rotarhead1
Member
I was looking for sites on wild birds and stumbled on this one. I figured I would post here and see what kind of responses I get. About three and a half weeks ago my sister brought home a small sparrow (believe to be sparrow) that had fallen out of the nest at her work. She was walking outside to take the trash out and saw a little boy pick it up, his mom said to drop it and that's just what he did, in the middle of a busy parking lot at that. She could not find the nest and where she believes it is is unreachable. We have a ranger a few houses down and he gave my sister a number to call, they gave us another number, and the final response we got was, "I don't do birds." So, we took it in. We raised it up on Kaytee's Exact Hand Feeding Formula For All Baby Birds. We eventually got him to eat meal worms and he is now a free bird, flying free and staying outside. He has been doing this for a week now. Here is my delema. I don't mind him being around at all, I actually kind of enjoy it, however, he is not eating like a wild bird should. He will go off to the nieghbors houses and come back when he is hungry. If you don't feed him he won't leave you be. He still takes some baby formula but prefers the meal worms. I have tried bird seed and he doesn't seem like he can eat it. He plays with it in his beak and that is it. When he was smaller we put him on the ground to pick at bugs, and now that he's got all his flight feathers and is doing great outside I was hoping he would make some friends and they would teach him a bit. However, that seems not to be the story. I have seen other birds of the same type with him but they go to him and when they fly away he doesn't follow. He doesn't explore that much really, he mainly like to hang out in the tree next to the porch and every once in awhile will explore the neighbors trees. I have yet to see him go any further and when you call his name, "Sam" he always answers, even if he doesn't come to you. The biggest problem is the feeding thing. I love having him so close and letting him be free but still getting to see him, but I'm afraid to stop feeding him because I don't want to find him dead from starvation. Do you have any ideas on how to get him totally weaned, or how to get him to actually eat seeds, hunt, etc? I appreciate any and all help/ideas for I'm out of them. Sorry the post is so long but I felt I should fully explain. Thanks.