house sparow

[broody rooster]

has anyone raised a house sparrow before and kept it with finches , canaries etc ? how are the personality wise with other birds ?

 

[Lozuufy]

I've raised lots of house sparrows and they all have different personalities, all of mine I released except one I have now that will stay because she is not scared of anything (including cats). Most of them I would not have kept with other (smaller) birds, but had a couple that would be fine, so not really sure. The one I have now is very sweet, but will try to bite my nose and then fly away before I can react.

this is her a couple weeks ago

 

[broody rooster]

aww

where would i be able to get one because i dont want to capture a wild adult and raiding a nest doesn't seem right unless its being destroyed and i dont see them for sale except in europe i was thinking about putting up a bird house and taking a baby but again doesn't seem right i love sparrows and starlings i'm not to happy about what they do to native birds as the purple martin apartment house now belongs to a gang of at least 15 house sparrows but i can never seem to find either of them as babies id love to try a starling when i get a big enough cage but for now m sticking with the easier to find house sparrow due to me having finches which to my knowledge their care is alike other than sparrows semi pugnacious habits

 

[Lozuufy]

Allot of wildlife/bird rehabilitators won't take care of house sparrows and starlings so you could see if they would give you one, plus you could tell people you know that if they find an orphaned or injured one you'd take it. Also house sparrows usually lay 5 eggs and it's rare that they all survive, sometimes at around 10 days old one will start to lag behind in growth and be half the size or smaller than their siblings, in my experience these never make it out of the nest so sometimes I'll remove them and give them extra food. They can catch up but it takes weeks to get full size and their feathers are usually very bad condition and don't shed water until their first molt.
This was my first house sparrow, Popcorn, she died because she never reached full size and couldn't generate enough body heat.


Starlings are very smart, I had one for a couple months before she decided to join a wild flock, most starlings are supposed to be aggressive to other birds but she was super sweet and curious and always followed everyone around, sometimes she would appear out of nowhere and land on someones head (she lived outside)! The problem was, she pooped ALLOT and her poops were very hard to clean up when she lived in my room, that's when I moved her outside. She was also VERY needy and wanted attention all day. The house sparrow I have now (named Basil) is much less needy but still flies to me when I go in my room and snuggles up in my hands to take a nap. But is also very sneaky and tries to bite my nose.

This is a picture of my starling waiting above the door for someone to come outside so she can try to sneak inside while the doors open!

 

[broody rooster]

oh i never thought of that thankyou ! another question how do you care for them ? are there certain seed diets or treats they like etc ive tried hand rearing one once it was doing great when i first got him he was naked blind and helpless and i fed him mainly on crickets and catfood in water he did great on this however unfortunately he passed away a little after his pin feathers began to crack open and his eyes were fully open and his head feathers were all open . i assumed it was an injury that happened before he came into my posession because the person that gave him to me said she found him in the middle of a parking lot which leaves me to wonder how he got from wherever his nest was to the middle of a parking lot without being injured

 

[broody rooster]

oh and he started to stop begging after i tried feeding him dried crickets which might have caused something to happen to him before he died i tried to make sure his crop was full but not stuffed

 

[Lozuufy]

Sorry that your baby bird died, he could have had an internal injury from a fall and just never recovered. The food you fed him seems great, when mine are babies I usually feed them soaked cat food with hard boiled egg, never tried dried crickets but seems like a good food. Once they're older I feed them dry and/or cooked millet, cooked rice, sometimes kale and hard boiled egg (I give mine quail eggs because less goes to waste), but as adults they will eat almost anything. I have turkeys also so right now so Basil is currently eating organic turkey starter, but she was raised on oat flour pancakes (oats, water, egg and banana) and quail eggs. Adults would probably be fine on a finch seed mix supplemented with hard boiled egg or something else once in a while. I keep my birds in my room or outside so the cat cannot get them (indoor cat). Basil is loose in my room but soon I think I'll make a cage for her because she's pooping everywhere!

 

[broody rooster]

yeah he seemed to have difficulties with the dried crickets so i mainly used live large ones hed swallow them whole but i know how you feel about the poop everywhere my society finch went broody and shed hold all her poop in and when she got ff to eat she let it all out

 

[broody rooster]

it didnt work out the wildlife rehabber answered me and after i asked about sparrows and starlings completely ignored me

 

[Lozuufy]

Sorry about the rehabber, it's funny to me that some people don't like certain non-native birds when people aren't native to most places either.
I also have society finches, but they don't stay on the eggs long enough to get big poops, or even to hatch them! Finally I just hatched an egg myself in my incubator and raised him until he was fully feathered, then they took over. He actually just hatched an egg himself and the baby is doing really well, almost feathered. The two originals help feed the new baby but my hand raised one does most of the work. I guess some birds just aren't good parents.