Common Swifts are extremely complicated patients! Even the smallest mistakes in treatment can have fatal consequences. Inform yourself thoroughly before you do anything on your own or try to feed the bird. You can get telephone advice at the Swift Clinic of the DGfM at 069-35351504. If there is an opportunity to hand over the found bird immediately to the Swift Clinic or to a competent care facility, this is definitely preferable to your own manipulations! If this is not possible, the following pages provide detailed instructions for dealing with a Common Swift.
Measures for initial care of the Common Swift immediately after finding:
- Give the Common Swift a few drops of water, which you apply with your finger to the edge of the beak. No drinking or feeding attempts with birds in shock! Young birds should snap at the finger (see also "Feeding").
- Shock, injuries or wounds? Immediately to a veterinarian who is familiar with the treatment of birds! In case of collisions, shock treatment must be carried out immediately, every hour counts! Never simply throw a Common Swift found on the ground into the air! No release attempts until it is clear what is wrong with the bird.
For transport: Use a softly lined cardboard box, never a cage! - Check the nutritional status of the swift by weighing. Rough rule of thumb: Feathered Common Swift under 30g = very critical! Then emergency care by a veterinarian is necessary (infusions with supplements).
- Place the Common Swift in a plastic box or cardboard box lined with soft kitchen towels / towel, never in a cage! Keep hypothermic, injured or emaciated birds warm (e.g., heat lamp, 32°C - 35°C; no UV light!). Place in a quiet and semi-dark location.
- Get food! Crickets or steppe crickets (subadult stages, wingless!) are the food of choice and are available in almost all pet shops. If not immediately available, bridge with the following substitute food:
- a) Send family and all friends out to catch insects (e.g., flies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, locusts - no earthworms!) and spiders.
- b) Beekeeper nearby (the fire department sometimes knows this)? Beige-brown to dark, almost mature drones (= male bees) are not only suitable as substitute food and nutritional supplement, but also as a digestible supplementary food to the crickets.
- Initially give food only in the smallest portions and make sure that the Common Swift swallows and defecates. Make sure the bird does not choke! The opening of the trachea is immediately behind the tongue!
- Feed with clean, blunt tweezers if possible - "finger in the beak" without thorough prior cleaning and disinfection of hands means risk of infection for the bird by introducing germs into the throat!
Vital for the Common Swift:
Species-appropriate food (insects and spiders) must be administered as quickly as possible. Under no circumstances experiment with human food. Under no circumstances should minced meat be given. No cat or dog canned food.