Wildlife UK Forum - Discuss the UK countryside and wildlife

Hi - I'm going to cut a long story short here and ask if anyone can give me some advice.

I have 4 approximately one week old baby starlings in my car since 3pm. Their nest site was in a building demolished by builders at my work this morning. They collected the babies off the floor mid demolision and came to find me The whole site is now rubble and despite placing them high up for parents to find etc - they didn't come back (not suprisingly with the work and machinery there). I couldnt leave them to die so bought them home. Theyre in a box with what remains of the nest material and some straw in a box.

My vet recommended a product called insect pate - which is a dry food that needs soaking. He said to feed them hourly from sunrise to dusk and when they start hopping take them to a sanctuary.

I'm able to take them too work so the feeding times etc will be fine but can anyone tell me if the insect pate is good/the best idea and also what else I should do?

Any advice gratefully recieved.

Hi Roobee, welcome to the forums.

I would definitely contact your local wildlife rescue centre. They will be able to give the best advice, and may even be able to take the chicks in. Until you can get hold of them your vet probably gave some sound advice.

Good luck, keep us updated on how it's going!

Hiya

I should have said yesterday I did try local and (not so local!) wildlife rescues and rspca etc and couldnt find anyone to take them. I did speak with them and get advice, and my vet recommended the insect pate.

So far so good. 2 of them are very tiny compared to the other 2 but they have all made it through the night and are feeding well. I'd be grateful for any feeding advice - the insect pate is my main concern at the moment - is it good enough for them? Seems to be dried bugs and mealy worms and possibly some egg food ground up, we soak to rehydrate.

Thanks so much for your help.

That sounds good I have never heard of it so I would be interested to know where you had got it from. I have put in a previous post that I raised 2 wrens. I was told by my local santuary to give them meal worms which I did live with tweezers. The old lady who ran the sanctuary for about 40 yrs. Told me to dip the meal worms in water to give the birds water & alternately in cod liver oil. She also recommended dipping them occaisionally in grated cuttle fish for calcium. Your insect pate may well cover all these things as a complete food if you like. Considering they had no feathers on when I got them & I acted too late to save the other 2 as I tried leaving it to the parents, these 2 survived & got feathers. When thay were hopping about they went off to the sanctuaqry hopefully to be let loose when ready. Good Luck.

We lost one this morning It was the smallest one - thank you so so much for thie advice. I'll try and get some live meal worms now

That's a shame about losing one. It's inevitable that one will be the weakest in the group, so lets hope the rest are a bit stronger.

Hi Everyone
I am gutted to have to report the remaining 3 have died. One last night and the other two today. It was very sudden with them being fine and feeding and then gone by the next feed. We tried our best but I guess it just wasnt good enough. Very sad. I took them to my vet who thinks they were about 3 days old possibly 4 so we had had them almost since they'd hatched and i guess nothing can substitute for the care they shouldve had from their mother. Heat pads, insect food and so on just wasnt enough.
Thank you so very much to the people who offered advice. I'm off to shout some more at the builders....cant help thinking if they had just saved the nest we could have relocated it and the chicks and maybe the outcome would have been different.

Very sorry to hear that roobee. It sounds as if you did your very best, though.

Kingfisher