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How to feed a baby bird without mother


What to Feed a Baby Bird

How to provide the right nutrition when wildlife rescues aren't an option

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Kathleen Miller

Reviewed by Kathleen Miller

Kathleen Miller is a highly-regarded Master Gardener and Horticulturist who shares her knowledge of sustainable living, organic gardening, farming, and landscape design. She founded Gaia's Farm and Gardens, a working sustainable permaculture farm, and writes for Gaia Grows, a local newspaper column. She has over 30 years of experience in gardening and sustainable farming.

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Sarah Scott

Fact checked by Sarah Scott

Sarah Scott is a fact-checker and researcher who has worked in the custom home building industry in sales, marketing, and design.

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The Spruce / Catherine Song

Every backyard birder has seen the "starving baby" act by fledgling birds, when they flutter their wings and call piteously for attention from seemingly hard-hearted, indifferent parents. The desire to nurture those fluffy balls of feathers can be strong, but it is important to understand the special needs of a fledgling's diet and know what to feed a baby bird for the best nutrition.

Do I Need to Feed This Baby Bird?

Baby birds have very demanding dietary needs. Depending on their age and species, baby birds may eat off and on for 12 to 14 hours per day, consuming a diet rich in insects for sufficient protein to ensure healthy growth. No human other than a licensed bird rehabilitator has the proper equipment, food supplements, or endurance to keep up that frantic feeding schedule. If you find a baby bird that appears to need feeding, the best thing to do is not to feed it, but to get it to an appropriate bird rescue organization. In many cases, the begging birds are not abandoned and the parent birds are nearby and tending to their babies as needed, even if they aren't seen.

If you find a baby bird that seems to be unfed, watch the bird closely for a while to see if the parents return to feed it within the hour. Bear in mind that it may take just seconds for a parent bird to deliver a bite to its chick, and inattentive observers may miss several feeding cycles. As the chicks grow, feeding may also be less frequent, and one parent bird may be tending to several offspring in different locations, so parental visits may be uneven. If the baby is being fed, rest assured that the parent bird is able to keep up with its demands, and no intervention is necessary if the baby does not appear injured or ill in any other way.

If the baby bird is not being fed and appears to be growing weaker and more lethargic, the first step should be to find a licensed rehabilitator to provide it proper care. When contacting the rehabilitator, ask for their evaluation of the bird in question before attempting any emergency feeding. If it is recommended that you feed the baby bird, he or she might have specific suggestions in mind as an emergency measure, and those suggestions should be meticulously followed.

If Feeding Is Necessary

If you find a baby bird that needs to be fed but you are unable to contact a bird or wildlife rehabilitator, it is important to know what to feed a baby bird that will provide similar nutrition to its natural diet. While every wild bird has a different diet, several types of food can serve as emergency rations when necessary. At the same time, it is critical to understand that baby birds have very different nutritional needs than adult birds, and foods you would normally feed to your backyard birds are not appropriate for young fledglings.

Good Foods for Baby Birds

  • Moist dog food
  • Raw liver (no seasoning)
  • Hard-boiled eggs
  • Dog biscuits (moistened)
  • Dog or cat kibble (moistened)

The Spruce / K. Dave

What Not to Feed Baby Birds

  • Water
  • Bread or bread products
  • Whole birdseed
  • Milk
  • Pet bird food
  • Worms
  • Kitchen scraps

The more mature a baby bird is, the more "adult" food it can consume without harm, and the longer it can go between feedings.

The Spruce / K. Dave

Tips for Feeding Baby Wild Birds

If it is necessary for you to feed a baby bird, remember:

  • Offer food that is spongy in texture, not dripping with water that could cause choking or drowning. All dry food should be softened before being offered to a baby bird.
  • Food should be offered at room temperature only, never warmed or heated, and also never refrigerated or chilled.
  • Keep bits of food small and in proportion to the bird's size; very small birds need very tiny bites. Cut or crush food appropriately to suit the bird's size.
  • While feeding the bird, handle it as little as possible to minimize the risk of additional stress or injury. Never force the bird's bill open to eat.

Caring for Baby Birds

Remember that feeding a baby bird should be an emergency measure only. If a baby bird is abandoned and needs care, it should be taken to a bird rescue organization or experienced rehabilitator as soon as possible. Rehabilitators can not only feed it an appropriate diet for its species but can help it learn how to find its own food, evade predators, and learn other skills necessary for a successful life in the wild.

