I found a baby robin and I need HELP!!!!!!!!!!

[animaluvusvist]

I found a baby robin on my school basketball court. My friends feared that it's mother wouldn't take it back after I had touched it so made me take it to the science lab. It has been there for two days now and has survived on bread and only today I have realized that bread will not sustain life and will not be digested. I brought the robin home today for the weekend as there wouldn't be anyone in the school to feed it. Now after reading about the bread, I have no clue what to feed it nor how to take care of it. Also, where I live there are no Animal Centers (the country is a developing country) so what should I do??? And I have read the baby robin feeding formulas BUT none of the stuff is available in my country. Please HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and QUICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[slm1320]

I got this off of a website Successful captive baby Robin feeding formulas
The following formulas will successfully feed most insectivorous perching birds.

The North American Wildlife Health Care Center uses this basic diet with insect and seed eaters with success.

1 cup soaked puppy chow or
8-in-one Mynah Bird Food
2 tbs. baby beef or baby veal
1 tbs. cooked egg yolk
1/2 tsp. ground egg shell or finely ground oyster shell or steamed bone meal
2tbs. turkey starter mash
1 tbs. high protein baby cereal
1/4 tsp debittered brewers yeast
1/4 tsp Dyne (high calorie liquid diet)
1/4 tsp. Lactobacillus

Mix together thoroughly and freeze in ice tray and thaw as needed.
*** Use only high quality puppy chow. Adult dog food is too high in fat for baby birds.
*** Dyne is a high calorie liquid formulated to contain a maximum of nutritive value in a minimum of liquid volume. It helps to keep electrolytes balanced.
*** Never give a baby bird water! It gets all it needs from food.
*** Never feed a baby bird milk and bread. It will not sustain life and is not digestible.

Baby Robin feeding formula #2

This diet has also been used successfully by the North American Wildlife Health Care Center's Rehabilitation Team to raise both seed and insect eating songbirds.

1/2 jar (3.5 oz.) strained baby meat - chicken or turkey
1/2 cup Feline Science Diet Maintenance Formula.
1/2 tsp. avian vitamins. (May be purchased from your vet, or local pet store that sells cage birds.)
1/4 teaspoon debittered brewers yeast. (Purchase at your local health food store.) ***Do not use baking yeast.
1/4 tsp. wheat germ (without added honey.)
1/4 tsp. powdered kelp. (purchase at your local health food store.) This adds minerals that are not found in captivity elsewhere.
1/8 tsp Pet Tinic - B-Complex liquid vitamins. (Purchase from a veterinarian supply house.)
1/4 tsp. Lactobacillus

Mix ingredients together thoroughly. You may freeze, thaw and use as needed.

Baby Robin feeding formula #3

This diet may be used with insect or seed eaters. The North American Wildlife rehab team has also used this formula successfully.

1 cup soaked puppy chow or
8-in-one Mynah bird food
1 tablespoon of baby beef or baby veal canned baby food.
1 tbs. cooked egg yolk
1 tbs. turkey starter
1 tbs. high protein baby cereal
1/4 tsp. debittered brewers yeast
1/3 tsp. Dyne (high calorie liquid)

Mix together thoroughly and freeze in ice trays and thaw as needed.

Turkey starter must be stored in a cool, dry place where mold will not develop. Mold is deadly to baby or adult birds.

A well balanced commercially prepared baby bird feeding formula may be purchased from Lafeber Company - Nutri-Start. Check with your veterinarian. or write Lafeber Company, R.R.2, Odell, IL 60460 or call 1-800-842-6445. Also, you may wish to check with your local pet supply center.

Baby bird feeding schedule
Frequency Age
Every 15-20 minutes
Every 20-30 minutes
Every 30-45 minutes
Every 45-60 minutes
Every 2 hours 0-4 days
4-8 days
8-12 days
12-16 days
16 days to fledging

It is important to feed baby birds on schedule. A missed feeding cannot be made up by overfeeding at the next feeding. Due to the extremely rapid growth rate baby birds require almost constant feeding. Baby birds should be fed from dawn to dusk. This simulates the schedule the parent birds follow in nature.

If you begin a 7 a.m. continue through 7 p.m. You do not have to feed baby birds throughout the night. Baby birds are brooded by the mother at night who does not hunt for food until first light.

Some baby birds have to be taught to gape for food initially

Not all baby birds gape for food naturally. You may have to coax them a little until they gape on their own.

*** Gently wiggle the nest box or basket.
*** Make a soft hissing or whistling sound.
*** Peck gently on the side of the baby's bill.
*** Hold your hand cupped over the baby bird's head for a few seconds. When you remove your hand, the baby usually responds with a gape.

