beak-length away at first, so that it has to come to you, with the idea that eventually you will just hold the food in front of it to let it sample it for itself.

It is a gradual process, and you do need to intersperse feeding techniques initially, to ensure it is consuming an adequate quantity. However, once it starts pecking at the food you hold up for it, it is only a short step towards just placing a container of food in the cage and letting the bird get on with it.

Getting the bird ready for release, is however a whole different proposition. Raising a hatchling on its own from the age this one was when you found it, means inevitably that it is more aligned now towards you as its surrogate parent, than it is towards its own species, or birds in general even.

After all, you were probably the first living thing it was able to focus on when its eyes eventually opened ... having already become accustomed to your voice and to the sounds in your home.

So realigning it to bird-kind is no easy task. To have any chance of successfully reintegrating it to wild living, it will first need a lengthy period of living with other compatible garden birds in a closely monitored aviary environment.

Without this essential stage, I'm afraid that by releasing it you would be effectively abandoning an animal that is just not fully equipped to survive.

Some birds (by which I mean individuals rather than species) reintegrate faster than others ... some unfortunately never do, but nevertheless become happy and contented cage birds.

No one should underestimate what is needed for successful rehabilitation, and of course it is always better if it is never needed in the first place ... so what are you going to do to minimize the chances of you cat forcing a repeat performance.

I hope this is of some practical use to you bittys mum, but if you need further support don't hesitate to let us know.

[valleyforge]

Originally Posted by RKB

It is still too young to have fledged, so I would be very eager to find a suitable Great Tit nestbox nearby and put it in with similarly aged chicks.

Although this seems eminently good advice on the face of it RKB, there are practicalities to be considered that would/should rule out such a course of action.

Firstly, even supposing you could find a suitable nestbox with similarly aged chicks, 'interfering' with an existing brood in this way would/could quite likely put you in contravention of the Wildlife & Countryside Act.

Secondly, with a hatchling hand-reared from such an early age, even if the 'foster' parents accepted it (I have no reason to doubt that they wouldn't), there remains a very good chance that the introduced chick would fail to accept them ... after all that would now be an alien environment for it.

Incidentally, this isn't all conjecture as I have tried to foster birds (not great tits admittedly) in this way before, and in every case the infant has always rejected feeding attempts by the parent, forcing a return to hand-feeding by the human 'surrogate'.

Lastly of course, your suggestion would require a nestbox fitted with a camera and monitored to ensure the introduced chick wasn't being effectively abandoned.

I'm afraid therefore I can't support your suggestion as a viable alternative to continuing hand-rearing.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by valleyforge

Firstly, even supposing you could find a suitable nestbox with similarly aged chicks, 'interfering' with an existing brood in this way would/could quite likely put you in contravention of the Wildlife & Countryside Act.

Absolute rubbish. It is only an offence to take, damage or destroy a nest, not putting a nestling in there. Cross fostering and brood manipulation is done all the time with wild birds in boxes for scientific experiments, without a licence required.

Originally Posted by valleyforge

Secondly, with a hatchling hand-reared from such an early age, even if the 'foster' parents accepted it (I have no reason to doubt that they wouldn't), there remains a very good chance that the introduced chick would fail to accept them ... after all that would now be an alien environment for it. .

Again, rubbish, the feeding response is innate, not learnt. That is how one is able to hand rear birds after the eyes have opened - they quickly start begging.

Originally Posted by valleyforge

Incidentally, this isn't all conjecture as I have tried to foster birds (not great tits admittedly) in this way before, and in every case the infant has always rejected feeding attempts by the parent, forcing a return to hand-feeding by the human 'surrogate'..

well I don't know your circumstances but this kind of fostering is very routine in universities etc.

Originally Posted by valleyforge

Lastly of course, your suggestion would require a nestbox fitted with a camera and monitored to ensure the introduced chick wasn't being effectively abandoned.

No it wouldn't. Any nest with approximate aged chicks would do. It could even be a natural one (shine a torch inside to assess chick age, then 'post' the chick through the hole). I would go as far as to suggest that a Blue Tit nest would be better than hand rearing. Mixed broods are fairly frequent and it would stand a much better chance with Blue Tits than humans.

The sad fact is that one of biggest times of mortality in a tit's life is just after independence when, believe it or not, many actually starve through not being able to get to grips with life fast enough. Being reared by a human is only going to reduce that ability to a miniscule level. This bird isn't injured, so there is no reason not to get it back into the wild immediately, in a suitable nest. Holding onto it should a nest be available is actually more likely to contravene to Wildlife & Countryside Act.

[Cowgirl]

RKB you are so rude. Valleyforge is an experienced wildlife rescuer. Disagree if you must but a little respect & politeness goes a long way.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by Cowgirl

RKB you are so rude. Valleyforge is an experienced wildlife rescuer. Disagree if you must but a little respect & politeness goes a long way.

Apologies for the curtness but I was posting in a rush, and what Valleyforge was suggesting (re law, fostering) was utterly wrong. I too am very experienced, particularly with the tit family. My disrepect was only for the comments, not the poster.

[cara pace]

I think you have done a great job so far. It is very time consuming and a lot of dedication is required when hand-rearing a bird. I too am hand rearing some tits, but they are Long Tailed Tits. I have been feeding them for 1 week now and they are positively thriving. I have been distancing myself gradually for a few days now as I am determined they won't imprint. They are still being fed by 'Mummy tweezers', which is providing live meal worms (amongst other things) so that they recognise the moving targets as food. Once they are more capable, and feeding independantly they will be transferred to an outdoor aviary.

They need to develop their waterproof feathers as well as their natural hunting instinct and fear of predators before they can be released. I hand reared 2 blackbirds last year, but I didn't have the facilities to provide them with time outdoors, so they went to stay at a local bird sanctuary for a couple of weeks. They were then released with other young blackbirds when the time was right.

Whilst I'm here, can anyone recommend a good baby bird identification book?

[RKB]

Originally Posted by cara pace

which is providing live meal worms (amongst other things) so that they recognise the moving targets as food.

Crushing the heads beforehand is a good idea, as mealworms can give a nip. In the wild, tits remove the head and gut (grab head and pull) before feeding to their young.