Number 9!

Here is River. I went to work yesterday at 3 and by 3:30 we got a call about a baby raccoon possibly hit by a car....on River St. of course! Well she hadn't been hit but had a little scrape on her nose and her right eye is slightly puffy.

After talking to people in the area, I have no idea what her story is! She just "suddenly appeared" screaming on the sidewalk, on a very busy city street, with all kinds of people hanging around....and no one knows where she came from. What are the chances of that! No one has seen any raccoons in the area or claimed to have a possible nest in an attic or house or anywhere! (And the whole neighborhood was out watching as me and the officer that responded to the initial call checked her out) Amazing.

An older baby and in pretty good shape....only slightly dehydrated, so my first thought mom was moving her kits and River got separated....but the more I think about it, the more I doubt how likely it was a mother raccoon was moving her brood in broad daylight at 3:30 in the afternoon, right in the heart of the hustle and bustle of people and traffic.....She would have waited until it was quieter later that night.
Wanting to keep an eye on possible trauma and not very comfortable with putting her back in the situation she came from by trying to reunite with a mother I don't even know is around in a very bad spot, she has settled in nicely in the number 9 slot of our growing family!

The new gang.

Don't let the picture fool you! There are 5 cute little bodies all snuggled up in there. They look peaceful and calm at first......

....but reach in to get the first one to feed and it's all over!

You end up with 5 screaming hungry babies that all want to eat NOW!!!!!!

This gang was left in a cardboard box in someones yard then brought to me via the Animal Rescue League once again. Now hydrated, warm and eating formula from their bottles....they are screaming, eating, pooping machines!!! The machines are: 4 boys-Diesel, Dozer, Tank & Mack and 1 girl-Cat (as in Bobcat).

They are about 3 weeks old-most of their eyes are starting to crack open, and the perfect size to put Razz with once quarantine is over! He won't be alone for long.

Razz, Peanut and Cinnamon in the meantime continue to grow like weeds! The grand total is now 8 new kids.

No respect!

Out visiting the gang today and this is pretty much what I got from the lot of them! (make note of the many ways to stick your tongue out at mom!!) Guess they're sick of me taking tons of pics! LOL

Peanut and Cinnamon are here to stay. The animal rescue league made it over to the home finally and mom had already taken the rest of the kids and moved them to parts unknown. At least they are safe with mom and Peanut and Cinnamon are safe with me so it ends happy for everyone, although it would have been nice to reunite them all!

Bottles & baby raccoons-a demonstration!

Our little boy Peanut here is going to show us how is is possible for such a little creature to use such a big bottle to eat.

As you can see, he's just a little guy.....about 110grams now.....and the nipple is about as big as his muzzle. But looks can be deceiving!!

Because once they open that mouth....it's huge in there! A very big mouth, with a very large flat tongue that curls perfectly around a large nipple with a vacuum seal! And yes....big mouths mean big noise too...he's got a set of lungs on him alright!


Our little boy Razz is over twice the size of Peanut, weighing in at about 230grams now and doing great. He's an eating, pooping machine....and it's normal poops now! One more week and he's out of quarantine.
Turn the light out, I'm tryin' to sleep here lady!!!

Still waiting on the Animal Rescue League to assess Peanut & Cinnamon's mom and her situation. It's not a high priority though, since the rest of the babies are safe with mom.....so it's basically just a waiting game now, but at least I don't have to stress over their safety!

Porky and baby update.

Porky is taking great care of her new little one. Here she is feeding.....

And here is the baby....already a great climber!! Also already chomping on solid foods.

Awwww.....isn't that just the cutest thing!

Two new additions.

These 2 new cuties are hopefully temporary! Mom made a nest in the eaves of a 4 story home and the person that went up to check it out grabbed these two before mom could. She managed to grab the rest and move further back out of reach. Now we are just waiting for the Animal Rescue League to get over there and check out the situation. They will either try to catch mom and remaining kits so I can take them, reunite them with these 2, and put them all safely in Mary's release cage so mom can do all the work while we keep an eye on them- or boot mom out, get the babies and we will try reuniting outside the house. Worst case scenario....I end up with all the babies if we don't catch her and she doesn't come back for them all.

These guys are about a week old, a little girl that weighed in at 130grams.....

...and a little boy weighing in at 101grams.

It's a pretty good size difference at this age! He's just a little peanut next to her! (and I guess I now have a name for him if I end up keeping them!LOL)

The first boy that came in last week is doing awesome. Eating normal and solid, normal poops finally! I'm calling him Razz since he's always got the tip of his tongue sticking out....looks like he's giving me razzberries all the time!

The first baby of 2009 has arrived!

Well here he is in all his cuteness!! The first (yet to be named) little guy to come in this season. Mary and I picked him up Thursday night.

Mom was "removed" from a home. A couple days later the carpenter went by to close up the hole and found the nest. 2 babies already dead, this boy and his sister still alive. Although his intentions were good, his help led to the little girls demise. He put them in a box, got some milk and fed them....they were hungry and "ate great!" Then left them in the box in his shed until I got there. They were coonsicles when I got them, and the milk they were fed wrecked havoc on their already compromised condition. The little girl died the following morning.

