NOTE: As owners of this website, we have chosen to share our experiences and opinions on these webpages. We present this info "as is", and we shall have no liablility to anyone regarding any circumstance or occurrence related to the starling(s) or other birds in their care. It is each starling owner's responsibility to make the best choices for the diet, safety, health, care and wellbeing of his or her own starling.

Contents:

The European Starling's Diet

Our Adult Starlings' Diet

Why Did We Choose this Diet?

Why is Diet SO Important?

Healthy Supplements

Foods We Avoid

About Avian Vitamins

Live Insects and Worms

Poultry mash, veggies, grit, etc

Diet Related Links

Feeding a Baby Starling

Final Thoughts

What Do Wild European Starlings Eat?
Starlings are softbilled birds (this means that they eat a diet of soft foods). Starlings are not seed-eating birds like parrots, nor are they fruit-eating birds like some mynahs. They eat a diet high in soft-bodied insects and round out their diet with occasional vegetation and fruits. Although often described as omnivores, they eat a larger amount of insects than do many omnivorous birds. European starlings require animal protein in their diets, which they receive from eating huge numbers of invertebrates. According to The Starling by Dr. Christopher Feare, "the absence of animal protein from the starling diet leads to weight loss and death." Click the following link for more info: "Animal protein is necessary for European starlings!"

Diet for Rescued Starlings
We cannot perfectly emulate the wild starling's diet. However, many wildlife rehab centers feed a cat food or dog food based mixture to starlings and other wild baby songbirds in their care. Jackie Collins suggests a similar diet for European starlings -- a diet based on the current knowledge of songbird diet. This recommended diet has proven successful at providing necessary animal protein and other beneficial nutrients required by these birds. See Jackie's recommended diet here: Adult Starling Diet

Learn More!
To find out what European starlings eat in the wild and why a diet containing dog/cat food (animal protein!) is nutritional for rescued starlings, read the following article at the Starling Talk website: "What? Feed Dog food To A Starling?"

Stormy, Sunshine, and Shadow's MAIN DAILY DIET is based on Starling Talk's Adult Starling Diet webpage.
Our starlings' main daily food is a one dish meal consisting of finely ground dry dog food mixed with ground poultry layer feed (sometimes called "poultry mash" or "layer mash"). Our birds love this food mixture and will eat it dry or moistened. It is the mainstay of their diet, and they get other healthy foods as occasional small supplements.

There are several brands of dry cat or dog foods that contain a good balance of animal protein and fat for starlings. Click this webpage to see a list several appropriate brands.

Why Do We Trust the Dog/Cat Food Based Diet for Our Starlings?
We chose this diet as our starlings' main daily diet for several reasons: It is based on what is currently known about European starling diet. It supplies our starlings with necessary animal protein and a good balance of vitamins, essential amino acids and minerals. Wildlife rehabbers across our country have a very good longterm track record feeding a similar dog/cat food diet to many wild songbirds in their care.

Experience with our own starlings over the years has shown us that the dog/cat food diet is providing them with the nutrition they need to remain in tip-top shape. At the time of this writing, Stormy is ten years old, Sunny is eight years old, and Shadow is six years old. All three starlings are energetic, healthy, and glossy. Their feathers, beaks and nails are in good condition.

About Inadequate Avian Diet and Malnutrition
It is extremely important that we feed our European starlings a diet that is correct for their species, one with the proper level of animal protein and the necessary balance of amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Why is this? -- Any bird fed a daily diet lacking the required nutrients for its species WILL eventually develop malnutrition. For instance, a starling could be fed a large amount of foods every day and appear fat and energetic for a time, yet the bird will still develop malnutrition if the foods are deficient in the required nutrients. Its owner may be unaware that the bird is in trouble until it is too late.

If on a deficient diet, a starling's body will attempt to compensate for the lack of nutrition by utilizing the reserves of nutrients already stored in its body. If a starling is fed an inadequate diet, its body will attempt to compensate for the lack of nutrition by utilizing the reserves of nutrients already stored in its body. These reserved nutrients will become depleted, and when this happens, signs of malnutrition will manifest. This does not happen overnight! Diet-related diseases due to depletion of nutrients in the body can take several years to become obvious, but they WILL show up sooner or later in birds on poor diets. Results will be both physical and behavioral and could include any of the following: poor feather condition, decreased resistance to bacterial, fungal or viral diseases, chronic kidney failure, liver disease, respiratory problems, hyperkeratosis, hypocalcemia (low calcium levels) which causes bone fractures, muscle atrophy, weakness and unsteadiness, listlessness, and much, much more. Once malnutrition reaches its advanced stages, it results in death of the bird.

The following are just a few examples of nutritionally deficient diets for European starlings: a mealworm diet, an all insect diet, a commercial parrot food diet, a mynah pellet diet, a seed diet, a raw meat diet, a rice diet, a bread and milk diet, an all fruit/vegetable diet, or any diet that lacks required animal protein and the right levels of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.

We want to emphasize here that the dog food mixture is our starlings' MAIN daily food, and our birds receive other foods only occasionally. Additional foods consist of a small amount of egg or chicken and a veggie or fruit.

When offering healthy supplements, we serve them in small portions and do not mix them with the main diet food. We most often feed these foods to our starlings while they are spending time outside of their cages; this ensures that they will eat their all important main diet mixture when inside their cages.

Animal Protein Foods
In addition to their very important main diet mixture, we occasionally give our starlings a small amount of cooked egg or cooked chicken. These small animal protein treats are served separately from the main food and are not left sitting out.

