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Baby blue jay (1 Viewer)

hppyflorist

New member
United States
We found a baby blue jay on our deck yesterday. He/she appears to be abandoned. We've been feeding it and put it in an open box outside. My concern is it keeps putting his foot over his wing. What do we do to correct this?
 
Hi hppyflorist and a warm welcome to you from all the Staff and Moderators.

We have some general guidelines here for the care of injured and baby birds. I can't imagine what it is that he's doing, but if he is injured he needs professional care.

I'm sure you will enjoy it here and I look forward to hearing your news.
 
Hi there hppyflorist and a warm welcome to you . (y)
We're glad you found us and please join in wherever you like ;)
 
There were 3 fledgling blue jays in a nest in our front yard tree a few days ago. One of the babies was dangling upside down on the side of the nest. It kept flapping its wings until it righted itself back up only to flip over again and dangle off the side while flapping its wings over and over again until it got tired. My son climbed the tree and saw that this baby's foot was all tangled up in twine. He carefully cut off the twine, and the baby jumped out of the nest and fluttered to the ground along with one of its siblings. We could see that the twine was still wound around its leg and had dug into the leg causing it to bleed. I used manicure scissors to gently cut the remaining twine off its leg. We put both babies back in the nest, and the mother continued to feed them. When we woke up the next morning, the baby that had been entangled was dead on the ground under the tree. There were no signs of trauma. It was just dead. What could have happened to it?
 
There were 3 fledgling blue jays in a nest in our front yard tree a few days ago. One of the babies was dangling upside down on the side of the nest. It kept flapping its wings until it righted itself back up only to flip over again and dangle off the side while flapping its wings over and over again until it got tired. My son climbed the tree and saw that this baby's foot was all tangled up in twine. He carefully cut off the twine, and the baby jumped out of the nest and fluttered to the ground along with one of its siblings. We could see that the twine was still wound around its leg and had dug into the leg causing it to bleed. I used manicure scissors to gently cut the remaining twine off its leg. We put both babies back in the nest, and the mother continued to feed them. When we woke up the next morning, the baby that had been entangled was dead on the ground under the tree. There were no signs of trauma. It was just dead. What could have happened to it?

The fall didn't kill it. I suppose it's possible the siblings killed it (probably wasn't the parents, if they were feeding it) and then pushed it out, but I think there's a simpler explanation. The twine cut into its leg, which got infected. (And/or, the foot, having been deprived of circulation, started to rot. It's possible that removing the twine allowed gangrene into the leg veins which might or might not have happened otherwise.) The bird died of sepsis during the night and was pushed out after death.
 
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