What do little sparrows eat? What cereal can be given to birds in the feeder in winter? Is it possible to feed birds in a feeder in winter with millet, corn, wheat, pearl barley, barley, buckwheat, oats, rolled oats, rice, oatmeal? Can I use the mixture?

If you find a house sparrow chick, you should learn how to care for it, but make sure it is an orphan before you adopt it. Mortality rates among captive-bred birds are high, so it is best to return the chick to its parents if possible.

Steps

How to avoid common mistakes

Make sure that the chick is truly left without parents. If it has feathers, it is a fledgling that is learning to fly, so it should be left on the ground. Only take the chick if it is threatened by a predator or if the parents do not return within an hour. If the chick has no feathers, it should be in a nest, so look for a nest somewhere nearby. Carefully lift the bird and return it to the nest.

Take care of your health. Pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are not advised to handle wild chicks. They can be carriers of infections (for example, salmonella), which are transmitted to people.

Always practice good hygiene when handling birds. Wash your hands thoroughly before and after handling the bird. Place trash in a disposable bag.

Try to avoid influencing the bird too much. If a bird interacts too much with a person, it will decide that he is its parent, which is why it will no longer be afraid of people. This will make it more difficult for you to release her into the wild. If you just want to keep the bird with you until it gets stronger, do not handle it, especially while feeding. You should preserve the bird's innate fear of humans.

Don't give your bird water. The chicks receive food in the form of insects from their parents, and they do not drink water. If you try to give water from a pipette, the chick may inhale the liquid and suffocate.

Watch the chick grow. You can weigh it regularly. Place your bird on the scale before feeding each day. A healthy chick should gain weight daily.
- If you are going to release the bird into the wild, do not weigh it, because the more you touch it, the greater your influence on it. Weigh the chick only if you want to keep it.

Feeding the chick

Start giving your baby puppy food or cat food soaked in water. Add some chick food to the water. Wet cat and puppy food has a higher protein content and is more similar to what baby birds would eat in the wild. Mash the food until pureed in a shallow bowl.
- If the chick is not yet able to eat on its own, divide the food into small pieces and feed them to the bird with tweezers.
Add as many insects to your food as possible. Sparrows eat dry food (insects and seeds) and also collect live spiders, snails, aphids, caterpillars and other small invertebrates. Chicks prefer live food.

Add vitamins and minerals to live food. You can use special additives in powder, which are sold in pet stores. This will make the diet complete, since living food lacks nutrients.

Feed your bird often. If the chick is small, you should put food with tweezers into the open beak, and if the bird can already eat itself, leave the food in a shallow dish. Remember that it usually takes about two weeks for a bird to learn to eat on its own.
- If the chick is very small and without feathers, it should be fed every half hour. Grown chicks can be fed once every 1-2 hours. When the chick gets hungry, it will begin to squeak and open its beak. When he is full, he will stop doing this.
Give water only from the drinking bowl. Small chicks do not know how to drink from a bowl - this can lead to drowning.

Our tradition of feeding birds in winter came from our grandmother - she always laid out millet and crumbs for the birds on the windowsill, and in the morning they saw her fussing around in the kitchen and flew in and pecked at the glass.

We feed the birds with crumbled fat - what remains after cutting meat, millet grains rich in microelements, bread crumbs from the table, porridge left after lunch, etc.

I don’t know how useful this food is for them, but they fly in to eat every day.

We also always leave rowan and viburnum on the trees; by spring they are completely pecked off. We ourselves like to watch this process - plump bullfinches jump on the branches, and in recent years crossbills have become more frequent - so we are studying bird species.

Bread is not a very healthy food for birds, so it’s better not to feed birds bread, there’s just not much choice, so they peck at it. It’s better to feed seeds of different plants: sunflower, pumpkin, melon, watermelon, corn, hemp, quinoa, string, as well as wheat, oats, millet, millet. Herb seeds then need to be prepared in advance, just like the seeds of melons, watermelons, etc. You can have lard, but it must be unsalted. The most universal food is sunflower seeds, just not fried or salted. I regularly buy these seeds for birds (we sell substandard ones especially for birds - a little trashy, small). Nuts are also suitable for both birds and squirrels.