If there is no rescue organization or experienced rehab specialist available in your area, keep these tips in mind:

  • Identify if the bird is a nestling (few or no feathers) or a fledgling (a feathered bird approaching adulthood). Nestlings will require much attention for a longer period than fledglings, which may be nearly ready for independence quite soon. An older fledgling can sometimes be fine if you simply place it high on a branch where its parents can find it. Nestlings, on the other hand, may require several weeks of attention (assuming a bird rehab organization is not available) to give them a chance for survival.
  • Protect it from predators—including family pets. Normally, a simple cardboard box lined with a towel, placed high enough to be out of reach of pets, will suffice. If using a lidded container, make sure it is well-ventilated. Ordinary room temperature is normally fine, though a gentle heat lamp can be used if the room is very cold at night. But take care not to overheat the young bird—in most cases, no heat source is necessary.
  • Give it a "nest" by using a small towel or cloth diaper formed into a concave shape and placed in the bottom of the box. This will help support the bird's body until it grows stronger.
  • Small nestlings are best fed with moist, well-softened food from a syringe, offered very gently, in small drops. Even a kitchen baster may be too large to be useful. As a nestling grows older, you can offer it food by dangling it from tweezers in front of its beak.
  • Never try to feed water directly to a baby bird. Nestlings will get their water needs met through moisture in food. A fledgling can be offered water in a shallow dish—if it's ready to consume water this way, it will drink on its own.
  • When a fledgling bird has fully feathered out and is beginning to exercise its wings by flapping, it can be given time outdoors and encouraged to begin flying. Often, it is enough to simply set the bird's containment box outside in a safe location, open the lid and wait for nature to take its course.

But remember that raising a featherless nestling bird through the fledgling stage and into a mature adult bird is no easy matter. It's always better to leave this to professionals who are experienced in the practice.

Article Sources

The Spruce uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

  1. Picking up baby birds can do more harm than good. Oregon State University.

What to Feed a Baby Bird without Feathers? Birds Advice

Baby birds sometimes fall from their nests by heavy storms or other natural causes. As they remain on the ground without the parents, they won’t get food for survival.

When you find some such baby birds, their pitiful chirps will awaken a mothering instinct in your heart.

A baby bird without feathers is usually weak and needs frequent feedings. If you think you can do the job, you need to know what to feed a baby bird without feathers.

But feeding birds can be a daunting task, especially if you try for the first time. You usually don’t know the particular baby bird’s diet.

In this writing, we’ll show you some essential comprehensive ways so that you can feed a baby bird without any hassle.

Similar Blogs:
How To Feed Wild Birds? [Read more]
What Do Birds Eat In The Wild? [Read more]
What To Feed Birds From The Kitchen? [Read more]
What Can Birds Not Eat? [Read more]
What Birds Eat Black Oil Sunflower Seeds? [Read more]

Recognize the Species of the Baby Bird

Different birds eat different things. When you find a baby bird, you, at first, have to recognize the species from which it comes. As birds are of different types according to their food habits, they are usually fruit eaters, seed eaters, insect eaters, and meat-eaters.

Depending on the size, age, and health condition, baby birds have a speedy metabolism and often need to eat a lot. Many baby birds found in gardens are usually fruit or seed eaters.

Know What to Feed the Baby Bird

There are several different opinions on the exact type of food you should feed a baby bird. If the baby birds need the required nutrients, then the correct diet is necessary.

Although adult birds follow a different diet, such as seeds, insects, seeds, and berries, almost all the baby birds need very similar food full of protein.

For that, you can make an excellent starter diet for a baby bird, which is approximately 60% dog or cat kibble with 20% hard-boiled eggs and 20% mealworms.

However, if there could be an emergency to feed one, you can offer the following foods to the baby bird:

  • Nightcrawlers or Earthworms
  • Crickets
  • Grasshoppers
  • Waxworms or Mealworms
  • Soaked or Canned dry cat food
  • Formulas of Finch & Parrot – Kaytee, ZuPreem

You can try these foods too:

  • Moistened dog or cat kibble
  • Moister dog foods
  • Moistened dog biscuits
  • Raw liver (except seasoning)
  • Hard-boiled eggs

You can feed “Pigeon Milk” to birds like parrots, pigeons, and doves. Unique nectar formula for Hummingbirds, such as insects, smaller chicks, and rodents for birds of prey, game bird, or turkey is better for baby precocial, and shred up minnows will do for fish-eating birds.

You should moisten the kibble with water until it reaches a sponge-like consistency. Don’t use excessive water so that the baby bird cannot drown in it.

If you chop the hard-boiled eggs and mealworms into pieces, then the baby bird feels easy to swallow the food.

