Days off, my ass!

I went into work Sunday thinking I would finally have good weather on my days off (Mon & Tues) to catch up on things I needed to get done before the baby onslaught began.

Boy did I ever jinx myself! Before the afternoon was over I had baby calls for 4 bunnies, 4 squirrels and 5 raccoons! Luckily JoAnn was able to advise the woman who called about the bunnies so we skated on that one. I had the 4 squirrels brought to me when I was leaving work and proceeded to bring them to JoAnn's. Together we checked them out and started re hydrating them. Luckily they were in great shape. JoAnn kept them so I could head out and meet the people with the raccoons.

5 babies, about 2 days old at the most. In fact a couple still had some blood matted in the fur I'm guessing from the birth as there were no injuries at all. A raccoon had apparently been seen dead in the road in front of the house 2 days ago....meaning these little ones probably haven't even had a meal and couldn't be worse off. (Not sure a mom that just gave birth would have left the den so soon to get hit, but regardless these guys were motherless for some reason.) When I got them they were cold and one was already agonal and passed shortly thereafter.

Getting the sub q fluids in was easy, but it was a battle getting them to take anything by mouth and reboot their systems. 2 more passed over the course of the night. The remaining 2 were too weak to even try taking anything by mouth so I resorted to tube feeding to try to ever so gradually get the much needed fluids and calories into them.

It has now been 48 hours and I'm happy to report that brother and sister are still hanging in there. We've got poop and weight gain!! But I won't stop holding my breath until at least a week has passed! Sometimes the damage done when the system shuts down sneaks up on you later, after you think they are fine, they suddenly fade on you again.

You can still see the umbilical cord on the little one on the left in this picture. In the middle of all that these 2 baby squirrels came in. Equally as young, something got at the nest. They were found on the ground and have some cuts and bruising on them. They are so tiny I can barely focus on them as I feed them!

So every 2 hours feeding the squirrels and every 3 hours feeding the raccoons makes for a very sleepless me!! (JoAnn, Lisa and Mary are in the same boat too!) Lisa was going to be getting some older squirrels in so we are sort of planning on trading them....once I go back to work there is no way I will be able to feed the little pinkies every 2 hours like they need, so I'll take some older ones that need to eat less often.

Enjoy your vacation Laurie while you can, you lucky dog!! :) It has officially begun.

ARL Boston to the rescue!

I work in Waltham and a lot of people call the police when they see an animal in need of rescue. Luckily for us we have the Animal Rescue League to help out with things we are just not equipped to handle!

At the end of March we were getting A LOT of calls about this Canada goose with a 6 pack ring around it's neck. (Another good reason to take care of your trash properly!!!!! But that's another soap box for another time......) Some of our officers attempted to get him with no luck, and on my trip out there he wasn't around. The ARL got these pics during several trips out there to attempt to get him. He was not making it easy!

Finally.....an update on April 6 on their Twitter page.....Yayyyyy, rescue accomplished!! Persistence pays. They also dealt with another goose issue in Waltham. This pair picked a hell of a place to nest!

But they checked them out and got these pics of Mom and Dad goose doing just fine tending to their nest. It's actually perfectly situated to protect it from predators, but not going to be easy for the babies when they hatch to get down and head toward the water!

We'll cross that bridge when we get to it I guess!

A boring update....

Well not much going on here yet (knock on wood, fingers crossed, etc. etc.!)

The boys are ready to go...I only hesitate until the babies with River are a little older so if they hang around bugging the girls, it will not put the babies in jeopardy.

The girls are just waiting for Kinky's foot to heal now. She's already using it again, I'm just waiting for the wound to granulate in a little more. Hopefully not too much longer then they will get moved to the Framingham release site....maybe run into Baloo and Cinnamon and say Hi for me!

I have not seen Trouble #1 (aka Vin) in over a couple weeks. I'm torn between worry and relief....but as we all know he is great at finding his way home if he gets into trouble. I'm sure he's just out there annoying all the new ladies he's been meeting!

Then there's Trouble #2 (aka Scrappy)! He's still around making nightly visits to the girls. In fact, until about 4 nights ago, he was denning up a tall pine tree between the main pen and his short lived new pen. He's apparently found a new place to sleep, but not a new place to hang out. He's not as annoying though. I think the gang is more jealous than annoyed with him and he's still happy to come play with me a little when I go out to check on him......especially when mini-marshmallows are involved!

A small amount of pinkies have filtered in.....so far Laurie, Lisa, Mary and JoAnn are handling them. Lisa had a single fox kit come in a couple days ago. A little older than our litter of 11 and in very bad shape. Unfortunately the poor little thing didn't make it :(

Right now we are bracing ourselves.....and cringing every time the phone rings! LOL

Monday is my day off and it's supposed to be pretty nice out! Yayyyyyyy.

I'll try and get some pics of the gang to show you how awful they look! The are all molting and their coats look like crap....making for some silly looking coons. We'll see how the camera behaves....lately it's been acting up and I think it's on it' last legs!!

Red fox kits rescued.

OK...be prepared for the ultimate cuteness!

Laurie got a call from an alpaca farm in our area that found a litter of fox pups in the barn. They had seen the mom laying in the field one day. But 2 days later when she was still there, they knew something was wrong. On closer inspection she looked perfectly normal like she was just laying there, however when they turned her over she was torn apart. Poor thing had fallen victim to some type of predator....possibly a coyote or fisher?

It wasn't hard to find a litter of hungry, crying kits in the barn. A litter of 11! Yup.....11! Holy cow!! That is unusually large for a fox litter. (or any litter for that matter...hehehe).

So the kind woman brought them to Laurie at work and she and Lisa began the re hydration process....while we tried to figure out what the heck we were going to do with them all.

So I met up with them after work and we divided and conquered. I took 4, Lisa took 4 and Laurie took 3.

Now...prepare for the cuteness! Here is my gang in all their glory!

2 boys and 2 girls and I loved every moment with them....even the late night hours! They were quite vocal and full of personality....even at 2-3wks old. It's amazing how much quicker they mature than our domestic dogs! These guys were already wrestling, dominating each other and had even eaten some soaked puppy chow! One of the females had some serious attitude....she would attack the bottle, growl and shake the nipple into submission, making sure she had properly subdued the beast before finally deciding it was OK to actually drink the formula from it and fill her belly.

As soon as the bellies were full, into their "den" for some serious nap time.

Once again I contacted Dawn out in Western Mass. and she agreed to take the whole gang of them! She's a wonderful rehabber and specializes in coyote and fox. In fact she's the one that took my coyote pups last year.

And once again we lucked out with the transport all the way out there. Thanks again to Jim (and his very polite and accommodating sidekick Samantha!) who let them hitch a ride.

So Lisa collected the other 7 together and brought them over here to be reunited as one big happy litter of 11 again. Then I packed them up and off they went....sniff, sniff....

Oh it was so hard parting with them! But it's best for them so.....

One last pic before I left.....an adorable pile of 11 sleeping fox kits tucked away all snug and safe!

So thanks to a combined effort from a lot of people...these little guys are in good hands! Can't thank you enough Dawn!