And so it begins.....

Baby season has officially kicked off! JoAnn has 3 baby buns and I now have these 2 adorable little ones. The little boy came in first on Thursday. He was found in the morning by some construction workers in the middle of a cement floor of the building they are working on. No idea where he came from or how he got there and there are no injuries on him. Definitely no trauma from a very bad fall, indicating he didn't fall from the rafters above either.

A little heat and some fox fur, thanks to the Coats for Cubs program, and he's a happy boy.

After being re hydrated and finally getting a good meal, he falls right to sleep in my hand.

Friday morning I get another call, the exact same situation! Another baby found in the same spot. This time the guys look around and do eventually find a raccoon holed up in the building. However, it's a large complex with many rooms that is not sealed....there could be a lot of raccoons in there in various places. We were not comfortable trying a reunite in this situation for a couple of reasons. First, we had no idea if the adult in question was in fact the mom. Second, if it was, why were her kits ending up on the floor and why was she leaving them there!

After getting a better look at the new girl, she has a laceration on her back and some minor scrapes on her belly. This is definitely a case of something getting at the babies and for whatever reason, leaving them in that particular spot. So we've got the guys keeping an eye out at the site and our little girls wound has been cleaned up, she's on antibiotics, re hydrated and eating her formula well.

Brother and sister have been happily reunited safe and sound!

Ouchie!!!!

A fellow rehabbher had a very gimpy coon, thought to be one of their releases, come into the feeding station. Luckily they were able to trap the poor fella so we could take a look. The leg was thought to be broken, and then some!

Turns out it was not a past release, but a very fat and healthy male (with the exception of the injury!) that was just friends with their releases. One reason for the limp was immediately obvious! Someone had chewed on his back leg and took some of his toes with them. Yes, that little piece of white is a bone. Although it looks bad, nothing a little amputation won't fix and he can do just fine without it.

 Of more concern was a break in the leg but luckily xrays did not show any major breaks. Possibly a little something by the knee, but nothing cage rest wouldn't take care of since the knee was stable.

 OK, so I may have taken advantage of the poor guys situation! He was just so big and fat and silly snoozing there, how could I resist? What do ya think, next playmate of the month? LOL

Not a juvenile based on his size, teeth and his "ahem" family jewels (which get more prominent around breeding season which is now)! We figure he's reached breeding age this year....so about 2. Doesn't look like he'll be participating this year though, poor fella! It may even be the reason he's all chewed up....trying to move in on another boars chick!

This is one overwinter that won't be staying here. He's in good hands back with the rehabber that rescued him!



Lisa's Birthday party.

Thanks to a night off for everyone and a very yummy cake made by Mary....

....we were able to get together to officially celebrate Lisa's (29th!) birthday!

Once again another wonderful night of food, friends and fun!! And a bunch of dogs crawling into every ones laps...LOL. But the girls are used to that by now when we get together at my house. And this time we have pictures of Lisa AWAKE on the couch by the end of the night! (although I do look forward to getting those wonderful pics and surprising her with them!)

All else is well in the animal kingdom. Boston is doing great, all the overwinters are fine and the little porcupine brought to Tuft's is improving! Enough so that it is ready to go to a rehabber for long term convalescence. So Dee and Tom will be arranging to get the little fella where it will be in good hands! Another happy ending....love it!

Boston before and after.

I am thrilled to report great progress with Boston's recovery! The pictures are worth a thousand words! Just look at how well the wounds are healing.



He is also walking on it pretty well. The top of the foot is taking a little longer, but is improving as well. He was not quite as cooperative about showing that to the camera! Soon I'll be separating the boys from the girls and chances are he will join the boys in a new pen. I think he'll  be happy to have some company and make new friends!

Update on Boston the ARL rescue.

Here is the lucky boy. Is he handsome or what! He's pretty relaxed and tolerant of me...as long as I'm not poking, prodding or trying to spray smelly granulex on his leg!

