greenheron avian wildlife hospital

Giving wildlife a second chance  
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Just a word before we get to the darlings;

Baby herons are cute, but
*they Do Not Make Good Pets!
*they are not objects for you to use to teach morals to your children!
*they have a life, their own wants & needs that has nothing to do with humans

These babies need a special diet that their parents give to them. If they are  truly orphaned, A wildlife rehabilitator is trained to give them the care they need to become independent and free.

 It is crucial for these young birds to get the right nutrition.

You can compare this to the care that parrots used to get before there were studies in their nutrition. Most were wild imports, but their color faded and they lost feathers as they reached their adulthood an many died as a result of dietary deficiencies. Birds that live as long, if not longer [80- 100years]than humans were barely getting past 20 years old.

Is that really important?

Yes! That is like a human becoming sickly in their teens and dying at 19 or before the age of 22.. You see, all animals need  their correct diet. Even if you plan to release them you must make sure they can hunt, forage, and recognize food. If you give them roast chicken, they will be looking for roast chicken.

Lets say, you care about this bird that much, that you don't mind, and you want to give it a shot.

Do you have money, land & patients to forgo just to make them #1 in your life? You have to have the ability to put them first, no matter what comes up? If you have young children, put it off until your kids have grown. It will not be fair to your kids and the hours required to care for orphaned & injured wildlife will take you away from baseball games, school plays and other activities when you need to be with your kids.

Wildlife in care are not temporary pets you can use to entertain your kids with- it doesn't work that way.
If that is what you are looking for, get a puppy.

*You can't keep them in a cage.

Some places have built flights into their barns and remodeled & added by installing wooden slats for fresh air, + adding open slats going all the way down a corridor that allows gliding flight. What? don't have one?

You will have to love them enough to shell out the money to build one. Oh yea, almost forgot, you can't put certain species together and you can't put too many together. You will have to shell out the money to build more than one if you plan on more
than one bird or have to separate fighting siblings.

Do you want to keep them in your house? You don't mind if they tear up the walls, make
holes in the plaster? And-Really want to bring roadkill into your house to feed that animal?

These are some of the things it takes to keep one.

Mice are almost Twinkys
MBD, [metabolic Bone Disease] is the most common problems that 'kept' wildlife develops. Nestling  Birds of Prey[including, but not limited to-  Owls, Herons, Egrets]  are prone to nutritional absorption difficulties and
if their diets are incorrect and or  changed suddenly.

 They may become immune deficient, fracture prone or will not get enough nutrition  and slowly be dying from electrolyte deficiencies or food color/preservative poisoning. 

These birds will not become vegitaian [or vegan- or what ever fad twist to it they are promoting].

For a carnivore bird to eat veganly, it is just as bad as a person eating a pound of heavy cream everyday, yea it has calcium, but the fat & by-product are too rich for their system to handle.

It is difficult to diagnosis sickness in birds unless you know what to look for, diet is species specific and many people do not have access to the food required by that species. Even worse, people try to make substitutes for natural diets, or have the illusion that small vertebrae-eating, carnivorous birds can go vegetarian if they are brought up that way.

It has been tried,- many birds & other animals  have suffered terribly -It doesn't work.

You are just endangering the bird by depriving nutrition and slowly starving them causing a condition that they will easily become fractured and/or crippled by a minor incident.

Their diet is part of a balance in the web of life that has evolved over millions of years. They are like that for a reason.

Some birds of prey would rather starve than eat some 'dead' or unidentifiable neatly cut red meat.

Just because your granny, pappy or whomever kept a bird successfully up-teen years ago with no problem dosn't mean you can.

 Keeping a wild bird and forcing them to change to what you think 'should be' is selfish.  Grow up. It will warp your children to keep an animal against it's will until it dies. It will not help your child to place an animals' life in their hands and make them responsible for it's life;

 You are teaching nothing but selfishness & stupidity.

Don't make excuses for your stupidity, call a wildlife rehabilatator. If you love wildbirds that much, volenteer! they are always looking for baby bird[and other spring orphan] feeders.

Most birds show very subtle signs when they are ill. Nutrition and temperature in the first two weeks of life can literally decide if these birds will survive a pre-adolescent stage or die within the first two years of life.

*No Baby Parrot food.

                 Baby parrot food is for baby parrots. Herons, Cranes, night jars/frog mouths,

Insectivore birds and raptors should never be fed  baby parrot food!!!.

 Pre-powdered parrot food has added aroma & color suited more to attract the house-hold buyers' tastes rather than the birds needs. Sugar & salt have no business in pet food.




Another difference is that there is a danger of choking and drowning while being fed water or baby  parrot food. volunteer for a few
shifts of feeding babies at your local wildlife rehabilitation center, the need your help and after adequate training, you will get plenty
of opportunitys to feed babies and help them become independent. 3/4 of most insectivore diet is bugs, they compensate by
scavenging where bug populations are depleted or supply is low.

Raptors: eagles, Owls, and falcons eat mice, other small birds and small animals. They will not become vegetarian no matter how much you want them to be.

Baby Raptors [including, but not limited to: Eagles, Falcons, Osprey,  Owls, owlets & hawks] need special care- this could include a special IV or IO fluids that many regular cat & dog vets are not trained to do unless they have had additional avian biology and zoology training.  A wildlife rehabilitator has been trained to treat the animal  to keep it stable until one of these specially trained DVM, MDs' or medical specialists arrive. Many times, a licensed rehabilitator will accompany the vet to properly secure, restrain, and advise biological differences in treatments for medical treatment, pharmicalogical chemistry, and zoonosis concerns.

Some of the falls and accidents that affect wildlife have caused internal bleeding in which impossible to tell with the proper diagnostic training and/or equipment..

Call the wildlife rehabilitator anyway-
                your timing could make all the difference in saving this wild animal!