Baby bird feeding kit

The feeder syringe, shown on the edge of the mortar and pestle, is filled with today’s formula for Chip: a roughly 50-50 mix of cat food and a paste of pulverized millet and sunflower seed with a drop of olive oil and some water. Since the syringe is made for shooting liquids only, I had to drill out the tip a bit to allow some chunks to pass through. Chip loves this mix enough to display the “Feed me! Feed me!” display of nearly-weaned birds, with the outstretched wings and gaping mouth. Additionally he gets drops of water slowly squeezed from a cotton ball. He has been flying back and forth in his rat cage today, and is actually gaining altitude. He still weighs only 7 grams, though. Perhaps he’s burning off baby fat and developing strong flight muscles. He never shuts up, and his peeping frequency is a bit faster. It will be so nice to see him fly off into our recently-enlarged sky.