Feed the Baby Bird Frequently

Each baby bird usually has a persistent feeding schedule. To feed them, their parents try very hard to collect food every day. If you want to maintain the schedule yourself due to the parent birds’ absence, you must feed the baby bird every 15 to 20 minutes in a day from dawn to dusk.

When the baby bird only opens its eyes by growing a few feathers, you have to wait 30 to 45 minutes to feed it. After that, you must increase the amount of food but lessen the number of feeding times.

Try Homemade Emergency Food

You can easily make homemade emergency food for the baby birds. At first, soak the dog kibble in hot water for an hour. Then mix it with a hard-boiled egg and baby cereal after picking the kibble from the water.

Add a little amount of mashed banana or a human child’s food.  Make some tiny-sized ball with the mixture of the food and then put it in the baby’s mouth using a toothpick.  Feed the mixture to the baby bird for the first couple of days.

Handy Hint: To read more about birds feeder, visit our other article about mother birds feed their babies [here..] and feed birds from the kitchen [here..]

Choose Different Food for Different Baby Birds

Insect-eating birds eat chopped up earthworms, crickets, and grasshoppers. For them, you have to make a diet made of fatless minced meat mixed with a soya-based porridge. For every 3 pieces of minced meat, you have to add a piece of soya-based porridge.

You can also mix a multivitamin-mineral element with the food. Even some insect-eaters eat good quality cat food mixed with water instead of meat.

Besides, some birds eat mealworms, which are essential food for them. Again, birds of prey will need appropriate food very early, such as rodents. Fruit-eating birds eat berries, raisins, and grapes soaked in water as well.

Grow Organic Food

When you do not find natural food, you can grow some organic food to feed the baby birds. In this case, earthworms can be grown in your organic garden, but their protein and gross energy content are considerably less than meal-worms.

Ignore Feeding the Baby Bird Bread or Milk

Milk and bread are dangerous for baby birds. Many people make the mistake of feeding those to them.

Besides, milk is not an essential element of baby birds’ diet like mammals, and they won’t tolerate it. And bread won’t provide the baby birds necessary calories so that they can survive.

Avoid Giving Water to the Baby Bird

Don’t allow the baby birds to drink water orally. If you try to feed them some water, they will suffocate it.

You should give the water only when the baby birds are old enough. In this case, you can place a narrow container full of water into the box, which the bird will drink from itself.

You can put a couple of marbles and a piece of stone into the water container so that the birds can easily drink water.

If you see a dehydrated baby bird, you will need to bring it to a wildlife rehabilitator who can inject fluids into its body.

Use the Correct Feeding Tools and Techniques

You need to feed the baby birds very carefully. You can use a pair of tweezers and plastic forceps. If you don’t have either of them, a narrow enough chopstick helps you feed them effectively.

To feed the baby birds, take a small amount of food with the tweezers or forceps or even with a pair of chopsticks and put it into the baby birds’ mouth.

You need to worry about the food that goes into birds’ glottis. Even if the food goes down the wrong way, it will shut automatically.

If the baby’s mouth doesn’t open, tap its beak lightly with the feeding tools. To signal the birds for eating, you can also rub the food around the edge of the beak. If the birds’ mouth is still closed, gently force it to open it.

Keep feeding as long as the bird is willing to close its beak or starts rejecting the food. You should not overfeed the baby bird.

Be Careful about Feeding Baby Birds

Baby birds may die if it doesn’t eat for 48 hours. The food you provide to the birds must be rich enough in proteins. So you should feed them insects most of the time.

Don’t use food with flavorings, preservatives, or added sugar. Feeding cold, old, or spoilt food can also be hazardous to the baby birds.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. How do you hand feed a baby bird?

Answer: Hand-feeding a baby bird is a substitute for how parents nurture their babies. When you’re bringing up a baby bird with hand feeding, it will be a better pet friend to you.

2. When do you start feeding them?

Answer: The first 20-25 days are the perfect time for hand feeding. Then, it will be hard for you to hand-feeding a baby bird.

3. How long can a baby bird go without food or water?

Answer: Well, this is a tricky question. Why do you wonder?

An average bird can survive around 48 hours without food or water, but this isn’t written on stone. So, it differs from one to another. Therefore, the survival of the baby bird might be less than 48 hours.

Besides, the survival of the baby bird without food and water depends on several things, such as –

  • The health condition of that baby bird
  • The Environment
  • The species of the bird (Some birds can survive more than others, for example, hummingbirds can survive better than others without food and water)

Usually, a baby bird needs constant care and food supply. If you ever think of handling one, then don’t even try to check how long it can last. Please talk with a professional vet and follow their guidelines.

