This may be a little long, but you may enjoy my bird story that I need help on asap! 
haha
My mom’s house is home to a family of barn swallows every year. They just built a nest and they had their babies. They are very high up over the door (about 40 feet) and 3 days ago my mom came home and found a tiny baby swallow on the porch and it was still alive. My dad went up on the ladder and put the baby bird back in the nest. The next day, same thing happened and he was lucky we didn’t accidentally step on him since he was so tiny. He barely grew his feathers and he still survived his 2nd fall from way up high.
My stepdad said that sometimes birds in the wild will push the runt out of the nest (survival of the fittest I guess). So we got a small cardboard box with high edges so he doesn’t fall out and securely put the box on top of the ladder and he is still alive and moving and pooping, but they are getting runnier. My mom said she has seen the mother bird fly to the box so it seems like she is feeding it.
My stepdad said he saw 3 other baby birds in the nest when he put the bird back in the nest but the other babies are almost twice his size. The mother stays perched next to the nest at night and doesn’t move at all.
So far it has been 3 days since he fell out of his nest and my mom is worried that its going to die because it is so small, but I think if he has made it this far that he has luck on living.
At night we put him in a small bird cage on our bench since the neighbors cat is always finding mice and bunnies—-we don’t want him to get the bird! We never move him out of his mothers view and we NEVER take him inside the house. During the day, he goes in his other box that is taped to the top of the ladder for the mother to care for him. My mom keeps an eye on the bird family everyday.
The only time we touch the bird is when we are transfering him into the small cage so he is safe at night from the cat. At night the mother doesn’t budge from her spot which is about 5 feet away from the nest so we know she doesn’t feed the babies at night.
I’m no bird expert but he seems like a fighter and he walks around the bottom of the box and stretches his wings often. He does not look injured or doesn’t seem to have anything broken.
If this helps, we live in Austin, TX and its right now its hitting 100 degrees or more everyday.
My questions are:
How do we know he is being fed by his mother? Can I tell by how much he poops?
My mom read that you can take dog food and grind it into a powder, add some water to soften it up and feed it to the baby with a straw.
I just want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to help him live.
Today is a sad day for our family and my mom said that if the bird somehow dies today, she would be pretty upset. I just want to make sure we can do all we can and hopefully watch it fly away healthy.
It is for sure a barn swallow, about a couple weeks ago they hatched.
Any advice that I can get and any success stories about saving a bird like this will be very appreciated!!!!
He looks just like this as of now:
http://www.new-jersey-birds.com/uploaded_images/BabyBarnSwallows-762564.JPG