Birds in winter will be grateful to you for any food that you put in the feeder.

If you pour millet, millet, oats, rice into the feeder, you will attract birds such as tits, sparrows, goldfinches, pigeons and others.

Tits, woodpeckers, and pigeons are very fond of sunflower seeds.

Everyone probably knows that tits love lard. You can tie a piece of bacon to a rope and hang it on a tree branch.

But crossbills and woodpeckers will like the nuts.

In general, you can pour any cereal that you have in the house into the feeder.

In winter, and at any other time of the year, you can feed birds (sparrows, tits, pigeons and others) with sunflower, pumpkin, melon, and watermelon seeds. Give them cereals, lard, bread or bread crumbs, grain. You can give them specialized commercial bird food. It is better to prepare food in the summer; I also recommend making you a convenient bird feeder.

In winter, the birds need our help, because the insects are hibernating, there is no grass, the berries have fallen, but the birds want to eat.

Tits can survive without our help; they can rarely be found in the city; they live more often in forests. But sparrows are city residents. But there is one BUT. If we feed, we give a chance to survive to the weak, who will give birth in the spring, the numbers will increase and there will not be enough food for everyone.

It is necessary to feed the birds in winter, not to feed them. If there is always an abundance of seeds and lard in the feeders, then the birds will stop looking for their own food, and these are larvae, berries, and seeds.

If there is a choice of food in the feeder, then the sparrows will choose seeds, since they are the most nutritious, and too much fat will lead to liver disease.

You need to establish a feeding ration, fill the feeder once or twice a day and not in large portions.

You should not give salted, fried seeds, millet, salted lard, or black bread.

You can give sparrows wheat, white bread, pearl barley, oatmeal, and barley.

For tits - low-fat cottage cheese in small quantities, boiled eggs, seeds, lard, beef, butter.

For tits and sparrows, place dried sunflower, pumpkin, watermelon, and melon seeds in the feeder. You can also treat the birds with millet, stale white bread, pieces of apple and boiled egg. It will be very useful for these birds to peck on grain cottage cheese, a piece of lard or boiled meat, and butter. You should not give birds salted, fried or spoiled foods, because they poison the birds’ bodies with toxins. As a result, the birds may get sick and die.

We feed titmice, sparrows, bullfinches and other small birds with grain and bread. You can also hang lard on a string, for example, they also love to feast on it, the main thing is that it is not salty, and in general, as far as I know, birds should not be given anything salty.

Every winter I make a feeder for tits, bullfinches, and many other small birds; I put millet, bread, small corn, and also millet in the feeder. I hang the lard on a small wire, the tits prefer lard, and then they collect grain and bread.

Feeding birds in winter is sometimes very difficult, since the feeders are often literally covered with snow, but this is still a fixable matter, the main thing is to put in your efforts and a piece of your soul. You can feed any grain, for example millet, and also don’t forget about regular bread, and even simple sunflower seeds. When you look at such birds, it’s even nice that they feed with your help.

And this is clearly a question from an animal lover! Yes, feeding our little brothers in winter is desirable and very necessary, especially if there is a lot of snow. When there is no snow, they themselves are able to find food for themselves in the form of grains, herbs, waste and other things. But you can’t dig it up under the snow. So it’s easy and simple to make such a feeder and throw grain into it: millet, millet, wheat, seeds.

Tits especially love lard, as other authors have said. But if you don’t have grain in your house, then they will be grateful to you for bread.

By the way, here is an interesting version of a bird feeder. The highlight is that there are not just windows, but separate perches that are convenient to sit on

In the spring, when all the birds begin to have offspring, you can sometimes see chicks falling out of their nests. small ones, not fully fledged, yellow-mouthed babies look so defenseless and abandoned that it is simply impossible to pass by. Therefore, many people rush to take them with them in order to save the poor birds, warm them and feed them. What to feed a sparrow.

If you found a sparrow chick and brought it home to go out, first you need to find a place for it to stay. For this, a small box may be suitable, at the bottom of which you need to lay a cloth made of soft material. Place the foundling there and make sure it can't jump out. Very young chicks may need additional heating. To do this, it is recommended to use a heating pad or a bottle filled with warm water.