After horrible diarrhea and belly aches and lots of supportive care and fluids, our little boy is finally feeling better and much more comfortable! He's still got some diarrhea, but it's not uncontrollable anymore and he's finally getting some proper formula into him!

OK....he's REALLY comfortable now!

And if anyone has ever wondered how such a little creature can use a big ol' human baby bottle to nurse, just look at the size of that mouth!! Once they get used to the new nipple, that tongue seals right around it- a perfect fit and they suck it down in no time!

So the unfortunate lesson learned here is this: if you find an orphaned baby (of any type!) DO NOT feed it ANYTHING, especially regular milk! Depending on how long baby has been without food, feeding it anything can kill it without kick starting the digestive system again properly. And feeding the wrong food can just destroy the gut. Pedialyte only and very carefully so animal does not aspirate (breath in) the fluids, and not until after the animal is warm if it is cold.

Please, call a rehabilitator who will advise you the best way to help in the situation until the baby can be transported. The best intentions can lead to the worst outcomes and it's a heartbreaking thing to watch!

A Porky surprise!

Ok....a wonderful and adorable story to enjoy from some fellow rehabber friends of mine! You can check them out here!

http://www.urbanwildliferehab.org/

Lots of great pics of all kinds of animals they have helped!

In the meantime, here is a good dose of cute!

Hello everyone, first a little back ground. Back around the middle of December of 2008 a severe ice storm came through our area. During the storm a large number of trees came down on the property of a Horseback riding/training company in Lincoln MA. During the clean up a porcupine was found in the fallen trees with frost bite on its paws and a respiratory infection. This animal was brought to us just after Christmas. He was named, "Porky". Well, after some meds, some R and R and a lot of veggies and a comfortable winter indoor stay he is ready for release now that spring is here. Well, over the last couple weeks his mood has changed, has not had a hearty an appetite and has been spending a lot more time lying quietly. He also seemed to have developed an affinity for fluff filled quilts.

SO, imagine our surprise when we discovered that about 8:30 PM EST, Porky (the supposed male porcupine) had a baby. We heard Porky making some odd sounds and when we looked in on him , (HER) we found her little one. Baby's eyes are open and the little tyke is walking around. We are blown away. Blown away! It is just so friggen cool! Attached are the pictures of the latest addition to our wildlife rehab. I hope you all find them interesting. According to some rehabilitators who have had more experience caring for porcupines are saying that we will likely have to hold onto Porky and her baby for a fair amount of time since Porky does not have a nest (in the wild) although she certainly will get anything she wants from us to fill her needs for a nest!Enjoy!

Hello everyone, Here it is 24 hours later. We have been giving "Porky" plenty of piece and quiet (some "space" if you will) throughout the day. We have only been intruding on her privacy just long enough to change out the soiled bedding, refresh her water and resupply her food bowl. Around 10:30PM we check our animals one last time for the night (water, litter boxes and so on). While we were down there we heard some curious sounds...like claws on the artificial tree we have in the cage for Porky to climb to the upper platform (which we cover with Hemlock branches). We looked in and what do you know? Porky's baby, a little over 24 hours old, is already learning to climb a tree! Of course I had to grab the digital camera. Below are some photo's of baby climbing the artificial tree.
Isn't nature a curious and wonderful thing! A very rare opportunity to see life renewed. Robbin, Joan, Dee and I are just amazed by these events over the last day.
Enjoy!

Awwwwwwwwww!!!!!!

The squirrels are free!

Yesterday was a beautiful day with a few more predicted, so it was time to release the 4 gray squirrels finally!! It was like I brought them to Disney World, running around and playing like maniacs in the trees. Great fun to watch!

One of them at a feeder on top of the cage.

Mojo took a minute to slow down and say thanks!

.....and give a couple poses for the camera!

Laurie has her hands full! She went from 2 baby grays to 6 reds and another older gray all in one day! Here is one of the groups of reds......they area adorable!!!

The damn coondo camera hasn't been working right. It's taking still pics but the video won't play. It's possibly a problem with the sd card so I am hoping getting a new one will solve the problem. It's hard to assess injuries with still shots!

This is Lexi, the girl I think is the injured one that has not been using her front leg. She is using it somewhat still and is even starting to look like an expecting mother again. It's obviously not slowing her down too much! It's been about a month and she's still visiting regularly and getting around fine....and enjoying her food!

Late night visit.

I worked late Saturday night so I had the opportunity to head out back to look for the injured raccoon at 2am with no luck. I think it is Lexi so I know if I find her I should at least be able to get a look at it and check her out. Regardless, she is doing well despite hopping around on 3 legs and she does use it at times. She has to use it to climb up onto the feeding platform.

My late night visit was not a futile one though. Red came down to say Hi. It was a beautiful full moon and I didn't even need a flashlight! While visiting with Red I noticed some movement on the water. I figured someone was swimming over to visit, but when I got a closer look I noticed it was Hissy.

