How to Rescue a Hummingbird

Step 5 Adding protein to the sugar food

When we raised a tiny baby hummingbird a few years ago, we deduced that a bird cannot grow on sugar alone. If that was all they ate, they would end up looking like rock candy crystals instead of muscle-bound athletic birds.

We figured the parents catch bugs and feed the babies some protein upon which to grow. So we shook bugs out of flowers into the nectar bowl and ground them up. (please, no harsh comments from the bug's rights activists). It helps to not use pesticide in your garden.

This time since I brought the bird home at breakfast time and we were having scrambled eggs, I took some egg yoke and mixed it into the nectar. (Egg white just seemed too cannibalistic)

Comments

[daphdaph]

Thank you so much for this instructable. I found a young hummingbird yesterday. I tried leaving it and watching with binoculars....no mother hummingbird came to feed the little one. I tried putting in the basket....not luck. I think something must of happened to the little guys mom. I even called the rehab...the nearest one is ove 2 hours away. What do you do at that point? I'm following your instrucable. The only thing is little Wallace (yes I named the hummingbird Wallace in honor of your Wallace) didn't like the scrambled egg yoke. So I boiled an egg and mashed the yoke to mush and mixed with sugar water. That was a winner. I hope she is able to fly away soon.

[Woodenbikes]

Thanks daphdaph for your inspiring note, It's great to see that sharing lessons learned can help one another. By my standards you have acted very prudently and compassionately. It would be great to see a note about what the rehab people had to say. Perhaps you could coax them into reviewing the instructable and offering additional advice for what to do when rehab is out of reach. I can't call them because I'm on the lamb for posting this outlaw advice in the first place :-) Best of luck (and there is luck involved) with the rest of your rescue. Keep up the good work.

[robotguy4]

"If that was all they ate, they would end up looking like rock candy crystals instead of muscle-bound athletic birds."

Like this?

[Riann13]

lmao

[zorra578]

you don't really have to worry much about egg white and yolk, the white is sort of like the embryos main source of water and the yolk as its food supply, neither become the bird