I found a baby bird two days ago. His eyes are open but he doesn’t have any real feathers yet, if that gives you some idea of his age. Anyway he seems to be doing fine except that he doesn’t use his right leg at all. He’ll grip my finger with his left foot, but the right foot is completely unresponsive. I’m pretty sure his right leg is injured; should I take him to a vet? Can they even fix a bird’s leg? Will it heal on its own?
Thanks!
if there is an avian vet near you, do take him. what sort of bird is he?
i know some one who rescued a sparrow that fell out of a nest. he was missing an eye and had problems with his leg. they called him moshe. he stayed with them until he died. he couldn’t survive on his own outside.
an avian vet would be able to tell you what is going on with the bird and whether he will be able to be released or not.
good luck, and thank you for taking good care of the little feather ball!
thanks for your response. I don’t know what kind of bird he is–right now, sort of a featherless pink squawking bird. How do you tell?
If the vet says he can’t survive outside I’ll keep him, but is there anyway to keep a bird without keeping him caged all the time and without getting bird droppings all over the house? He’d have to be caged some of the time anyway b/c I have a cat, but I’d like to be able to let him out frequently.
I’ll look up avian vets right now.
Color me heartless, but I’d say let it die. Or hurry it on its way.
Infant mortality is a part of nature. Unless you feel it is likely an endangered species, I’d suggest your time and $ might be better spent other than trying to save this specific creature.
If you are going to “keep it”, in addition to looking up avian vets you might wish to look up what laws you might be violating.
Contact Animal Services. They usually have some type of vet at hand to help injured wildlife recover, and recover in a way that enables them to return to the wild. Not knowing the specie of bird makes the recovery of the animal in your care even more unlikely. Is it a robin? Feed it meat–canned dog food, worms, etc. Is it a finch? Shelled seeds are on the menu. A pigeon or dove? They require a special mixture regurgitated from their parents’ croup. Animal Services and/or a vet may have a recipe that works–but, speaking from experience here, you cannot experiment at home and properly guess the ingredients.
The best bet for that little fellow’s survival is to contact the right people. This also absolves you from the legal implications Dinsdale speaks of.
Meanwhile, keep him/her plenty warm, and surrounded with soft cloth.
Also–whatever you do, do it quickly. Birds have an insanely fast metabolism; certain species can starve to death in 24 hours. As this is a hatchling, the risk is that much greater.
Good luck!
Anytime you find an injured bird, please contact a vet*, your state Wildlife Department or a local (licensed!) rehabilitator. A delay of a day or so, espcially in the case of an injured bone, can mean the difference between the bird being releasable or spending the rest of its life in capitivity because it cannot fly.
Bird’s bones tend to repair themselves very quickly, and in the case of a fracture or break, especially at a joint, this result in the wing “freezing” or just plain unusable. Granted, I have seen cases where a bird can still function missing a foot or an eye, but why make life more difficult for the critter.
In addition, there is the case of nutrition. Baby birds do have special nutritional needs, and feeding them bread, chicken livers, milk, dog food, oatmeal, bologna, shrimp (to name just a few of the horror stories I’ve encountered intransporting injured animals) by well-meaning people. There are some stop-gap measures, since you do not want the animal to starve, but best to take it to a professional rehabilitator, especially in the case of a protected species**.
Please, call ahead to get the names and numbers for any rehabbers in your area for any emergency next time. Sorry to be so harsh, but I have seen my share of sad cases.
screech-owl
[No, I do not want to start a debate on ethics of humane treatment of charity cases, but suffice to say, the costs of veterinary drugs (and the security thereof) can be very expensive. Too many charity cases can wipe out a whole supply, espcailly of the limited dosages, and then there is lettle left for the regular patients. Been there.]
** For the most part, most migratory birds in North America are covered under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, where even having a feather of the bird in your posession requires a state/federal license.
Thanks for your suggestions. I’ve called a rehabilitator, and plan to do what she says, so fear not.
cool!
i hope all goes well. the bird sounds a lot younger than i thought.
keep us posted.
So what’d the rehabilitator say, piaffe?
