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AgentOrange
10-08-2012, 09:33 PM
My Bird hobby took a twist.

This is a great time of year to be a backyard birder. Everyday rare (to me) birds show up passing by as well as old friends coming back to spend Winter in my Southern yard. I have some named.

Yesterday one crashed into a window. I got it before the cats did. A wing is broken or damaged.
This happens. Often all they need is a night to rest and they are OK, but not this one. He is OK and strong, but feeding an insect eater is not like caring for a seed eater. If she cannot learn to eat the suet I make, she will die.
I love all my critters, and I just hate this.

TNRabbit R.I.P.
10-08-2012, 11:36 PM
Good luck catching the bazillion insects....

Even if you can feed it, how will it ever fly again?

Perhaps, letting the cats get it would have been more humane in the long run....?

TOAD
10-09-2012, 08:46 PM
A long time ago, when my son was very young, he found a robin that had failed to make it's first flight out of the nest.

From my experience at having tried to save young chicks in my own youth, I knew that the chance of them surviving were slim.
But I thought that this might be a way to teach my son a little bit about " life and death " without it hurting him too badly.

So we put the young chick in a high walled shipping carton that I brought home from work. My son worked diligently to catch grasshoppers, worms, and other bugs for it to eat.

The robin flourished and was soon eating bugs faster than my son could catch.

So I went to my local bait shop and bought some crickets and worms.

" Robin " lived and flew around in our bathroom until we released him at the local state park.

A friend of mine whose job went overseas bought the local " Fishing Supply & Bait Shop " (with the coldest beer in town).
He tells me he was surprised at the number of people that want crickets, not for fishing but for their exotic pets. Enough that he carries them year round.

We fishermen laugh about it.
Fishermen bring in cricket baskets and buy 50 /half tube or 100 /full tube.

Cool looking chicks come in and buy one or two dozen crickets and he puts them in a small brown bag with the top folded over and stapled.

So you can get food for your bird ...but with a broken wing I fear you will get the lesson my son dodged....Sorry!

AgentOrange
10-10-2012, 04:31 PM
Yeah, saved some lost some. Maybe his wing is just injured. I have found that seed eaters are easy to get to eat, others not so much. Right now his cage is in the window, he has suet, peanut butter, shelled sunflower, and Pyracanter berries --- and some fresh dug worms :nevreness:.

AgentOrange
10-10-2012, 08:35 PM
I know some wild critters die if they can't run free. This past Spring my Bride brought in a baby rabbit the cats had found. (Cats are all Murderers). I told her you can't keep a wild rabbit as they will not eat.

Toad, long ago your Pop had a back yard full of rabbits. You were about -2 years old. They were red tame rabbits. Two multiplied like crazy and all lived in the fenced in backyard yard with his two bird dogs. Every night they had to be caught and put under the house (easy) to protect them from neighborhood cats.

He got two white ones, but they had to be kept in a cage or they would attack the red rabbits.

TNRabbit R.I.P.
10-10-2012, 10:43 PM
Yeah, saved some lost some. Maybe his wing is just injured. I have found that seed eaters are easy to get to eat, others not so much. Right now his cage is in the window, he has suet, peanut butter, shelled sunflower, and Pyracanter berries --- and some fresh dug worms :nevreness:.

So....what's the prognosis? Eating anything?