Here is the result of having you leg stuck and hanging from it with all of your body weight for a long period of time! Aside from the nerve damage, the major swelling after having the limb unstuck leads to wounds like this. I know it looks pretty bad, but in all actuality they look good for this type of wound! The tissue is nice and pink and alive and there is a healthy blood supply to the area.

And...if you look closely in this picture you can see his other rear leg as he proceeds to step out of the den box. Why is that so exciting you may ask? Well because while he's lifting that leg to step out, he's using his injured one to stand on, and it's in the proper position with no toes knuckling under! He's using the foot and leg! Wooohooooo!

The full extent of it's use will not be known for sure until a lot of healing has occurred and nerve damage takes time and patience.....so for now I am optimistic that Boston will continue to recover after a long layover here in the safety of his pen. Lucky for him also,  Brian from the ARL realized he needed more than just getting unstuck and sent on his way. Nice job Brian and thanks for getting him here!

The squirrels & the new boy gets a name.

How could I forget to update you on the squirrels! *Sigh*....my aging mind is not as sharp as it used to be! My gang of 12.....including little Acorn and a slew of JoAnn's babies, are romping the woods and loving it! It's going to be a bad year food-wise for rodents, and these guys were a little later getting released than I would like due to so many babies and waiting their turn in a release pen. But fear not! The release pens are remaining open for them to utilize as needed through the winter and unlike the releases before them that eventually ventured off to make their own nests in the woods, these guys do not seem to be in a big hurry to do so! Many are still returning at night to sleep. And as you can see below, they have also figured out where they can find a good meal every day too!

Some of the gang will still grab a nut or two from my hands also. Walnut especially still loves his Momma!

The funny thing is when I'm out by the release pen they won't come up to me to get their nuts....they go run into the release pen and wait for me inside by the door. Why you may ask? Well, when they were being formula fed, I would feed each one then put them into a different cage to wait until everyone was done. With such a large group it was the only way to know who was fed already and who wasn't. Plus as they get older they are a little more jumpy and harder to catch. So when they were all fed in the other cage I needed to make it easier to get them back into the main pen without them all getting loose in the room and impossible to catch! I would then get one nut, and one at a time hand them a nut which they would take then scoot back into the main pen. Now they are sort of trained! They think to get their nut they have to go to the door! So instead of just coming up to me outside....they run inside to the door! LOL! Don't let anyone ever tell you they are not smart and can not be trained!

Pretty soon my gang will start filling out and look like the wild gang out there....big, fat, porkers! Look how round he is! The picture does not do the portliness of this guy justice. Putting it bluntly....I have some fat ass squirrels out there! As you can see the acorn shortage will not be a problem for the squirrels of my acquaintance.

A check this morning of the island release site revealed no coonies....and no food! They're coming back for regular visits to eat but they have apparently found new homes elsewhere. Our babies are all growed' up!

The rest of the overwinters are fine. The new boy the ARL had rescued that was stuck in the notch of a tree is doing well. It is still unsure how well he will recover or if he'll get the use of his leg back. The swelling and nerve damage have caused some sores and sloughing of skin on the top of his foot and on the inside of his knee. He's on antibiotics and although the wounds look pretty bad, they are actually doing well. The tissue is pink and healthy and bleeds occasionally which means it is not necrotic ( or dead), meaning it the tissue is alive and healthy and there is good circulation to it. It is just going to take some time to heal. Then the issue will be the extent of the nerve damage....will he be able to use the leg again. It's going to be a long haul for this guy, but he's eating well, his spirits are good, and he's got a safe place to take as long as he needs to recover! I am hoping for the best...something only time will tell.

I had put off naming him, not knowing his fate. However as it seems he may be around for a while...a friend has taken to calling him Boston for lack of a better name from me....so Boston it is V! :)

Update on the new kid.

The new kid brought in by the ARL Boston has settled in pretty well. A big, fat juvenile, in great shape and pretty calm and laid back considering the changes that have occurred in his life these past couple days! No problem getting around the cage and eating well (always a good sign). Right now the lower leg is too swollen to ascertain the damage, so at this time he's just getting meloxicam for the pain and inflammation. Once the swelling has gone down enough it will allow for a better exam of the leg and foot so we can proceed accordingly with treatment. For now, he's living the high life while he has me waiting on him hand and foot!