So, you picked up a sparrow chick, brought it to your house, equipped it temporary shelter and are going to feed the bird. The main thing is not to forget that the chicks of insectivorous birds eat food per day, which in volume is 3/4 of their weight. What do sparrows eat? The basis of their diet in nature consists of small flies, worms, caterpillars, beetles and various larvae. Of course, it is advisable to feed the baby these insects, but, unfortunately, it will be quite difficult to get them.

You need to know exactly what you can feed a sparrow. For example, under no circumstances should you feed your bird bread. You can give it very little, after soaking it in milk, no more than once every 2-3 days. You can offer the chick some boiled meat, which should be finely chopped and add oatmeal or grains of some cereal.

The sparrow chick will also eat vegetables- cucumbers, carrots, beets. Before feeding, they must be finely ground and the excess juice squeezed out. You can also feed your baby boiled eggs and cottage cheese. It is very important to take into account that food for him should be unsalted, since salt should not be given to birds under any circumstances. You can supplement the diet by adding crushed chalk or coal; the chick will eat this supplement with pleasure.

When you try to feed the bird, you need to try to do it in such a way that the baby eats on his own. But if this is not possible, he should be given food after opening his beak with tweezers. This must be done very carefully so as not to damage the chick. If you are not sure that you can handle this task, it is better to ask someone else.

You need to feed your baby very often, once every 2 hours. Of course, this is very difficult and complicated, but if you want, you can cope, because you won’t allow the newly-made pet you have chosen to die of hunger? And also do not forget that, in addition to food, there should always be fresh water near the bird.

Is it worth picking up a sparrow chick?

Lifestyle of sparrows

Sparrows- small and agile birds, their cheerful chirping can always be heard on the street. Unlike their feathered counterparts, they wake up not at dawn, but rather late in the morning. Birds love to gather in noisy groups. When spring comes and the time for breeding begins, males fight for a long time for the best places for nests. When the house for future babies is ready, the female lays 4 to 6 eggs. When the chicks are born, parents begin to worry about their food.

The sparrow chick is considered strong if he opens his beak wide when feeding. It is very rare, but there are cases where parents consider cubs that do not eat well to be weak and throw them out of their house. But such an action on the part of these birds - big exception.

In most cases, chicks fall out of the nests and begin to learn to fly. The first attempts may be unsuccessful, but later the kids gain strength and everything works out for them.

If you find a chick

Before you take home a little sparrow chick, you should seriously think about whether it might still be worth leaving it where it was? Most likely, a “fledgling” fell out of the nest - a baby who has begun to learn to fly and is making his first attempts at this. And the bird’s parents are nearby at this moment, they control it and will always be able to bring food to their child while he is on the ground and gets stronger.

Caring for such a baby at home is quite problematic, and many chicks may simply die if not properly cared for or fed. If there are no dogs or cats nearby, it is better to bring and place a feeder with food where the fallen cub is located. And also do not forget that birds that grew up in captivity can quickly die after they are released to live outside.

If you find a nest, full of small and yellow-faced babies, and you are absolutely sure that their parents will not come again, and you really want to help the poor orphans, you can try to feed these chicks. If you wish, feeding such birds is a completely solvable task; you just need to first learn more about such babies so as not to inadvertently harm them.

Feeding instructions

First of all, you will definitely need:

pipette;
tweezers;
disposable syringes;
birdseed.

Now you can start feeding. To do this you need to do:

You already know that if you accidentally see chicks in the spring, it is better not to pick them up. But it may happen that you accidentally discover, say, a very small sparrow whose leg is broken, or has some other damage, and he is completely helpless, then, of course, he will definitely need help and care.

If the chick has not yet fully fledged, it needs to be heated. You need to place the baby in a warm and small bag. To do this, use an old mitten or wool sock. Make sure he is always warm. After this, you can try to feed the foundling.

Sequence of feeding a sparrow chick

You will need:

insects (flies, beetles);
tweezers.

