I’m visiting at my mom’s house, and as I let her cat inside, I noticed that he caught a baby crow. He left the bird by the back door and I found him and put him into a towel-lined shoebox. At first glance I saw no obvious wounds and his wings seemed intact and he flapped them a few times. He was panting with his mouth open. I examined him further and found a tiny bit of blood and a red abrasion on his back. However, it was not a gaping wound and was not actively bleeding.
So I put him into a dark quiet room and have left him to rest. It’s been about two hours now. Right now, his mouth is closed but he is still breathing heavily. I’m wondering if this heavy breathing is normal? I inspected him again and when I pick him up, he perches on my finger and flaps his wings but doesn’t fly. I still can’t see any bleeding wound, just the small red abrasion on his back. Although there may be a puncture on his underside that I cannot see.
He is fully feathered but just barely. Some of his feathers, such as on his tail, are still covered with a sheath. I am pretty sure he’s a crow by comparing him with pictures of baby crows online.
I have found the number of the local wildlife rehabilitator organization and will call them first thing in the morning (it is after 11 pm now). But in the meantime I am having a lot of anxiety. I desperately do not want this beautiful baby to die. I am terrified that his wounds will be fatal, and that he is suffering.
I can’t search for it now, but there was a thread on raising baby crows approx a month ago. The bottom line was that behaviorally and hygiene wise crows are pretty nasty creatures to try to and domesticate
Best response, since he’s fully feathered and isn’t injured: put him back where you found him. His family will hear his cries and will come to his assistance. You don’t want him to imprint on you, and it’s illegal to keep crows as pets.
Lock the cat up for the night, and put the bird outside somewhere.
ETA: also consider the possibility that he has West Nile virus, crows being quite susceptible to it, which might be (a) why the cat was able to catch him, without (b) his family protecting him and (c) why he looks ill even though he isn’t visibly injured.
Thanks for the responses. Duck - the problem is, I found him on the deck right outside the back door. That is not where he came from though. I think I may know the vicinity from which he came but I’m not sure. I was thinking of waiting until daylight to take him outside, so I can try to find where he came from.
Another thing is that he’s not making any noise. No cries or chirping. How will his parents find him?
And also, I am afraid he is injured, albeit slightly as far as I can tell. But considering the cat caught and carried him home, he may be more seriously injured. Wouldn’t just putting him back outside be a death sentence?
Also, should I put him outside in his shoebox, or just on the ground?
Also, while he isn’t naked, some of his feathers are still in their sheaths, so they’re not fully operational. I don’t think he can fly yet.
I woke up bright and early to call the Wildlife Rescue League (which is local), but I just got a message stating that due to a shortage of volunteers, they would be closed until Monday.
Any suggestions? I’m thinking of calling a local vet to see if they can give some antibiotics.
He survived the night and just now he seemed alert and ate three pieces of wet cat food. He’s also produced several poops.
His abrasion on his back seems scabbed over. I also noticed another injury - his fingernail on his “thumb” claw is broken, or dislodged. Hard to explain. He can still grip fine with the claw, but the little nail is kind of hanging off.
The poor guy. I’m already in love with him.
p.s. I started a thread about this at the Starling Talk message board, which is about rescuing birds: http://www.starlingtalk.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12594 A knowledgeable woman there has given me some good advice, centering on getting him some antibiotics.
FWIW, Birds with cat inflicted wounds (even minor puncture wounds) usually do not survive. The cat’s oral cavity is awash in bacteria that birds & rabbits seem unable to deal with.
No matter where you put him, once he starts calling, his posse will find him. They’re out there listening, now.
Well, once he’s free of the looming presence of a Very Large Predator (you), he’ll feel free to begin calling for his posse. But as long as the Very Large Predator is around, he’s going to maintain silence.
Nature red in tooth and claw, hon (she said sympathetically). I feel your pain, but nature doesn’t come with guarantees, or with antibiotics. He’s a wild animal, he lives in the wild, he takes his chances.
And may I reiterate that the reason your cat may have been able to catch him in the first place may be because he’s got something wrong with him, possibly something major that a course of parakeet antibiotics from PetSmart won’t fix–his posse may have abandoned him, or kicked him out, because he’s ill, or just not quite “up to snuff”. I once found a tiny abandoned kitten in the driveway next door, clearly belonging to the feral cat in residence in their garage. He mewed and mewed all night long, and finally when I went out there in the morning, there he was. He had some kind of growth covering his entire face, and was literally crawling with fleas. So I took him down to Animal Control and the lady pointed out that his momma had almost certainly kicked him out because there was something obviously wrong with him. She was 30 feet away, she could hardly have failed to hear him. Wild mommas have to do that sometimes, cut their losses and go with the ones that work.
I’d put him on the ground, because when his posse finds him, they won’t have any way of getting him out of the shoebox, since he can’t fly out of it.
ETA: He will hop over to what he is hard-wired to determine is the optimal hiding place in the shrubbery, so as to be protected from airborne predators.
If you read the link, you’d see that the “does it have feathers or not?” benchmark is to determine whether the birds really needs your help or not. If he’s naked, then yeah, he needs your help, because if you put him in the middle of the backyard to wait for his parents, he may die from hypothermia before they show up, so you can’t do that; if he has feathers, then no, he’s fine, just put him back where you found him.
Put him out in the middle of your back yard on the ground. You can’t keep him, and the longer he stays with you, the more likely it is that he’ll imprint on you, and then when you do decide to let him go, he will be unable to survive on his own. If he’s hanging around with you, he’s not learning how to forage as a crow, he’s not learning any survival patterns from his posse. Corvids are quite different from robins and sparrows: they are strongly social and long-lived birds, like ravens, and he needs his posse to teach him the Way Of The Crow. This you cannot do.
He doesn’t need to be able to fly before you let him go. They’ll find him. Really. you can sit out there on your deck and holler at any cats or dogs that evince an interest. You can bring him in to his shoebox at night, and if nobody shows up to pick him up by Monday morning, then you have my blessing to take him down to the wildlife rehab place.
And P.S. I suggest you consider volunteering at the Wildlife Rehab place. Sounds like they need you.
Good news. I found a local vet that will take birds and care for them, and then give them to a rehabilitator (they work with a local group of rehabbers). So I took the bird there, and they looked him over and said he looked good and alert, and they kept him and will pass him on to a rehabber ASAP.
Right before we left for the vet this morning, he seemed much more chipper than last night. He was alert, active and ate quite a bit. I was so happy!
So hopefully they will take good care of him. They said they only euthanize if he’s really sick, and I don’t think he is. I feel relieved.
