🥣 Nutrition & Feeding · 6 min
Feeding baby birds
Why this matters
Passerines eat constantly and drown easily. The two facts that keep them alive are counterintuitive.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to
- Feed nestling passerines at the correct frequency
- Explain why nestlings are not given oral water
- Recognize species that do not gape
The two critical factors for a genuinely orphaned baby bird are warmth and food. Body temperature needs to be 104 to 108 F, so room temperature is not enough unless the bird is well feathered and nearly flying.
Frequency
Passerines need to be fed all they will consume about every 15 to 20 minutes, from dawn to dusk. For a short-term substitute diet, any finely ground canned dog food will do, or dog kibble soaked in water until softened. Place small bits of food far back in the mouth when they gape.
Never give nestlings oral water
They will almost invariably aspirate, inhaling the liquid into their lungs, which leads to fatal pneumonia. Baby passerines have no way to drink fluids in the nest and get all their water metabolically. If a nestling is dehydrated, drop water on the tip of the beak with a paintbrush so the bird swallows it itself, or give fluids under the skin.
When they will not gape
If a young bird does not gape, either it is a species that does not normally gape (doves, swifts, woodpeckers all solicit food differently), or it is hypothermic or ill. Fifteen to twenty minutes of gentle warming should markedly improve a hypothermic nestling. Species identification is therefore critical to devising a proper diet.
Housekeeping
Most small native birds defecate just after each feeding. Remove the fecal material immediately so the bird does not soil itself and damage its feathers.
Feeding methods worth knowing: gavage (tube feeding) is used when an animal cannot eat for itself. Passing a stomach tube is not a difficult skill, but doing it wrong puts fluid into the lungs and is fatal. Learn it from your veterinarian or an experienced rehabilitator.
This lesson is part of the NY Wildlife Rehabilitator Exam course. Open it in the course to answer the retrieval checks that go with it, track what you have read, and quiz the whole unit. Lessons, quizzes and the glossary are free.