The following steps will go like this:

Such a baby needs to be fed every hour using tweezers with a variety of insects; flies, spiders, worms, and small beetles are suitable. You can try to buy some at a pet store, for example, mealworm larvae. You will need quite a lot of food, so try also giving a boiled egg, minced meat;
when the sparrow opens its beak wide, use tweezers to place an insect into the bird's mouth, which it will subsequently swallow;
If the baby is not yet eating on his own, he does not need to be given water, as this is dangerous and he may choke. Feed him mushy food using a dropper. When he gets a little stronger and begins to eat on his own, place water in a drinking bowl next to him so that the sparrow chick can drink at will;
There is no need to worry about overfeeding your small pet, since birds have a very fast metabolism and require a lot of food. It is recommended to feed babies often and little by little, and if the chick eats a large amount of food, but rarely, this will have a very negative impact on its health.

If you notice that the sparrow chick has fallen out of the nest, do not rush to drag it home. Assess the situation. You will have to look after a newborn a lot: if you don’t have time, don’t take on overwhelming work. It should be fed often, and, most importantly, correctly. There is no possibility - abandon the idea. Intervention would be a disservice if the bird accidentally fell from a tree while following its parents. Take a closer look to see if they are looking for the baby. If you decide to help your baby, read how to do it right.

Sometimes chicks fall out of their nests. To understand how to save a baby sparrow, you need to determine the cause. If you find a baby on the ground, look around.

The sparrows themselves will not throw the chick out of the nest. But other birds, swifts, starlings, can conquer their homes, getting rid of the “enemy” offspring. In this case, try to drive away the fighters and help the baby.

If a sparrow chick falls out of the nest by accident, return it back. Sometimes babies instinctively reach for their parents when falling from trees. If everything is in order with the “bird house”, the parents are there, then tragedy will not happen.

Don't worry about picking up the baby and carrying it to the nest. Sparrows do not smell, so they will not abandon their brood due to human intervention.

Natural disasters can also destroy a nest: a hurricane, a thunderstorm. In this case, you can help the birds by restoring their home. Return the kids to the renovated house and watch them. If the parents respond to the cubs' call, the rescue mission is over. If this does not happen, you will have to feed the young animals.

Sparrow chicks grow up to independent age of 2-3 weeks. That's how long it takes for the cubs to hatch.

Classification of sparrows

Newborn sparrow chicks are newly hatched, featherless, very small birds. It is hardly possible to provide them with food, since they will have to be fed frequently: once every 2-3 hours. The best solution is to find an abandoned nest.

Yellowthroats are juvenile chicks that have acquired feathers. Despite the fact that the sparrows look mature, they are not capable of feeding themselves. At this age, babies often fall out due to carelessness. It is possible to get the bird out, but you will have to feed it regularly, and this takes time.

Fledglings are birds that are already fully mature and capable of feeding themselves. Having found such a bird, do not touch it: let it learn to fly and get food. The only possible help in this situation is to plant it on a hill (for protection from ground-based predators).

This is important: water and food for the new resident

Having picked up a sparrow, it is important to understand how to give the chick water and what to feed it. To give your baby something to drink, it is better to use a pipette. Fill it with water and bring the tip to your beak. Do not put pressure on your “mouth” when trying to open it.

Newborn birds cannot drink from a bowl on their own - this must be remembered. If you put a container of water and leave, the sparrows will choke.

If you often pick up birds for treatment, then there will definitely be something in the house to feed the injured sparrow. It's another matter if the case is isolated. Before rushing to the pet store or preparing complex formulas, feed your baby with something you can find in the refrigerator. Lean meat, minced meat, eggs (boiled), cottage cheese, fish are suitable.

First steps in nursing

What needs to be done immediately after picking up the chick is to ensure comfort. Equipping the nest is a primary task. Use a lint-free cloth, rolling it down to create a slant.

Feeding unfeathered chicks requires a routine from day one. It is important to maintain a certain time between meals: 15-20 minutes for newborns and 2-3 hours for wallflowers.

Below we will tell you how and what to feed a sparrow chick in order to raise it at home. Let's turn to nature. Give them:

mealworms;
larvae;
small insects.

