Young European Starling

Louisiana Blvd se near Central, Albuquerque NM

Description

I have a young European Starling looking for her forever home. She is about 6-7 weeks old, I've had her since she was a few days old (the bird could be a male or female, this one is too young to know yet. Around 6-12 months of age it is usually pretty easy to know if it's a male or female). European Starlings are one of the only wild bird species that you can legally keep as a pet, due to their classification as a non-native, invasive bird. European starlings were released into the USA in the 1800s, and they are one of the most common birds today. Starlings have been kept as pets for hundreds of years in Europe, among others, the composer Mozart had a pet European Starling. They usually will learn to talk when they are about a year old if they are raised with people. They are considered to be better at imitating human words than parrots are. The bird will need to be kept separate from dogs /cats (I.e., not in the same room. Even if a bird is in cage, if it's able to see a predator like a dog or cat in the same area, it will feel stressed from this, and that directly impacts their immune system and wellbeing). The bird should not be allowed to fly loose outside, as there are many predators (especially raptors) that will quickly try to take it, and it hasn't been raised outside so is naive about that. The starling is still quite young, and isn't able to feed herself yet. She needs to be fed once every 2-3 hours or so during the daytime. She will be learning to self feed in the coming weeks, but at her age they still depend on being fed by a parent in the wild. She can be fed soggy dog/cat kibble, live bugs such as crickets, mealworms, super worms (no earthworms), meat flavored human baby food, etc. As adults they occasionally like some fruits and veggies too, but they need protein and calcium regularly. I can explain more of anything as needed if there are any questions. If a lot of one on one time is spent with them at this age, they are known to become very attached and tame pets. It's not uncommon for them to live over 30 years in captivity. There is a $40 rehoming fee to encourage her going to a good home that can care for her. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about keeping them as pets. I also sometimes can adopt out young house sparrows as pets too; they are a little more delicate to care for as a baby but if someone wants to possibly talk about that more, you can contact me too.