Final Words

It is essential to comprehend the particular baby bird’s diet and know exactly what to feed a baby bird without feathers.

Make sure to send it to the experienced wildlife rehabbers as soon as possible if a baby bird really needs care and is abandoned from its nest.

The rehabbers help the baby birds learn how to find their own food and other necessary skills. They also choose an appropriate diet for baby birds.

There, baby birds can know how to avoid bird hunters for living a secure life in nature.

How to feed the found chick, how many times a day

If you find a chick, the first thing you need to do is determine its species. Feeding granivorous, insectivorous and predatory chicks have their own differences. But in the early stages of feeding, you can use the same feeding methods, and then, after finding out what kind of bird you found, transfer the chick to the appropriate feeding.

Here is one of the most common feeding options for granivorous and insectivorous chicks. This nutrient mixture is well used for feeding for chicks and fledglings from the passerine family. To prepare our mixture, we need the following products: Boiled egg, low-fat cottage cheese, raw carrots, meat (beef, chicken, turkey), greens (lettuce, dandelion leaves, wood lice), hamarus and daphnia, Calcium gluconate (shell from boiled eggs) glycerophosphate , children's dry dairy-free porridge or boiled millet (without salt and fat on the water).

Action one. Boil the egg, free from the shell. We free the shell from the shell film. Grind the egg as much as possible, you can use a grater with small holes.

Second step. Boiled meat, it is better to take the pulp from the breast of a turkey or chicken and also chop or divide into fibers. The mixture will require meat 40 (for granivorous) and 60 grams (for insectivorous).

Third step. Take washed carrots of a small size, grate them on a fine grater, then squeeze the juice and we will use the remaining pulp.

Fourth step. We take not sour and not fatty cottage cheese. Cottage cheese should have 0% fat content, anything above is considered fat for poultry. We need 90-110 grams of cottage cheese. Sour cottage cheese must be boiled twice changing the water and then it will be suitable.

Step five. You can use greens to add the mixture, but you can do without it for the chicks. And so you can take the greens listed above, chop and add 1.5 teaspoons to the mixture.

Action six. To the above ingredients, add 1.5 -2 tsp. dairy-free porridge or boiled millet (well boiled, without salt and fat in the water).

Step seven. To the mixture we add the shell from the boiled egg, which must first be ground in a coffee grinder, plus one fourth of the crushed tablet of glycerophosphate. If it is not possible to find glycerophosphate, then you can purchase bone meal and add one fourth tsp. in powder form. At the very least, the shells are enough for now.

Step eight. We take chopped hamarus and daphnia and add about 1 tsp to the resulting mixture. Then we mix everything, it turns out a very thick, crumbly porridge, it should not stick to the fingers. If the mixture is sticky, you can add dairy-free porridge or powdered cereals.

From the resulting mixture we roll small balls no larger than a small pea, focus on the size of the chick's beak. You can feed 2-5 balls at a time and after each feeding drink plain water from an insulin syringe with a removable needle (without a needle) 4-6 drops. A week-old chick should be fed every 1-1.5 hours, older than two weeks of age every 2-4 hours, at three and four weeks of age you can feed 3-4 times a day. Do not forget that the chick is growing and, accordingly, one-time portions of food are growing. A very important point, do not forget to warm the chicks, because at their age they themselves cannot maintain normal body temperature. Warming up promotes better assimilation of feed. Don't forget to control your chick's weight. If possible, show the chick to a specialist. To control the work of the intestines, you can take the litter from the chick for a coprogram, this is an analysis of the digestibility of the feed.

Take care and love your feathered friends and they will love you back.

Veterinarian ornithologist
Chuguevsky VV

Veterinary clinic Bambi.

You can ask an ornithologist on the forum.

How to: feed a sparrow chick at home - ikirov.ru

It so happened that you picked up a sparrow chick. What to do with him? How to take care of him? How to feed? Let's figure it out.

Weigh the pros and cons

So, you are standing on the street, and something small, but alive, is swarming and squeaking in front of your feet. Before you take responsibility for the life of this creature, think about whether you can and whether it is worth interfering with natural selection.

The age of the chicks that you can find on the street can be conditionally divided into three groups:

1. Newborns . These are newly hatched, not yet feathered chicks. Most likely, such a chick really fell out of the nest or was blown away by the wind. In nature, he cannot survive: even if the parents continue to feed the chick, he will freeze on the very first night, even if it is hot outside, and he will not be able to show any resistance to predators, midges can tritely bite him. It is almost impossible to feed a newborn chick at home, since it needs to be constantly heated and fed every 2-3 hours. So you can say goodbye to sleep. What to do with such a chick? Either try to find the nest and return it there, or leave it to the will of fate, since the chance of a favorable outcome is extremely small in any case. You can pick it up only if you already have experience in nursing chicks. And, yes, if successful, you will get a pet, because then in no case will the chick be released into the wild, since he will not be able to feed himself.

