Can I raise a baby mockingbird with my baby chicks?

[strantor]

After a heavy rain Friday night my daughters found this baby bird soaked, disheveled, and cowering under a bush. I'm not 100% sure what kind of bird it is but I think it's a mockingbird. I looked all over for a nest it must have fallen from, but found nothing. I put it in a cardboard box in my workshop next to my brooder with 5 baby chicks. Every time I open the box it opens its mouth to be fed. I have been dropping mealworms and baby chick food down its tweet pipe all weekend but during the week I can't administer food into this thing's mouth every 45 minutes like the internet says I'm supposed to. I need it to feed itself like the baby chicks do.

I noticed that it did clean up some of the mealworms I left on the floor of the box but I don't think it identifies the pile of chick food as food. So I moved it into the brooder with the chicks, hoping they could teach it how to be a yard bird. The introduction was a bit comical. After it got over its fear it decided it wanted to be part of the flock and it nestles up against the chicks... well, actually under the chicks. They walk all over it like a door mat, occasionally pecking at it like they peck at each other, but they seem especially intrigued by its eyes. They pecked relentlessly at its eyes for the first few minutes but I think they got over their curiosity. Every time the chicks get near the baby bird it opens its mouth expecting them to feed it, and they just peck its beak. I need help deciding whether or not to leave it in there. Or what better thing to do with it.

1. Is it likely to infect by baby chicks with some kind of avian flu? Should I put some pro/anti-biotics in the water?
2. Is the premise of it learning self sufficiency from chicks utterly stupid? Does this have any chance of working?
3. Are the chicks going to kill it? They're the same size right now but I have a feeling that by this time next week the chicks will be double its size.
4. Long term, if this bird learns to be a chicken instead of a bird, will it ever return to the wild or will I have a worthless non-laying confused imposter in my yard for the long haul?

 

[RNeumann]

The term “pecked chicken” is real......it sounds like you are subjecting it to a slow painful death.
Their are typically wildlife rescue folks around. I’d try giving them a call.

 

[drssg]

I don’t know the answers to any of your questions, but those are cool pictures, and I’ll be interested to see how this works out.

I would be surprised if the bird learns to eat food like a chicken. I don’t think they have much brain power, and I think they mostly just do what they’re pre-programmed to do. If he will eat meal worms on his own, that seems like the best approach to keep him fed throughout the day. That would also provide a better transition for him finding bugs and stuff on his own.

I would see some risk of the chicks injuring it over time, and it seems like it would be safer to be separated when unattended.

Those are just my uninformed opinions. Good luck!

 

[strantor]

The term “pecked chicken” is real......it sounds like you are subjecting it to a slow painful death.
Their are typically wildlife rescue folks around. I’d try giving them a call.

You were right. In less than a day their curiosity turned to something more sinister. I had to remove the baby bird because the chicks were ganging up on it. They would jump on it's back, pin it down, and peck the back of its head. There was teamwork involved. So sad. He's ok but he won't stay that way as the chicks get bigger each day. I'll look into some wildlife rescue options.

 

[RNeumann]

Good luck....to you and the bird. It’s hard to say if it will work out. I hope so! With warmer weather maybe you can put the box somewhere where it can fly around (like in a barn) and or a protected spot outside.

 

[jaxs]

There's a number of reasons you should call TP&WL TOMORROW and let them handle it but I'll give you one reason not to play Jane Goodall. It's the state bird and you could face a stiff fine for having it.
In my experience,Mockingbirds do this more than other birds. Left to their own,they flutter about getting stronger by the hour until it can make it up into a bush a few feet above and soon 50' from tree to tree. Mom is usually watching and if a stranger approaches,mom wage's kamikaze attacks on intruder until baby escape's or intruder retreat's. Actually pretty intertaining to watch unsuspecting cats or pedestrians walking along and finding themselves under surprise attack by a crazy bird from above. Texas was once heavily populated with Butcher Birds(AKA Scissors Tail) which are easily mistaken for Mockingbirds in flight. My granddad told me Scissors Tail birds can snip a boy's ear clean off so I always took Mockingbird attacks very seriously.

 

[dodge man]

We raised a house sparrow my daughter brought home a couple of years ago. We fed it softened hard cat food and it lived even though it was a very young baby. We got a cage for it and let it out to fly around inside some. They can live up to 10 years.

They don’t do well if realeased into the wild if they have been handled by people unless there is more than one of them. House sparrows is one of the few birds it’s legal to keep, they are not native. Most other birds you are not suppose to keep.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

My mom raised a baby mockingbird back in the day. It owned the house, single wide mobile home. Dad had a half moon parrot that learned its place as soon as the mocking bird hit maturity. The same for the poodle.
She raised it feeding it raw hamburger.
They had a large cedar in the front yard. Mom turned the bird loose figuring it would eventually go wild. Within minutes other mocking birds had chased it back into the house. Mom had it until she fled a wildfire. We figure the bird had a heart attack with all the excitement.
I have a bunch of them here at Thereabouts. They keep the crows and hawks ducking when they stray into the area.

 

[stuckmotor]

I once found a baby quail and took it to a setting hen to raise. She immediately pecked it so badly that I had to kill it.

 

[cqaigy2]

I didn't know house sparrow was an import.

My parents had a youngish pygmy owl, that had been injured and couldn't fly. My dad was a veterinarian and looked over the owl and surmised that it probably wouldn't recover flight, something to do with the joint by the ulna being damaged i think they had thought, probably an injury from vehicle collision. They got mice from Central Washington University. They would wack the mice in the head and using a pair of forceps, dangle the mouse in front of the owl. They had it for a number of years, but it was never able to fly again.