If you have found a house sparrow chick, then you can learn how to care for it. However, before you intervene, check the area to be completely sure it is an orphan. The mortality rate among birds fed and cared for by people is very high, so know that it would have a better chance of survival if you brought it back to the nest, to the loving care of the parents.
Steps
Part 1 of 4: Avoiding Common Mistakes
Step 1. Verify that the bird is truly an orphan
If it has feathers, it is a very large specimen and is probably already learning to fly. In this case, you should leave him where he is, unless he is in immediate risk of being preyed upon or his parents return within the hour. If the specimen does not have feathers it is a nest, so look around to find the nest: pick it up gently and put it back in its "home".
Originally, house sparrows were present in Eurasia, North Africa and the Middle East, but are now widespread all over the world. Since there are so many specimens on the planet, it is not a protected species. This means that there is no specific law prohibiting keeping them as pets. However, Italian law prohibits keeping an animal taken from the wild. If you encounter a bird in difficulty, the best thing to do is to contact the Lipu, the Forestry Guard or the competent veterinary ASL. You will be able to become a "foster parent" who will look after the animal until it returns to the wild if you are authorized by one of these organizations
Step 2. Also safeguard your health when you touch wildlife
A pregnant woman or a person with a compromised immune system should not touch baby birds. These animals can carry diseases, such as salmonella, and infect humans.
Always follow strict hygiene rules when handling the bird. Wash your hands thoroughly before and after touching it. Always throw your waste in a sealed bag
Step 3. Avoid influencing the bird's imprint
If a sparrow makes excessive contact with a human, it may think it is its parent and will lose its natural fear of our species. This will make the stages of reintegration into nature difficult, if not impossible. If your intention is to care for the bird until it is strong enough to be released, then avoid picking it up and touching it, especially when feeding it. You must keep in him the instinctive fear of mankind.
- Make sure you don't get the bird used to you. This could lead the sparrow to believe that it is a human being and not a bird, with consequent difficulties in reintroduction into the wild.
- Do your best not to talk to him. Your goal is to feed and care for it as if you were an "invisible presence".
Step 4. Don't give it water
The chicks and the larger chicks are fed by the parents exclusively with insects and do not drink water. If you try to offer it to him, chances are he'll suck it in and drown.
Part 2 of 4: Keep it healthy
Step 1. Heat the bird
Take a box of paper handkerchiefs, insert a warmer (set to minimum) and add a few handkerchiefs on top of it. Alternatively, use a small bowl lined with kitchen paper. You can place the bowl on top of a hot water bottle or use a heating lamp to keep the sparrow at the correct temperature. Whatever solution you decide to adopt, place the bird gently in the container.
- The ideal temperature is 29-32 ° C;
- Do not use sponge cloths to cover the container, as the beak and claws of the animal could get caught in it;
- Store the artificial nest in a dark and quiet place where the bird cannot be disturbed by children or pets.
Step 2. Clean the beak
After feeding the baby orphan, you should clean his beak with a disposable wet wipe or cotton swab dipped in water. If you let the beak stay dirty, the sparrow could get bacterial infections.
Step 3. Evaluate the animal's progress
You should use a digital scale that also measures grams to check that your bird is growing. Before feeding every day, weigh him to make sure he is gaining weight, as any healthy chick should.
If you decide to return the animal to nature once it has recovered its strength, then you can also not weigh it, to avoid excessive physical contact and therefore an adaptation to human beings. If there is no hope that the bird will be reinstated in its habitat, then you can weigh it regularly
Part 3 of 4: Power
Step 1. Begin feeding the sparrow with puppy or cat food softened in water
Add liquid chick food to the water before mixing it with the food. Canned foods dedicated to cats or puppies are very rich in protein and are very close to the natural diet of the bird compared to those for adult dogs but both are also rich in salt and other substances that for such a small being can be devastating.. They must therefore be absolutely avoided.