[sub]btw, are you named for the Lippizan-horse-trained-skill?[/sub]
The rehabilitator said that the bird is a starling, because only starlings have these big yellow beaks (I also looked up pictures of starlings and she looks just like them. I also found out how to tell their gender, and this is a girl). Anyway, because starlings are considered non-native pest birds, she was not able to take it and rehab it herself, but that it was fine for me to do it. She said I should feed the bird puppy food or soaked cat food, and that I could release her when she can fly and eat by herself. She also said that because there is no visible damage to the leg, it most likely is not broken, so either it was sprained in the fall from the nest or the mother pushed her out because she had a bad leg.
I read on the starling website (www.starlingtalk.com) that birds that have “imprinted” on humans should not be released because they are too tame to survive. Unfortunately, I was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. I’m trying to find a home for her through the website because I can’t keep her myself; hopefully something will turn up anyone want a bird? anyone? or else I’ll have to try to release her (assuming her leg heals…).
I’ve been looking into the legal aspects just for curiosity’s sake. From what I can tell, the AMTA that Screech-owl referred to prohibits the taking or possessing of birds in violation of certain regulations (for example, you can’t catch them with bait or anything), but doesn’t say anything about just finding a bird and feeding it (of course I am open to correction on this). The rehabilitator didn’t mention anything about it being illegal to keep her.
yes that is the origin of my name, though nowadays piaffe and passage are not performed exclusively by the Lippizans but are part of Grand Prix dressage tests. I’m impressed that you knew what it was…
Yup. Wouldn’t be illegal, since itis a starling (non-native species and all that). Consider the extensive damage starlings have done (they breed very quickly and are very aggressive in knocking out native species such as bluebirds and purple martins).
Species such as starlings, pigeons, Muscovy ducks, European house sparrows (be very careful, as there are many native sparrow species that are covered), game birds (many species of ducks) and crows (native, but not protected) are not covered by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. All of these with the excption of the last two are introduced species whose presence here have had detrimental effects on the native populations. These are birds you do not want to encourage.
With the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, having any protected bird (from an eagle all the way down to the tiniest hummingbird, and including other birds like cardinals and warblers) in your possession for any reason (whether for educational purposes or rehabbing it) requires a permit while the animal is in your possession. Ditto with the parts of an animal, including feathers, even if you found the animal as roadkill. How would you prove you did not kill the animal just to possess it?
The MTA is not meant to seek and punish those who find a bluejay feather in the backyard, but it covers a lot of loopholes used by the unscrupulous.
Actually, crows (all corvids) are covered by the MBTA (here’s a list of the species covered), but like other gamebirds, they (some corvids) can be hunted with the appropriate permits at the appropriate time of year.
Like screech-owl says, the (set of) acts are not there to punish little Joey from picking up a feather. But it IS there to prevent people from endangering native populations by doing, say, mass poisonings. The last thing one wants is the USFWS knocking on their door.
But a starling is fine to have (European, not Ashy or Violet-backed Starlings). And they can actually make good free-ranging pets. A European Starling raised by a friend of mine would come into his house and go to the kitchen for something to eat. She’d pry his fingers open to get food, and sleep on his knee. When she had her own brood, she brought them back to get fed (she’d get the food and then feed them). I don’t think she came back after the first brood.
Have fun with your starling and if you let her interact with the ourdoors, she could become free-ranging. Good luck. (I know a lot of people don’t like them, but they remind me of F-16s.)
Great link!!! And thank you for the clarification on corvids.
Jes’ curious: why not the Ashy or Violet-backed ones? Nasty attitude? More likely carriers of disease? They don’t blend in with the furniture too well?
(If I remember correctly, some nitwit in the 19th century thought that all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare ought to be in Central Park. Starlings are mentioned somewhere in Henry IV, I think.
If I had a time machine, I’d go back and kick some sense into his copious butt…)
i’m glad your little bird girl is doing well. i have seen some pigeons about, that have major leg deformities, do rather well. although if natural selection not people who feed them have their way… she would have to rely on her wings more and find sturdier roosts for when she wants to rest. the pigeons i have seen with legs problems tend to go for ledges over trees.
i hope she continues to do well. you are getting quite the bird education.
http://www.utahbirds.org/BirdStory.htm
perhaps your bird will reward you for all your hard work!!!
