Post by heem on May 21, 2014 4:05:00 GMT -5
I was living with some friends once while trying to make a living (and mostly failing) as an Insurance Salesman. One day I came across a small sparrow that had fallen out of a tree in their backyard. It was sitting on the ground, and had it's mouth strained wide open. I think it was waiting for it's Momma to come feed it and couldn't understand why no food was coming. Maybe it had been in that position so long it's mouth froze in that position.
My friends said to just put it out of it's misery. But man, seeing it there holding it's mouth open ... it just seemed like it wanted to live so bad!
So I picked it up and took it inside. I had no idea what to do with a baby bird. My parrot was like 7 years old when I got him.
So I looked around for anything to feed it that it might be able to eat. First I gave it a couple drops of water from my finger tips. He gobbled them right up. Frantically. Encouraged, I thought I would try some milk. He gobbled that up as well. I found some leftover spaghetti and thought "Hey, that's kind of like a worm, I'll bet he'll eat that!" And sure enough, he gobbled up a couple small pieces of spaghetti.
I really didn't have any plan throughout any of this. I was just putting one foot in front of the other with no idea how this would work out.
My friend's wife said something about keeping it warm, so I found an empty box, put a heating pad in the bottom, turned it on the lowest setting, then put newspapers or something on top of it, and laid the bird in there. It was still alive when I left for work the next morning. I figured there was a good chance I would come home to a small lifeless bird, but at least I had done what I could to give him a fighting chance.
Surprisingly, I came home that night, and heard chirping coming from the box. He was alive - and he was hungry!
So I took him back out to the kitchen and fed him more spaghetti and milk. All this time his eyes were still closed he was so young. He gobbled up everything I fed him. Then one of the most amazing things happened - his eyes scrunched up, he tensed up, and let loose a giant poop! And then his eyes opened!
This whole time I was surprised that this wild bird would stand on my finger without being trained to do so, and that he let me pet his head.
About this time I began thinking he needed a name. I had just watched the amazing story of Sir Ernest Shackelford and The Voyage of the Endurance. An English explorer who set out with his men to cross the South Pole. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. But Shackelford was eventually knighted because his overriding goal became to save the lives of his men. They all wanted desperately to survive and overcame extraordinary conditions to cling to life. So I named my little buddy Shack, because he desperately wanted to survive.
Well, someone found mention somewhere of a bird rescue, and I called to inquire. I told them I had found a baby bird and nursed it back to health, feeding it milk and spaghetti. "Why, you can't feed a baby bird milk and spaghetti!" exclaimed the flustered woman at the bird rescue. "Well, I did feed a baby bird milk and spaghetti and it survived!" I replied. I made arrangements to bring Shack over and she just shook her head at it all.
I called back some time later to ask after him and the lady told me that his broken wing would probably never mend completely so he couldn't be released into the wild. But the greatest part is that he turned into such a good eater (he would eat anything they put in front of him!) that they kept him around to show other baby birds how to eat. Shack was indeed a survivor!
My friends said to just put it out of it's misery. But man, seeing it there holding it's mouth open ... it just seemed like it wanted to live so bad!
So I picked it up and took it inside. I had no idea what to do with a baby bird. My parrot was like 7 years old when I got him.
So I looked around for anything to feed it that it might be able to eat. First I gave it a couple drops of water from my finger tips. He gobbled them right up. Frantically. Encouraged, I thought I would try some milk. He gobbled that up as well. I found some leftover spaghetti and thought "Hey, that's kind of like a worm, I'll bet he'll eat that!" And sure enough, he gobbled up a couple small pieces of spaghetti.
I really didn't have any plan throughout any of this. I was just putting one foot in front of the other with no idea how this would work out.
My friend's wife said something about keeping it warm, so I found an empty box, put a heating pad in the bottom, turned it on the lowest setting, then put newspapers or something on top of it, and laid the bird in there. It was still alive when I left for work the next morning. I figured there was a good chance I would come home to a small lifeless bird, but at least I had done what I could to give him a fighting chance.
Surprisingly, I came home that night, and heard chirping coming from the box. He was alive - and he was hungry!
So I took him back out to the kitchen and fed him more spaghetti and milk. All this time his eyes were still closed he was so young. He gobbled up everything I fed him. Then one of the most amazing things happened - his eyes scrunched up, he tensed up, and let loose a giant poop! And then his eyes opened!
This whole time I was surprised that this wild bird would stand on my finger without being trained to do so, and that he let me pet his head.
About this time I began thinking he needed a name. I had just watched the amazing story of Sir Ernest Shackelford and The Voyage of the Endurance. An English explorer who set out with his men to cross the South Pole. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. But Shackelford was eventually knighted because his overriding goal became to save the lives of his men. They all wanted desperately to survive and overcame extraordinary conditions to cling to life. So I named my little buddy Shack, because he desperately wanted to survive.
Well, someone found mention somewhere of a bird rescue, and I called to inquire. I told them I had found a baby bird and nursed it back to health, feeding it milk and spaghetti. "Why, you can't feed a baby bird milk and spaghetti!" exclaimed the flustered woman at the bird rescue. "Well, I did feed a baby bird milk and spaghetti and it survived!" I replied. I made arrangements to bring Shack over and she just shook her head at it all.
I called back some time later to ask after him and the lady told me that his broken wing would probably never mend completely so he couldn't be released into the wild. But the greatest part is that he turned into such a good eater (he would eat anything they put in front of him!) that they kept him around to show other baby birds how to eat. Shack was indeed a survivor!