Can I raise a baby mockingbird with my baby chicks?

[drssg]

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.

I’m surprised the other adult birds attacked it. I would have also thought it would naturally go wild outside.

We get tons of birds in the barn, and we regularly have chicks that fall out of the nest. If they don’t die on impact, the adults will still attempt to protect and feed them for a while, but I think they have a terrible survival rate.

There was one in the middle of the isle one morning and the adults would swoop at me every time I walked by. There was another group that was up in the hay, so I tried to put them together. The other chicks treated the new chick like an invader, so that didn’t last long.

 

[cdaigle430]

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?

Should be OK for short term....once the chickens start their pecking order you will need to separate them-hopefully the the mockingbird will be ready to go on its own before then.
Not aware of any diseases that a baby bird will infect your flock with.
I raised my ducks with my chickens and even when chickens started their pecking order 10 months later never bothered the ducks to this day.

 

[strantor]

I've been keeping the mockingbird in a clear-wall plastic tote near my chick brooder for the past few days. The mockingbird has really "come around." In the first days it seemed lethargic, defenseless, helpless. It only would eat if I fed it. But it learned to eat the mealworms and drink its water, and got strong, full of energy, and very interested in leaving the tote. It would jump/fly at the tote lid every time I reached to open it. It is very fast and good at anticipating my moves. It got out 3 separate times but couldn't move fast enough and I was able to catch it and return it to the tote. It could only fly maybe 4-5ft between hops. Today it got out again as I went to feed it, and managed to evade capture. It bolted across the yard and disappeared under some equipment, never to be seen again. I looked for 10-15 min but then decided it had earned its freedom.

 

[Jstpssng]

It sounds like a good ending, and you've done a good deed. :thumbsup:

 

[Sigarms]

It sounds like a good ending, and you've done a good deed. :thumbsup:

+1

With our limited knowledge of animals and not being able to talk to them, the only thing we can do is try if the animal is in a bad situation.

Sometimes what we perceive as help to a wild animal really isn't help, but to some extent, I do believe it's the intention that really matters. Just don't be really stupid about it, which I don't believe you were given the circumstances