[horsey hijack]Piaffe, I learned about your namesake several years ago. I can even describe its position to you. 
What can I say, I was one of those girls who read all the Black Stallion books and collected not dozens, not scores, but hundreds of Breyer model horses. (I sold most of them in my college years–got more than $5K for them!)
I’m also currently taking riding lessons. Technically, I ride Western, but my instructor is a dressage expert so I’m learning a great deal of it as well. And it’s monstrously more difficult than the bare-bones basics I learned in huntseat years ago! Geez, and I thought I was actually good![/horsey hijack]
screech-owl and brachy, I assume that in the case of non-native birds, say budgerigars, there’s no regulation about catching and keeping them. I had two of those little fellows basically crash-land at my school after storms (a year apart!), weak and very sick. As they were non-native I nursed them back to health, the class advertised “Found parakeets!” and eventually gave them away in a drawing.
I shudder to think what the avian ecological balance is like out here in So. Cal. There are small green parrots I’m unsure of the kind–perhaps conures?) that regularly buzz (or should I say “squawk”) the school, and a cockatiel was caught on the last day of school. Plus I’ve seen two other stray–and badly battered–budgies in the tree outside my classroom. Ugh! Frickin’ irresponsible owners not clipping wings!
(BTW, brachy, loved your pic at the “Unofficial” pic website–with the crows–or are they ravens 
--in the background decor!)
Great advice form the rehab crew… they’ve done such a great job advising/informing that there is nothing I can add except that we’ve done a number of “pinky” robins which will often imprint at least to a degree, but so far they have all naturalised and been able to adapt to being wild birds - even the ones that come in already pretty dang imprinted by the kind hearted who rescue them but bring them to us after they find out how much work/mess they can be. Not sure how well a starling will do with that, because I’ve never seen a starling up here - not sure they come this far north, will have to check - but they seem an adaptable bird, so maybe…? - presuming the bird’s health permits it.
Bingo. Non-native species are okay to keep. In fact, here in Florida, any rehabber who takes them in HAS to keep them. Seems there’s this law against releasing non-native species into the eco-systems, so if someone takes in a Muscovy duck (damned nasty birds, scourge of the earth, don’t EVEN get me started on them!), the cannot legally release it back to the lake or retention pond from which it was rescued. Ethically, it would be a bad thing anyway, since the b@st@rds overbreed unchecked like rabbits in Australia, and like them, knock the native species out of their normal niche.
Well, I do keep my bird unclipped, since I do have a cat, but both are indoor animals and if the cage door is opened, no outside door gets opened until the cage door is shut with the bird safely on the other side. Yes, there is the possibility of escape, but I’d rather give the bird a fighting/flying chance to escape from the cat. (Not that the cat bothers her, but just in case the pouncing instinct gets the better of Mud.)
We have some problems with green conures down here - seems we have several feral breeding colonies (Busch Gardens is replete with them) throughout the state. An occasional cocatiel and a parakeet once in awhile, but mostly second and further generations of a couple of escapees. That’s the problem: not the original escapees, but the offspring establishing themselves. Add to that people think it’s cute to feed them, they find this an easy source of food, and BAM!! established nuisance colony.
Man am I glad I am in law instead of birds right now. My blood pressure just went sky-high.
[horse] Ruffian, you’re starting dressage? That’s great! That’s my raison d’etre. I had a few Breyer horses, but nothing like your collection. I used to go to the public library when I was in elementary school and check out all these books on horses (the technical, ‘how to care for/train/live with a horse’ type). Do you have your own horse? Have you read My Horses, My Teachers by Alois Podjhasky (sp)? It’s really a good book. (I always get so excited when I find another horseperson) [/horse]
bird update: I may have found a home for her. From what I gather, this person has other starlings, so she’ll probably be a better judge than I of whether this bird should remain a pet or be released when she gets big enough. At the very least, she’ll have a cage to use when the bird starts learning to fly.