Veggies for Vitamin A and Other Nutrients
Vitamin A is extremely important, so several times a week we give our birds vegetables high in beta carotene (beta carotene converts to vitamin A in the body). See the list of our preferred veggies and fruits below.

• Dark green or orange vegetables -- broccoli, kale, sprouted seeds, cooked mashed sweet potato, cooked/chopped carrots, pumpkin (We prefer to slightly cook root veggies before serving, as this makes their nutrients easier to absorb. Yes, starlings can digest raw root veggies, but they receive more of the important nutrients from slightly cooked ones.)
• Fruits -- figs (our starlings' favorite!), blueberries, blackberries, cherries (chopped with pits removed), apple bits, or chopped grapes

An Occasional Homemade Snack
Once in a while (not daily) we give all our birds a tiny amount of homemade birdie bread. If you are interested in our recipe, click here.

NOTE: We remove fresh foods from our birds' cages after a couple of hours and never let them sit out for extended periods. Many fresh foods will spoil and grow bacteria if left out for long periods. The result can be an ill bird.

• Parrot pellets, softbill pellets, mynah food, or monkey chow (These diets are formulated for seedeaters or fruiteaters, and they do not meet a starling's nutritional requirements! A starling needs around 33% animal protein in its diet.)
• Raw meats or raw eggs (We cook ALL meats or eggs before serving.)
• Cherry pits and apple pips
• Foods high in sugar (cookies, cake, candy, etc.)
• Very salty junk foods and processed foods (potato chips, hot dogs, etc.)
• Chocolate drinks, sodas
• Dairy products other than some grated hard cheese occasionally (No milk or ice cream)
• Alcoholic beverages
• See the Starling Talk website for a list of inappropriate treats for starlings.

We do not give vitamins to our starlings on a regular basis, rather we prefer to offer vitamins only when our birds are molting or seem stressed. When we do offer vitamins, we do not add them to drinking water. We feel that adding vitamins to a starling's food is much more effective and safe than adding them to water. Vitamins added to water break down and begin to decompose within several hours, leaving them ineffective. If the vitamins remain in drinking water for hours, bacterial growth is encouraged, and the water becomes slimy. This may cause illness. Some popular powdered avian vitamins include Hagen's Prime (our choice), Superpreen, Vionate, and Nekton -- all can be sprinkled on or mixed into moist food. Avitron is a good liquid avian vitamin that can be added to foods instead of to water. Avian vitamins can be found at various online bird supply stores by doing an online search for the various brands.

When giving a bird vitamins, it is very important to use avian vitamins (vitamins made for birds) and to read the directions as to the amount required. A tiny amount goes a long way. Too many synthetic vitamins in a bird's diet can be detrimental to its health!

Live Insects (Fun occasional treats, but not a necessity)
Insects are not a necessity for a pet starling who is on the recommended Starling Talk dog/cat food diet, and we do not feed live insects to our own starlings. It is important for new starling owners to realize that a diet consisting of mostly or only insects will not supply a complete diet for a starling.

Some starling owners do feed live insects such as crickets to their starlings as treats, and this should not be a problem as long as they feed them only occasionally and in limited quantities. We know of some pet starlings who were fed as many insects as they wanted daily, and the result was that these birds soon refused to eat anything else. Feeding a pet starling only crickets or mealworms is putting the bird's health at risk.

Mealworms (Low in nutrition)
Mealworms (beetle larvae) supply very little nutrition to a starling, and they are high in fat. We do not feed them to our starlings, however. if you decide to feed mealworms to your starling, it would be best to offer them only as infrequent treats and to raise the nutritional value of the mealworms a bit by gut-loading them. (Gut loading is growing the worms in dry dog food or cat food and scraped cuttlebone or by growing them in chicken mash.) It is a fact that a diet of ALL mealworms or mostly mealworms will eventually result in health problems due to nutritional deficiencies such as Hyperkeratosis, and such a deficient diet can even result in death.

Earthworms (We avoid them.)
Earthworms and night crawlers can carry harmful parasites. These parasites are the Syngamus trachea, commonly known as "gapeworm." Earthworms can ingest the parasites and harbor them in their bodies for several years. Birds who eat the infected earthworms may become infected with gapeworm larvae. Gapeworms can be present in large numbers and may completely fill the airway, resulting in extreme respiratory difficulty for a bird. While it is true that some wild birds eat earthworms, many birds cannot handle the parasites they carry. We avoid feeding earthworms to our own starlings.

What is poultry layer mash?
Poultry layer mash (or layer feed) is chicken food that is formulated for laying hens. It is sold in feed stores and livestock supply stores. When buying poultry mash, you might find it called by one of the following terms: chicken mash, chicken feed, or layer feed, crumbles or mash, etc. Do not buy chicken "scratch" or poultry "starter" food for use in the starling diet. (Chicken scratch is simply cracked corn and grains; starter food is for poultry chicks and often contains antiobiotics, which should not be fed to starlings.)

Good vegetable sources of beta-carotene (for vitamin A)
Orange/yellow carotene-rich veggies & fruits including carrots, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, winter squashes, cantaloupe, mangos, apricots etc. Dark green, leafy vegetables in this group include kale, broccoli leaves, turnips, collards. Sprouted seeds are excellent sources of vitamin A, and our birds love them.

No grit or gravel needed.
European starlings do not have crops, but they do have very efficient gizzards and do not require grit or gravel in their diets as do doves or pigeons. We have never given grit to our starlings, and we do not recommend it.