WARNING!! Graphic photos to yesterdays story!

OK....for those who dared to stomach it, here are the photos of the poor little baby I told you about yesterday.

So very sad and horrible. :(

I must leave you with something a little more upbeat! Just a cute little image to try to get the others out of your head a little....my foxy friend having a quiet moment next to one of her new friends. I think they are having a fling! LOL  :)

Our work is not all fuzzy and cute.

Once you see something, you can not un-see it. That is why I am going to tell you about a horrible case that came in Sunday now, and post the pictures tomorrow....so you will not accidentally see a nightmare you will never un-see again! You have been forewarned so don't open the graphic photos if you do not want to see it please.

Rehabilitating wildlife is not all cute little orphans to play with and feed and set free again. Once you get into this you are going to learn how terribly cruel people can be to animals and you are going to learn some of the horrific things that animals endure. It opens a whole new door of knowledge that can never be closed again. Ignorance is bliss....if you don't know all about these awful things then you can truly enjoy all the happy, warm, fuzzy stories and pictures and all is good!

Unfortunately we are not ignorant. Unfortunately sometimes all we can do is end suffering as quickly as possible. Unfortunately sometimes you become sick to your stomach because you were not able to end somethings suffering soon enough and you are haunted by what that poor animal went through before it reached you!

While Laurie and I were visiting our gang on the island, she got a call from a woman that found an injured raccoon wandering in the middle of traffic. She stopped traffic, scooped it up and headed our way. She said it's face was torn up and didn't think it had any eyes. That was an understatement! It was an older baby...maybe 3 months old tops. Laurie was the brave one. She looked at it first and immediately euthanized it. Based on her reaction....I really didn't want to look, but in the interest of learning I had to. The poor thing had no face left whatsoever! We still cannot believe it was even alive and walking around! There were maggots coming out of EVERYWHERE....every part of it's body. It was literally being eaten alive by them. There is no way to tell what happened to the poor thing....was it attacked by something that chewed it's face off or did it just get a wound that got infested with maggots and they destroyed it's face? We will never know. As you will see (if you dare to look) the damage was just too extensive.

All I know is I will never stop thinking about that poor soul...about what it must have gone through and how it suffered!

A very quick update....

OK...what started as an apparent leg injury on Porcelain appears to actually be Mycoplasma Arthritis. Her sister Pebbles and Soldier also appear to have it as it is contagious.

In a nutshell:

Mycoplasma arthritis is characterized by painful swelling of the joints on the feet, wrists or arms, and reluctance to move due to pain. The infectious agent, which is a special type of bacteria, infects the bone at the growth plate, destroying the ability of the bone to elongate as the animal grows.It then blows out into the joint or soft tissues around the joint, where swelling is associated with accumulation of yellow pus in the tissues.Since the bone and joint have been severely damaged by the infection by the time that these signs are apparent, the prognosis for these animals is poor with respect to potential for release, even if treatment has some effect. This condition can be quite contagious within a rehabilitation facility.The source of the organism is not clear, but probably it is carried in the upper respiratory tract of coons.The organism enters the body through a wound, such as the gums at tooth eruption, or through respiratory tract.

So they are on Doxycycline now. Porcelain was the most affected and the use of her 2 affected legs is slowly improving. Pebbles was started when she showed signs and it appears to have stopped it's progression and Soldier, whose rear leg was slightly affected has pretty much regained normal use of his leg so I am hopeful for all of them....and will be keeping a close eye on the whole gang for any signs of lameness now! It's going to be a month of medication for all of them though! So far Lucky and Ducky remain just that, and no signs from Doc, Sis and Trooper who are all together with Porcelain and Pebbles. (knocking on wood now!)

Soldier is improving and no signs in Sammy, Brim and Spit, although Brim has refused to eat the last few meals so now I have to worry why! No other symptoms and no abnormal poop thus far, so I'm hoping for an upset tummy issue right now.

