found an injured fledgling robin- what to do?

[TeamChaos]

I found a little robin with a broken leg and scraped up wing. He was going to be cat bait, so I picked him up. I've had him for 12 hours now and he hasn't eaten. I offered him smooshed worms and other food, but he doesn't open him mouth and I don't want to force him. He was awake and flopping around this morning, so I put him out in our unused dog run so that he can be "in the wild", so to speak. He's chirping and calling, does that indicate he's too young to feed himself? thanks for any info. I'm calling wildlife rehabilitators later today.

 

[TeamChaos]

Well, I've called the rehabilitators and left messages, but no one has called me back. I've been rescuing animals for nearly my whole life and I'm still so maddened by the instant response of "don't touch it, don't help, only a trained expert can legally handle/save that animal" (I googled and emailed a few groups also) and then no one answers their phone.. or, better yet, there isn't a resource person in the county at all. The little guy has been with me for nearly 24 hours now. He's still vigorous and annoyed. He's eaten a little but I don't want to force it and do more harm than good. I don't think it's his leg, it's his hip or maybe a bruised spine- he sits up on his little bird butt and stretches the good leg out for balance and watches the world go about it's business around him. I hope he makes it.

 

[oesdog]

I know others have had baby Robins on here and kept them alive.
Sorry I don;t have any help for you in that - just that I think you should make sure it drinks even if you have to use an eye dropper. you can also put vitamin drops into the water - infant vitamins with no iron. I heard they should eat every hour but not sure. So you will have your work cut out.

If you do a search on BYC and put in Robin maybe it will come up again. I am sorry I don;t remember who was writting the threads.

Oesdog -

- your lucky you can do something for your wild bird. We got one today stuck in the pot belly stove flu, we couldn;t reach it from any end and had to wait for it to die. It was terrible . Best of luck with your wee one. Perhaps you have not got the response you need because you posted in Pets not emergencies!

 

[tunaoftheland]

I've never taken care of a baby robin, and I don't know what to do about its injuries, but I have raised baby starlings. One piece of advice that I found was to NOT feed them water. It is very easy for them to inhale it by accident. You could provide a tray of water for it to drink from if it wants since you said it's a fledgling, or if it still needs to be fed completely by hand you can soak little bits of bread to feed to it, or tiny pieces of a fruit with a high water content. The food I gave the starlings was a mix of cat food, hard boiled egg, and apple sauce with enough water to make it into an even consistency. I found the formula somewhere online. I don't know if robins would eat a similar thing or not. I hope that helps a little. Good luck!!

 

[chickenzoo]

Is it fully feathered? Have flight feathers? I would Keep it indoors, drape a towel over a cage, and try feeding it warmed canned dog food or warm wet soggy dog/cat food. Use tweezers or a stick. Sit water and food near by. Sprinkle some bird seed, chicken or chick food down by it. If you have a bird vitamin put it in the water (Wal has some for 97cents in bird area).

 

[woodmort]

Take an old quart-sized berry basket, fill it with Kleenex-type tissues and cover it with a towel. If the baby is feathered, this'll be enough, if not, set the basket on a heating pad turned to low. You can feed the bird dried cat food soaked in just enough water to make it mushy-this is better than dog or canned cat food. Use a tweezers to feed. This will take care of the bird until a can get hold of a rehabilitator.

 

[Akane]

Robins will run about unable to fully fly with the parents feeding them on the ground for quite awhile. A good portion do die. When you talk to rescuers most have the opinion of that's life and it causes them an even slower more painful death to try to keep them alive or that it's worse to end up living in captivity. Also quite illegal to keep one in captivity without a license and most of the people that have a license don't have room for more animals. The death rate of birds in human hands is about the same as the death rate of birds left out in the wild.

If you want to try to keep it alive you need something better than worms. Most I've talked to have said not to feed worms at all for various reasons. Robins eat a wide variety of foods and dog food is actually pretty close as far as the mixture of grains and meats. Other suggested meats are boiled chicken, boiled eggs, kidney, liver, or meat baby food. Grains can include baby cereal, wheat germ, or oatmeal. Eventually fruits, vegetables, and insects (mealworms from a petstore are safer than wild caught insects) can be introduced to the diet. I've seen a few recipes using the parrot hand feeding formulas in petstores but I can't find them.