How to get birds to eat on their own?

Hello, I'm a novice at wildlife rescue and I've been looking for some good ways to help get my birdies learn to eat on their own. Any suggestions?

Are you feeding adult or baby birds and what kind f bird forst of all???

They are babies. One is a house sparrow and the other is a crow

I raised up a baby crow some years back to its adulthood. I fed him boiled egg with some sort of extra protein in it such as earthworms, raw hamburger ,or other beef Later on he ate just about anything we ate. He loved to eat spaghetti, oatmealthawed veggies cooked chicken etc. You have to feed often when they are very young until dark then early early in morning. He grew up very large and very strong even learned to talk. He could say hello MOE (his name moe the crow) I never raised a house sparrow but I think it would be like hand feeding my canaries with a toothpick (very carefully) and feed it bugs or mealworms grub worm which you can buy at a bait shop. They need lots of protein which the bugs supply. Later you can try placing wild bird seed on bottom of cage Remember the grub worm will supply aliqurd also in there diet. When giving water just the tiniest of drop if food does not cantain enough. good luck might be a good idea to look up feeding wild birds. I have only fed crows. and they did great. good luck

Oh, I've got bird formula for feeding the birds, I was just wondering if anyone knew any tricks for getting them to eat on their own. Both are currently on droppers right now. Their old enough to be fed every 2 hours during the day. I got one of my birds to eat on its own by hanging food over its head. When it finally realized the food wouldn't drop into its mouth it would peck at it. Maybe I should go back to this method. I was hopping there were some other ideas. The house sparrow is very noisy so in between feedings he has to go out side. Luckily it's warm enough I can do that! So I was hoping I could speed the process for him so he wouldn't complain so much. As far as the crow goes, he's not going anywhere for a while. He's got a broken foot and will have cage rest for 6 weeks so he's got plenty of time to learn. He's currently getting a slurry of bird formula, dog food, an egg, and some vitamin supplements. I can't wait to add bugs to his diet because I think its funny when they eat them!

Do you have pearches in the cages? If you do you can try taking them out like I do my baby canaries and put food, bugs grubs etc in a very shallow dish and most birds are curious and will start picking for just that reason.

My crow is starting to get curious. When ever I change the newspaper in the bottom of his cage he pecks at the new pictures and words. He actually started drinking out of his water bowl for me today. My sparrow has a ways to go though. I've fed him some seeds so he knows what there about but I think he's got more growing up to do.

Thats great news, are you putting alittle food on bottom of cage,maybe try alittle soften high protein dog food. They will eat almost anything eventuallyat least mine did,loved spaghetti oatmeal scambled eggs. Any thing but road kill Im sure sparrow will catch on soon also .How long you had these guys so far anyway? Your doing it right I'd say or they would be in birdie heaven. It really takes alot to beable to raise wild birds Keep up the good work

I've had them for about 2 weeks. I think I got both of them on the same day. I've got some softened up cat food in the crows cage right now and he's shown some interest in it. I get to recheck his broken foot sometime in the middle of July.