One of the first things to do in the morning at the IBRRC is to feed all the hungry birds. Some of them are fed whole food, while others need to be gavage (tube) fed. Today, I fed the ducks, the goose, the coot, the pelicans, and the grebes. This was a really fun job.

First, I fed the ducks. They eat duck pellets, mixed with a little bit of ground up oyster shell, and greens. The oyster shell is added because ducks in the wild sift when they feed. The ducks were really excited about the lettuce, but kind of turned their bills up at the pellets. Next, I fed the goose duck pellets and lettuce. He pretty much felt the same way as the ducks. I then fed the pelicans whole fish in water. In the wild, pelicans plunge for their fish and scoop them up with water. They can hold up to three gallons of water in their pouch! They let the water drain out the sides of their mouths before swallowing the fish. I fed the coot next. The coot eats what they call, “coot soup.” This is a delicious mixture of seeds, grains, lettuce, duck pellets, krill, cut up fish, live meal worms, and water. Cutting up the raw, squishy fish with scissors and picking up live meal worms was a pretty gross job! Finally, I fed the little Eared Grebes. They got the same mixture as the coot, without the duck pellets and the seeds. They seemed to really like the live meal worms…yum!  It was really fun to watch the birds eat. It’s also a great way to gauge their overall health. I know that when I don’t feel good, I don’t feel like eating. It seems to work the same way with birds.

If you watch the video, you’ll notice that the coot came right up to me when I entered his pen. He is very used to people because he was somebody’s pet for a few weeks. A member of the public found him as a chick and tried to raise him at her house. This was a bad idea. Birds and other wild animals need to remain wild in order to be able to survive in their natural habitats. He was turned over to the IBRRC after a few weeks when he started “eating too much.” He’s too habituated to people now to just release, so he's going to a sort of “half way house.” He's being placed with someone with a huge pond in their backyard, where many bird species come and go. He will be fed there and can remain there if he wants. In the future, if he wants, he can return to the wild.