Human food will also work:

cottage cheese;
eggs;
meat;
fish.

The main thing is to feed the babies in a timely manner so that their own resources are not burned: sparrows have a fast metabolism. Read on to learn how to care for chicks and plan their diet correctly.

Nutritional formula recipe

What chicks eat with pleasure are insects. But feeding feathered birds and fledglings can be simplified by preparing a special mixture. The recipe is:

three medium carrots and squeeze out the juice;
grind the egg (pre-boil);
cut the meat (veal/beef/chicken) and split it into fibers;
chop greens (lettuce/woodlice/dandelion);
add 10 g of cottage cheese (squeeze first);
2 tbsp. spoons of cooked millet (exclude salt or oil);
a teaspoon of fish food (dry mixture);
add calcium glycerophosphate powder (1 tablet per liter);
add a teaspoon of crushed eggshells.

Mix the resulting feed until smooth. It shouldn't stick to your hands. Give to children in portions, rolling into small balls the size of a cherry pit. When we prepare the mixture for feeding the chick, we get a large supply. You can store food in the freezer.

We told you how to feed a sparrow chick. But do not forget that the birds should be given water: a few drops of water on the food ball.

Calcium: dosage calculation and sources

Calcium for sparrow chicks, as for all birds, is necessary to prevent the development of rickets. The mixture given above includes the required amount of useful substances. Using it, you don’t have to worry about the health of your kids.

The peculiarities of feeding a sparrow at home allow you to monitor the vitamins you receive. To calculate a chick's need for calcium, it is enough to determine 2% of its weight. But remember that it is possible to overdo it with the additive, so it is better to be safe and add more.

A bird can get calcium from chalk, edible clay or boiled egg shells. They are added in powder form. For a standard daily dose, take half a teaspoon - if you don’t want to make calculations.

Primary knowledge: what and how

Let's talk about how to hatch a sparrow chick and what to use for feeding. Newborn birds are fed from a syringe with a catheter - this is more convenient.

It is prohibited to use a catheter to feed grown sparrows, due to the danger to life: the birds can swallow the needle. The process of feeding a chick with a brush is less convenient: due to the soiling of the feathers. But for neat people, the technique is ideal, since the soft pile will not cause harm.

The sequence of feeding sparrow chicks is an important point. Don't give them the whole portion at once. Dosage the feed for better absorption. One “dose” is 2/3 of the head volume. If babies continue to beg for treats, ignore them. Overfeeding is just as harmful as undernutrition.

The importance of the intermediate stage

When caring for a sparrow, do not miss the moment of stopping feeding and transferring the chick to self-feeding. Remember that the baby’s desire for independence does not indicate that it is necessary to reduce feeding.

In the natural environment, parents feed the chicks even when the babies learn to fly and get food. Don't miss this crucial moment. Make the sparrow chase you to get the food you want.

You can tell if a chick is ready for independence by looking at its weight. The norm is 20-27 g. The sparrow is completely covered with feathers, the tail is long, the beak loses its yellowness. Mature birds bite painfully.

As the sparrow chick grows up, the frequency of feeding is gradually reduced. Some birds switch to self-feeding quickly, while for others the process is delayed - this is not scary. If your baby refuses to eat, don't worry. This is a normal process until their weight drops below 21g.

Painless weaning

A human-fed sparrow chick can be released into the wild. The main thing is to consider how to carry out the process correctly. Remember: if you are not going to leave the selected bird, start preparing for “weaning” in advance.

When planning to release a sparrow into the wild, do not treat the bird like a pet. Don't spend more time with your baby than necessary. Don't play, don't caress. When feeding, it is better to wear something bright to distract attention “from yourself” and minimize addiction.

When the chick grows up, do not play with it. Do not teach your baby to “handle”. If you don’t spend a lot of time with the bird, the growing sparrow will quickly learn to be afraid of humans.

You cannot release a sparrow without prior preparation. Before the bird settles in the wild, it is kept in an aviary. An outdoor corral helps to adapt. Teach the chick to “local” food.