Rocco is doing great! I'll try to get pics of his stumpy little cuteness! He's like a big round tic with stumpy fat little legs sticking out.....very cute and was getting ready to join Soldier et al until strange illnesses started breaking out! So for now...he remains a loner for a little longer. Better safe than sorry!

The last little boy from the Animal Rescue League that 2 girls had brought home, and Springer, the girl found in the walls of a home, are both great and doing fine.

Then there is Spencer. A very cute 2 week old that literally dropped in on a tree house during a little slumber party out there! He's not injured.....I think he's lucky, the tree house broke his fall. After an unsuccessful attempt to re-unite him with a mom he has made his was safely here! Thanks to Julie and her daughter for taking such good care of him and getting him to me. He is doing great and eating like a little piggy!

And finally 3 more 4week-olds (the same size as Springer and the ARL boy). One was found orphaned this past weekend and the finder kept him until finally contacting Laurie. She got him settled and re hydrated for me until I could pick him up, and despite diarrhea from being fed regular milk for almost a week, he's none the worse for wear and is now enjoying a proper diet of raccoon formula! The other 2 are girls that fell from their tree....probably after mom disappeared & they got hungry enough to crawl out. A re-unite attempt was unsuccessful and Martha was kind enough to get them to me all the way from Gloucester yesterday. One girl is doing fine, the other has some head trauma from the fall. She had a bloody nose and mouth and swelling around her nose area. Hopefully that is the extent of the trauma. Her jaw is working fine and after being re hydrated and getting some Metacam for the pain and swelling, she is resting comfortably and the bleeding has stopped. It's a slow process getting her to take anything by mouth since her nose is all plugged up between the swelling and dried blood in there. As we all know when we have a cold, it's hard to breathe and eat at the same time! Right now it's just a "wait and see" game...with nothing apparently broken, it's a matter of controlling the swelling and letting her rest. I'm optimistic...she gets pretty annoyed when I wake her up to give her fluids! We'll see how much more eager she is once she starts getting full strength formula....it tastes a lot better!

I think that covers all the coons for now!

All the boys.

A lot of new raccoon activity these days! This past Sunday was pretty busy. Most of the day was spent working the heart worm clinic at Woburn Animal Hospital. But the wildlife doesn't stop for our busy schedules. While there, 2 little boys were brought in by Dick and his lovely wife. The boys were in the middle of the lawn, and after giving mom a night to fetch them and fending off opportunistic foxes, it was best to just get them to us. They weren't in terribly bad shape, but one was a little "off". Laurie ended up taking them home and both are doing well and eating great, however one does have a noticeable head tilt. It could possibly be trauma from falling from their tree. There are no noticeable external injuries or wounds. She'll be keeping a good eye on him, and paying close attention during their quarantine in case it's due to illness. But otherwise, Tewky and Crooky are quite comfortable and well fed!

Around the same time 2 baby mice were brought in. I just had to look in the container...and get suckered! I have managed to keep the little buggers alive this long and I'll post pics of those cuties later!

Shortly after getting home from the clinic Rocco arrived. A very cute, pudgy singleton who managed to survive in the walls of a home after his mother was removed, until he was able to be rescued. Rocco is a very good eater and has the cutest little chirp when he's hungry! He's about the same age as the boys all ready here so once his quarantine is over he'll have plenty of friends to play with!

On to the next day.....2 more boys from a frat house in Waltham after mom was removed. Again in pretty good shape and they settled in and started eating well.

So here's where we stand....and with pics finally! Good luck keeping it all straight....I barely can! LOL

Soldier (left in both) and Sammy out of quarantine and best buds already, although not "buddy" enough for Sammy to share his bottle by any means! Soldier is bigger but didn't stand a chance getting Sammy off that nipple!

So does Sammy have the cutest, most adorable face ever!!

Then we have the not so evil twins now! Brimstone & Spitfire are officially happy with their new mom and no longer trying to kill me! They still get a little pissy......but nothing compared to their first few days here! They are quite cute little fellas now. They are out of quarantine today and will be joining Soldier and Sammy in a bigger cage! Woohoo!

