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What to feed/do with a baby jackdaw (3 Viewers)

Baby jackdaw care

I have a large copper beech tree in my garden+old jackdaw nesting sites.
I had three cats - not good when rescuing a baby jackdaw. (1) Solution climb onto roof to leave jackdaw in valley gutter. I realised that this was too exposed a site. (2) Be mother jackdaw. Cook up some spaghetti and feed like you are giving it a long worm and also scrambled egg for protein. It gobbles it up.

Jackdaws do not get up that early but 5.0am is early enough. Feed then one goes back to bed and back to sleep perhaps! The Jackdaw can be kept in a shed or similar. 10.00am is the next feed time and then whenever possible. Flying practice can take place by having bird on hand and giving a wave action, up and down slowly to encourage wings to flap. Then back to a perch or somewhere safe.

The fun starts outside when the cats are kept indoors whilst there is flying practise proper. Then a miracle when Jack flys all around the beech tree and back to my hand. I say go and find your real mum and aunties and uncles which eventually he/she does. After that when I call Jack he came to me over the chimney tops from wherever. Also occasionally sitting on a high wall when we were in the garden having tea. So rewarding but I couldn't do it again.

He must have been sitting on our chimney once, heard my voice below and appeared in the room where I was out of the fireplace. The tragedy was that
it must have happened again and this time the chimney was a blocked one, because years after I was unblocking that fireplace and found a dead jackdaw. It was years ago that I had my loyal Jack. It might not have been my Jack but he did mysteriously disappear one day.
 
When preparing egg for feeding exclude the white. The yoke is higher protein and less wasted space in the little critters gut . Boil it in the shell , less protein lost in the cooking process . fewer by products in the finished product . Watch the wild birds and particularly corvids , they tend to leave the white if enough eggs are available .

The magpies here punch a single hole in the side of a chicken egg and tip it with the hole down just to drain off the white before they tip it back up and finish off the yoke or carry it off . as for the political argument about what to do with the little one , if you cant help it find some one that can pronto .

In my opinion :

If you can help it and no one else is there to do so then by all means do so . If you screw it up it will die , if you do not help it then it will die , if you get it right it will live . My guess is you are in love and do not wish to trust anyone else with the little critter. Corvids are that way , that is because they are so much like us in the ways that count.

Please remember that at times the gift of adoption is the best option for the child's well being .

Corvidear
 
Hi Kate,

I don't know if you will ever look at this thread again after all the time that has passed, but I wondered what happenned to the poor little Jackdaw in the end.
Trevor
 
Ta thats not really helpful.

It wasn't up to me whether the bird was left alone or not so it's too late for that.

It cannot be released until it is able to fly and theres no bird sanctuaries in the area. I want to do what I can to keep it alive in the meantime. And no there is no sign of injury but it is young and that's why I'm worried about it. Also I wasn't talking about keeping it in a cage for the rest of it's like when I said can a tamed wild bird be released, what I meant was am I doing the wrong thing in hand feeding it and making it tamer, and if it's not afraid of humans of course it is tame.
Baby Jackdaws who are rescued and hand reared will often form a bond with their carer.
Now it’s been two years since your post it would be interesting to hear about what happened to the Jackdaw.
You probably won’t even visit this post again but if you do it would be good to hear.
 
Hi everyone,
I hope someone can help me, I work in a vets and somebody brought in a baby jackdaw yesterday which they said was lost and in danger of been killed by traffic. He is very sweet and I was feeding him cat food yesterday but today he wasn't very keen on the cat food and ate very little. is there anything else I can feed him or is cat food the best option?

I am really worried he will die he is not terribly steady or good at perching even though he's quite big, is this normal?

Also he is rather tame and doesn't eat unless food is put into his mouth. Will it be ok to release a tame bird and should I be hand feeding him or leave it to him to eat alone?

Thanks, any help will be greatly appreciated, I don't have much experience with birds!
A picture may help regarding advice. Then people will be able to see what stage it is at as 'baby' doesn't give us much to go on. If it is a half decent size it should have a decent chance. Personally I would have a go with worms of a suitable size (chopped up if necessary) or buy some maggots from a fishing shop. They will eat just about anything by the sorts of things once they reach a decent size. Also hard boiled egg might be a good bet.
Good Luck
Andy
 

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