Before releasing the sparrow, make sure the chick is healthy. Check the weather forecast. On the day of “absenteeing” there should be no rain or strong wind. It is better that the hydrometeorological center does not report any impending bad weather in the next few days.

Discuss issues of concern in the comments to the article.

Important!!! Never pick up sparrow fledglings, never feed them. Because each such feathered lump, seemingly lonely, unhappy and abandoned, is strictly controlled by its parents [online] and feeds them strictly by the hour. Except in very rare cases.

Important!!! If you nevertheless picked up a chick and artificially fed it, then you can no longer release it into the wild. Such a sparrow, fed by a person, will not be adapted for a free life, even if a flock of sparrows accepts it. Practice shows that a sparrow released into the wild dies within 3-5 days.

So, if you already have a sparrow, get ready to get up with the first rays of the sun for several weeks, take it with you to work, and go to bed late in the evening. All in order to feed the bird every hour. Birds in general, and chicks in particular, must eat frequently. Remember, you need to feed the chick strictly every hour, preferably every half hour, until satiated. If the feeding process is interrupted for more than two hours, the chick is likely to die. This is due to the specific digestive system and very fast metabolism. You can sleep peacefully at night because birds' metabolism naturally and significantly slows down at night.

To choose the right diet, you need to try to determine the approximate age of the chick.

1. the chick in the photo is approximately 2-3 days old;
2. the chick in the photo is about 7 days old;
3. about 12 days;
4. about 15-20 days (already trying to fly).

Since the sparrow is a grain- and insectivorous bird, consider it an omnivore, it is easy to feed it. Typically, sparrows and similar birds are fed a mash composed of the following components in the indicated proportions:

One boiled chicken egg (or three quail);
Boiled millet 2 teaspoons;
Finely grated carrots 1 teaspoon (squeeze out the juice);
Chopped lettuce leaves or chickweed herbs (stellaria media) 1/2 teaspoon;
Dry daphnia 1 teaspoon (sold in pet stores) or 1 teaspoon finely chopped boiled beef;
One pharmaceutical calcium tablet.

The components are thoroughly mixed, preferably in a blender, until the consistency of medium-thick sour cream. The mixture is stored in the freezer, naturally frozen. Before feeding, I break off part of the mixture, thaw it and put it into a syringe. It is convenient to take an insulin syringe, which has a gently pressing piston.

We take the sparrow in our fist, but do not squeeze it too hard, so as not to damage it, but also so that it does not break out. Next, tap the nose of the syringe on the beak. The chick must open its beak itself. If the chick is not yet fledged and naked, then it itself will, in any case, open its mouth when the syringe approaches. If the chick is already a fledgling, then it will not open its beak on its own. In this case, you will have to unclench the beak with your nails.

Give the mixture little by little. You should try not to put the mash in the beak, but push it a little further so that the food gets into the crop and not into the beak. After each serving, give the chick a drop of water. Feed one at a time until satiated, until the beak stops opening. A remarkable feature: when the sparrow has had enough, it begins to weakly vibrate its entire body in the palm of its hand. I don’t know what this is connected with, maybe with a feeling of pleasure, but the sensations are unforgettable.

If the chick does not open its mouth fundamentally, then it will have to be force-fed. After some time, the chick gets used to the syringe and begins to open its mouth, however, not always.

When feeding a sparrow, it is very important to monitor the bird's droppings. The droppings should not be completely covered with white film. The presence of film indicates an incorrect feeding regime.

Starting from the third week, the sparrow should already try to peck the seeds (not sunflowers). But since his beak is still soft, it is difficult for him to crack the seeds. Therefore, along with the seeds, you need to give the sparrow rice porridge or boiled millet, millet, which the sparrow, by the way, happily eats from its finger.

As soon as the sparrow began to eat the porridge itself, you no longer need to give the mash from the syringe. When the sparrow begins to eat the seeds on its own, you can also give up the porridge. Of the available bird foods, a grain mixture for finches or canaries is excellent. You can also try giving grain mixture to parrots, but it contains a lot of oats, and sparrows do not eat it very well.

Category:
Published September 13, 2014 12:56
Read 32742 times