What a silly goose! (literally). He must have heard me calling the gang and over he came to say Hi (and get a little snack of course!). He comes in every day since he returned when I head out there. When he doesn't see me coming and he's not waiting for me there, a few calls out over the water and he shows up. It's kind of funny watching all the ducks racing away from me while this big goose heads straight for me. He's usually with the Mrs. but lately she hasn't been with him so I'm guessing there may be some little Hissy's soon to come! Then, thanks to our little friendship, I'll get to see all those cute little yellow babies close up when they come in to visit and watch them grow.

Mohawks, hairclips & hammocks.

With the exception of Mohican, all the older boys are sporting mohawks. Which is kind of funny because the whole reason Mohican was named Mo was due to the mohawk he had when he came in as a baby.....long fur sticking straight up along his back. Oh the irony!

The rest of the gang have nappy, hairless butts on both sides while still holding on to a streak of fur up the spine! It ain't pretty!! LOL

A sneak attack from above as Tosser manages to sneak onto my head and proceed to chomp on my hair clip......he enjoyed it thoroughly and luckily I have more! It didn't stand a chance!

Winter took it's toll on the hammocks out there. With the nice weather I finally replaced one of them! You would think I brought them to Disney World! The antics started immediately on top of the hammock.....

...and one by one they learned about getting inside the hammock, wrestling between the layers...... (They are burlap bags.)

....until they all ended up inside!

Anyone not already in there was ambushed when they walked by!! Look at the grip one of the twins has on poor Rollo! Ouch!

The beavers chances are looking up!

Got an update from Tuft's today on the beaver. She....it's a girl...is doing very well! Eating, chewing her twigs and she flooded the clinic once already doing what she does best, diverting water! They left the hose in her pool to fill it and went to do some other things so she took the hose and re-directed the water under the door.

Went to the dentist for some work. The top teeth both there and fine and growing in well. One of the bottom was broken to the pulp and the other was long. Now that all is fixed it's just a matter of waiting to see how they all grow in, but it's looking good! It may be about a month to see how all the teeth wear though....like watching grass grow now basically, but I'm thrilled to hear she is doing well.

Injury updates..

I think one injured coon is getting better out there. This is the one that has not been using it's front leg much, but as you can see here, it's getting used a little more now. After looking through older video I hadn't had a chance to go through yet, I discovered the injury may be as old as March 16th! But the raccoon is doing great despite it and now appears to be on the mend. If given the chance, I will still try to get a look and examine it...but I'm not as concerned about it now as I was before.

While going through last night's video I think I saw another raccoon favoring a rear leg, but it was brief and only on one clip so I cannot be positive and will now be keeping an eye out for that one! It never ends!

These pesky guys are the reason I switched to these feeders! They will go through a whole bucket in no time when they flock in!! I used to use buckets with holes in them, then started covering the holes with flap which lasted well until the squirrels chew the hole bigger and the flap doesn't cover the hole anymore. As you can see, they can open this flap....but without legs they can't grab the food while holding the flap open! Ha!! The little bastard knows it's in there and how to get at it, it just can't because it doesn't have enough legs!

Now that I have been watching their efforts on video I can see that they pretty much just play cleanup....grabbing whatever the raccoons and squirrels drop outside the feeder.

Meeko and Bear!!

Popped over Mary's Wednesday night....and yes, despite the pouring rain I had to walk out back and look for the kids! I found one raccoon up on a den box, huffing away at the very strange creature that was also down by the feeding station.....a small cat.

I was very happy to discover it was Meeko in such a dilemma.....she wanted to come down and see me, but oooooooooooooo, that scary creature was also down there saying Hi to MY mother! What do I do!! Mind you, the cat was no bigger than she was (if not even smaller).

Eventually Meeko got brave (since mom was there to protect her, after all) and came down to play. And she was very playful! She even tried to play with the cat....she was wary but wanted to play oh so bad! If the cat ignored her, she would go right up to and sniff it over, but as soon as it turned toward her, she puffed up, did the backward shuffle and bounced around, going up a tree to shoulder level where she could half hold the tree, half sit on my shoulder while watching this new possible playmate intently. Then as soon as it would turn it's butt towards the tree, down she went to try to check it out again! Very amusing to watch and what a silly girl! For the most part, the cat couldn't be bothered and was in no way concerned about her, that's for sure!

I did have my cell phone on me and one very bright flashlight so I managed to get some pics of her enjoying a marshmallow treat! (While the cat weaved in and out of my legs right below her!)

I think she is pregnant...the base of her nipples are just starting to get pretty big! We shall see!

Mary was out there last night and ran into Bear. The gang is starting to stir and hopefully with better weather we will see more of the gang come in for a visit! I would love to see my Buster boy again!

The pool is open!

The water is turned on, the hoses are hooked up and we have splashdown!!! (Much to the gangs amusement)

The 3 little kids loved their first pool experience!

Thanks Mom!!