Hummingbird died in care, what did I do wrong? (1 Viewer)

[Rangya]

Found injured Hummingbird and kept in shoe box at night. Morning kept in semi sun to keep warm and it showed some signs of life. I fed 1:4 sugar in water first with a cotton bud but not sure it was comfortable- saw tongue couple of times, so got a spoon and it really dug in. But then it’s tongue seemed to stuck out even when I moved spoon away and it seemed to struggle. I got some plain water and a fresh bud to wet and hopefully unstick it’s tongue and when I came back it had died. I don’t understand what I did wrong and why it’s tongue should get stuck out. Any ideas?

 

[delia todd]

Hi Rangya and a warm welcome to you from all the Staff and Moderators.

I've moved your post to the Hummingbird forum, which will be more appropriate for this discussion. Meanwhile we have some general guidelines here for the care of injured and baby birds. which you might fine useful.

I'm sure you will enjoy it here and I look forward to hearing your news.

 

[Tired]

Whatever injury or illness allowed you to catch it probably did the poor thing in.

Though, one thing occurs to me: what time did you catch it first, and what time did you feed it? Hummingbirds starve very quickly. They go into torpor at night to avoid starvation, but I wonder if maybe stress or whatever was already wrong kept it awake, and meant it burnt all its energy out and starved.