The pair that came in after Sammy are doing great also. I haven't named these boys.They will be moving on to another rehabber and I don't want to get even more attached only to send them on (ha! too late!).The frat boys will also be going with them. He can only take a very limited number of coonies so it's a matter of juggling and rearranging them in good groups. These guys will be perfect and will get lots more attention with him...and that will in turn free up more room here for more of  the inevitable babies to come .....

So all 9 of the older babies are boys! I think my basement has become the new frat house! The 2 pair will be moving on Saturday and by then Brim, Spit, Sammy and Soldier will be in a big cage eagerly awaiting Rocco to join them after his quarantine.

We also had another horrible chain saw incident. These guys were not so heartless though. They immediately contacted John the ACO and were horrified by what happened. Mom managed to escape uninjured, a couple of the babies were killed instantly, 2 were totally uninjured, and 2 others injured....one requiring it's hand being sewn up and the other needed to be euthanized. John got them to Woburn Animal Hospital for treatment right away and I met him there with a reuniting box. Mom escaped uninjured so hopefully she would come back for the surviving 3. I'm thrilled to report she wasted no time collecting them once the coast was clear! Kudos to everyone who helped turn this tragedy into a happier ending than it could have been! Once again, thanks to Dr. Rice for  fixing up the little one!

Gibby gets fixed!

Despite the antibiotics, Gibby's wound just wasn't healing very well like they usually do. It was getting worse.  So on Tuesday, off we go to get it checked and cleaned up. Once he was down for the count....

 .....it was clipped, scrubbed and flushed like crazy to get all the gunk out.

 A much better looking wound!

By the time I got him home he was already up and about and....don't be shocked.....went right for his food! Priorities ya know! LOL

Thanks so much Dr. Rice and Maris for making him feel much better!

He's healing much faster now. He needed some hot packs for a couple days to keep it draining....luckily he's a very good patient....but it's all dried up now and he'll be good to go in no time I think.

Boys gone wild.

And they're off! Tash, Gibby, Andy, Ringo and LB are finally out in the real world! (sort of). The weather was good and it was just plain old time for them to go. They have been more than patient while waiting for Rivers babies to be old enough to be mobile so she would not be so freaked out by them hanging around should they decide to harass them like Vin did! So last Friday the 6th the world became their playground and they were loving it!

By the end of the night, Andy and Gibby had made their way out back by the main feeding station....

....much to Belle's dismay! LOL She was less than thrilled by the company! She was a good girl though and didn't whip their butts like she could have. Instead she settled for a little meal away from the interlopers.The next morning everyone but Gibby was back home. One in the hammock, LB on top of the cage, and the other 2 in the den box! So much for out in the wild! Gibby was the only brave one to spend the night away from home in a tree out back by the feeding station....but he didn't seem to mind....quite comfortable actually!

For the past week they have been out all night and back in the pen to sleep off the day. Gibby and Tash were the first to not return to the pen after a few nights, and as of a couple nights ago, Andy has not returned to spend the days. Yesterday it was LB and Ringo still using the den box but when I went out this morning it was only Ringo in there.

Then there is Gibby......

Tuesday night I went out to check on everybody and found Gibby in the den box...and he didn't look good. He was obviously very painful and not moving much at all. I managed to get him into a carrier and into the basement where Laurie and I could check him out better. There were no apparent injuries at first and his color was good. He was so pathetic though....enough to convince me to comfort him all night....sleeping in my arms on the loveseat in the basement. I'm glad it helped him to sleep, becasue I sure as hell didn't get much!

I was convinced I had been played big time by a con-coon, but I did eventually find some spots where someone apparently chewed on him a little. So it looks like he just got beat up and has a little infection going.

After a couple days of pain meds and some antibiotics, he's already feeling better....although he's still trying to milk it by getting me to hold him and baby him.......! Too busy though. Have a new litter of baby raccoons to get settled....