Here is the address so you can read the rest of it http://www.wildtalk.org/4summer01.html

[animaluvusvist]

I live in India (in Asia) and this place has got NONE of that stuff. That website's pretty cool though and I checked it out. Thanks. I've been giving the baby robin a few exotic fruits mashed up and other wierd stuff like mashed up brussel sprouts and that kind. The problem is that the bird NEVER eats the same food twice...NEVER!!! So I have to keep on inventing stuff for it to eat without the knowledge whether it's good for the bird or not. So I'm in quite a dilemna and I can't take it to a good vet because I live with my grandparents and neither of them are free to!

[luckycanuck]

Approximately how old is the baby?
Does it have most of it's feathers?
It's not true that a bird will be rejected by it's parents if you touch it. Birds cannot smell.
I raised 3 cowbirds once, and a robin on canned cat food mixed with a little water.

I am raising a baby sparrow now, he is 2 weeks old. I started him on canned cat food every 1/2 hour or so and now I am feeding him a mixture of canned cat food, applesauce and a bit of egg yolk. I have added bird seed to his cage, but he hasn't tried eating any yet.
In a few days I will put a little of his food mixture in a small lid and a small lid of water to try to get him to eat himself.

[Sniperchuu]

Chopped up worms, flies and catepillars are the answer... I know it sounds nasty, but that's what mummy robin feeds her babies in the wild. Look for them under stones and dead leaves, then put them on a dish and chop them up with scissors. Feed them to baby using a pair of tweezers or just your fingers.
Feed baby a few worms every hour during the day time, or every half hour if you can manage.

Otherwise, keep him in a 'nest'.. an old ice-cream tub or shoe box with a towel for bedding should be ok. It can be a good idea to drip a little water down the sides of the box, since bird's nests are often rather moist in nature.

[animaluvusvist]

Ummm...the bird has got feathers and my friend's mom identified it as a robin. I think it's 2-3 weeks old. I've had it for about a week now. I didn't think the rejecting part was true either but I brought it to the science lab for even if it's mother found it...I wouldn't want it to be squished by a basketball in the meantime!

I'll try to find some insects for it. I was digging for worms yesterday but I couldn't find any. I'll look for them again today. I won't probably get cat food here but I'll try the egg yolk and the applesauce. And I've heard that you're not supposed to give water directly. Is that true? Because I gave it water directly twice until I heard that, after that I've been mixing water in its food.

The bird's been kept in a berry basket with a soft padding underneat of some cloth. It liked to perch a lot, so I kept a skick in the basket and it mostly perches there. I'll try to moisten the asket today.

Oh and thanks for the info!!!

[Squint]

I have a robin that I found a few weeks ago. It's grown quite a bit and is almost independent.

When it was younger, I primarily fed it Kaytee Exact Handfeeding formula, which I got at Pet Smart (a chain of pet stores in the US). Later, I ordered mealworms online, which are its favorite food. I also feed it small berries, including some from a tree that I see birds eating from all the time.

I've never given it water directly, and one shouldn't. It found its water dish and drank from it when it got old enough.

[animaluvusvist]

The bird's been hungry almost all the time. We're trying not to overfeed it. It just opens its mouth and goes squawking all over the place the second it sees anyone. I've found 2 worms, chopped it and and it gobbled it all down (after it was hand placed in its throat). How long should I keep hand feeding it?

And I don't think it's a robin anymore. It doesn't look like a robin but more like a finch or a sparrow but it's too small to be one. I've been trying to find out what breed (is that the correct term) it is in vain.

I'm just giving it food mixed slightly with water since I saw the last post.

[Squint]

Be careful with any liquids. Birds can aspirate it and die of pneumonia within days. I'm very careful with my birds and even have a pipette standing by to suck out the food within moments if their mouths get full of food. The entrance to their trachea is right behind the tongue, quite different from us where it's in the back. There's is kind of in the middle of the bottom of their mouth. So you try to put food back in the throat like the parents do. The younger the bird, the more this is a risk. The powdered formula I mix with enough water to make the consistency between liquid soap and toothpaste. The water doesn't separate from the solids so it's less likely to get aspirated.

Many baby birds will demand food constantly so it's hard to tell if it's really hungry. Usually, you stop when their crop no longer empties into the stomach. If you've noticed each bolus of food travel down the esophagus and into the stomach, you can see when that no longer happens and stop there.

Baby birds eat a lot and eat even more when they get older. But you can overdo it. It seems like I'm feeding mine almost constantly. For parent birds, it's a full-time job from sunrise to sunset.

A lot of baby birds look the same until they're a few weeks old. I know sparrows and cardinals look the same. Robins are more obvious because of their size and distinct coloration.

[animaluvusvist]

Thanks so much about the info about the bird! I'll be LOTS more careful with it now. I'm still trying to find what kind of a bird it is...It has grown so much in a week and now it's tail is visible. I'll try to post a picture of it if i get one of it staying still. It's SO hyperavtive!