If the bird is not big enough and unable to eat on its own, then break the food into small pieces (half the size of your little finger nail) and offer them to the pet with tweezers
Step 2. Try to incorporate as many insects into the food as possible
House sparrows eat dry foods such as pods and seeds, but also "live" food such as spiders, snails, grasshoppers and other small invertebrates. Chicks usually prefer live food to grains.
- Remember not to offer earthworms to the bird. There is something toxic about these insects that could kill your chick. Instead, give them little crickets, which are sold in pet stores as reptile food.
- Alternatively, you can feed the sparrow some white cagnotti that you can buy in fishing shops. Remember that you should only use these worms when they have an empty intestine. The black line that is sometimes seen on the body of these insects is actually their intestines full of food. Wait for this line to disappear before giving the little birds to the bird.
- You can also consider using dried insects, which are often sold as reptile food, such as pogona. Try looking for them in pet stores.
Step 3. Sprinkle all live food with vitamin and mineral supplements
You can use a reptile-friendly product or a calcium supplement, both of which are available at pet stores. This ensures that you are offering your chick a balanced diet if live insects are deficient in certain nutrients.
Step 4. Feed him often
Depending on the sparrow's age, you can insert the food directly into its wide-open beak with tweezers, or you can let it eat on its own if it's big enough to do so. In the latter case, put the meal in a shallow container. Know that the bird should be at least two weeks old to be able to eat on its own.
If it is a very young nestling and does not have many feathers, you need to feed it every half hour. In the case of a larger sparrow, meals can be spaced an hour or two apart. When hungry, the chick begins to chirp and open its beak, it will stop only when it feels full
Step 5. Offer him water, but only from a parakeet drinking bottle
Very young birds are unable to drink from a shallow container and may even drown.
Step 6. Change the feed type as it grows
As the chick gets older, you can continue offering it some dog or cat food soaked in water, but add a variety of bird-specific foods. The ideal would be to give it seeds of excellent quality, to be added to the meal as soon as the bird is grown enough to be able to peck them spontaneously. Place the seeds in a shallow bowl and let the pet start eating them when he is able.
Food must remain clean of bird droppings; for this reason, wash the bowl at least once a day
Part 4 of 4: Prepare for Release
Step 1. When it starts hopping, transfer the bird to a cage
Start leaving it outside during the day so that other sparrows can get close. If you are avoiding that the bird forges a strong bond with you and you are committed to interacting with its peers, then there are some possibilities that it can return to its natural habitat with less difficulty.
If the bird does not interact with other sparrows, then it must learn the sounds that members of its species make by other techniques. This allows him to communicate with the other birds once he is released. You can find on the internet audio files with the songs of the sparrows and let them listen to them
Step 2. Increase the time the bird spends outdoors more and more
Let him jump in the grass when he is 7-10 days old. If your goal is to reintroduce it to the wild, try putting it in a space where it can learn to fly. Instinct will teach him to do this and make him understand what wings are for.
- Wait for it to develop the flight feathers. If, once popped, you get the impression that the bird does not know how to move to learn flight, then it is not ready yet. To see if he is ready to fly, take him outside and place him on the ground, in a safe area with no predators.
- Leave it alone for 20 minutes: if nothing happens, bring it back home and try again another day.
Step 3. Make sure he is ready to return to the wild
If you are about to release it, make sure it can feed itself, plus make sure you haven't conditioned it with a human imprint.
If the bird has adapted to you, then it cannot be released and will need to be cared for at a wildlife recovery facility or as determined by the relevant bodies
Advice
- When feeding the bird yourself, try to feed it in the back of its mouth to avoid breathing problems.
- Take the animal to a wildlife recovery center if possible.
Warnings
- Do not give earthworms to the bird because they transmit diseases.
- Do not give him any milk at all, as he would die from the swollen goiter!
- Do not give him water by pouring it from above, he could drown easily.