Yellowmouths are already feathered, but absolutely unable to feed themselves. They will sit and open their beak at any object that is in their reach. Such a chick can survive in the wild if the parents do not stop feeding it and it finds a good hiding place. Such a chick could either fall out of the nest out of curiosity, or it was forced out by its brethren, or it “tried the wing”. But he is not yet able to fly. It is much easier to keep such a chick at home than a newborn, since it no longer needs constant heating (but it is not worth supercooling either). But you will have to feed just as often and regularly. And, yes, get used to the idea that you now have a house sparrow that won't survive in the wild.

3. Fledglings . These are chicks that are trying with might and main to fly (although it does not always work out). They themselves jump out of the nest and try to fly. As a rule, these chicks are sufficiently adapted to adult life, they know how to peck food themselves, and quickly run away from a possible enemy. Parents continue to feed them even on the ground. Between feedings, the chick sits in a secluded place. It is better to leave such a chick alone, it is almost an adult bird, its chances of survival in nature are very high. The maximum is to plant it on some kind of elevation, where predators like cats and dogs will not get it. Unless, you notice that the chick is injured, then the sparrow can be picked up. Such a chick has quite a lot of chances to adapt in the wild again. Moreover, he may never get used to you, trying to escape at any opportunity.

Nurturing a chick

First, make a “nest” for the chick from a soft, lint-free cloth. You need to wrap it so that the chick is in a semi-inclined position: the breast rests against the edge of the nest, the paws are at the very bottom. So the chick will be comfortable and comfortable. And don't forget to regularly check the cleanliness of the nest.

In general, you will have to forget about rest until the chick learns to feed on its own. Every 15-20 minutes during daylight hours, you will need to feed the chick, and until it is satiated (stops opening its mouth, demanding another portion). Due to the high level of metabolism, chicks, having not received food at the right time, simply "burn" their resources. Leaving the chick without food for 3-6 hours, even if after that you start to feed it intensively, you doom the bird to death due to metabolic disorders.

Most small songbirds (including sparrows) feed their nestlings with insects. Therefore, your chick also needs animal feed. Ant cocoons, flour worms, fly larvae, chicken eggs, cottage cheese are suitable. Do not howl about a variety of vitamin and mineral supplements. In addition, it is impossible to completely replace insects in food, for example, with cottage cheese.

We feed correctly

Since the sparrow will have to be fed very often, you need to either be near him or carry him with you. The second option is not very good, as it is additional stress for the chick. The first two days (if you picked up a newborn chick) you will also have to provide heating for the pet. You can make a heating pad from a flat bottle filled with warm water.

Small chicks can be kept in a box until they start trying to get out. For older chicks, it is better to find a small cage. In any case, soft, dry bedding, such as dried grass or moss, is necessary. Temporarily they can be replaced with cotton wool, but then try to make sure that the chick does not get tangled in it or swallow the fibers.

The best way to feed a chick is with tweezers. Try to get the chick to open its mouth by itself (there will be no problems with small ones). This can be achieved if during feeding, bringing tweezers, slightly shake the nest or touch the feathers on the head or the corners of the mouth with tweezers. You can even lightly click on the beak.

If it was not possible to force the chick to open its beak, the first feeding will have to be carried out by force, opening the beak with your hands. Once having taken food from the tweezers on its own, the chick will continue to willingly beg for supplements until it learns to feed on its own: as soon as the chick begins to pick up food from the floor of the cage, the food can be moved to the feeder. By the way, by this time the chick needs to pick up a large cage so that the sparrow can run, jump and fly.

Preparing baby formula

The health, appearance and even life of the chick depends on the quality of the mixture and the completeness of the nutrients it contains. Below is a recipe for a complete mixture, nothing needs to be changed in it, this mixture is not so difficult to prepare.

1). Grate a medium-sized carrot on a fine grater, squeeze the juice as hard as possible. You only need the squeezed pulp.

2). We rub one boiled egg on a fine grater.

3). Grind boiled veal, beef or chicken with a knife, tear into thin fibers.

4). Grind some greens (lettuce, wood lice, dandelion leaves, but not spicy herbs).

5). We take 10 grams of low-fat and non-acidic cottage cheese, let the curd flow around, you can squeeze it out if possible.

6). Put 2 tablespoons of boiled crumbly millet porridge without salt and without oil.

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