Guide- Torpedo Feeding: What Is It And When To Use It.

[Gigirat]

Torpedo feeding is a method of feeding in which you give your bird “torpedos” of food to swallow. This is ideal if you have an ill bird and are not comfortable tubing food, or if you have a disabled bird who is not able to eat normally, like a cross beak.

I use a small food processor to grind crumbles into a fine powder, then I take an egg, and mix with a fork, I keep putting the dry powder in until I have a playdoh-like consistency. I take water and mix that in so it’s more of a light playdoh, and isn’t super compact so I’m not stuffing her crop with a thick dough. I lightly make little balls (I’ve found the sweet spot for big enough that I’m not wasting time, but small enough she will swallow it, to be around the size of a large pea, or maybe a blueberry.) then I open her beak, place it towards the back, and down the hatch it goes. I’ve also been giving her between 2.5-10ml of water (depending on how full her crop is) after to make sure none has gotten stuck, and that it’s not tightly packed together and she can pass it.

Tube feeding is superior in terms of ease of actually getting the right amount down, and you can do more at once, but we found find the right consistency extremely difficult, so Torpedo feeding has been perfect for us.

When torpedo feeding, and giving fluids (tubing or not) you always always always want to be mindful of the opening into the trachea, which is directly in the middle at the back of the birds mouth, right behind the tongue. The opening the esophagus is on the far right.

This video, while not mine, may be helpful if you are looking into torpedo feeding.

-MottsHomestead

Hello, I am so happy I was directed to your video. I do have a couple questions I hope you can answer. At what age did you start using torpedos? I am syringe feeding my girl every 3 hours. Sometimes she will eat 20mil and sometimes 10 to 15. She just turned 6 weeks. Also how often do you torpedo feed her? I am working full time so I take her to my daughters during the day so she will not miss a feeding. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Gigirat]

The video in Post#1, if you watch it, hopefully it will answer most of your questions.

Thank you so much.