Autumn has started to arrive at Wild Things, but that doesn't mean that the animals stop coming in! Though, thankfully not nearly as many, so I can start to catch up on a serious sleep deficit! This is a picture of a little Red Sqiuirrel, about 4 weeks old. He was found on a construction site, his nest probably destroyed by the construction activity.

I told the lady who brought him in to look out for his brothers and sisters, but so far no more have come in. He had scratched all over the pads of his feet, probably from the rough ground of the construction. After a few days adjusting he was all too happy to take advantage of a warm bed and formula at Wild Things. The best part is that another nearby rehabilitator had a little red just a week or so younger. So, the two boys are now together and are happy to be snugglepartners!

Wild Things also received a couple of little Eastern cottontail babies. Their pictures are below. They are very cute and were already about 2 1/2 weeks old, so out of the woods in terms of digestion issues, and have already gained about 50% of their weight in the last week. In total, 3 bunnies were found; a cat was "playing" with them. One appeared to have a serious injury to its back legs, possibly a spinal break. But on examination, there was no injury, it had been born with a congenital deformity of the rear limbs. It is amazing that it had lived so long- probably because up until the time it was found it was able to depend on its mum's milk. But it couldn't move. So, sadly, it had to be euthanized. I think it's siblings are a bit traumatized, they are very shy, but they are gaining weight and will hopefully be released in a few weeks. I want them to put on plenty of weight so they will be able to keep warm in this colder weather!

There is some other sad news from Wild Things. Little Bunchowski passed away last week. Can you see the "B" above his grave in the picture? (I usually don't bury animls here, but I'd had him for so long it was too hard for me to leave him in the woods for some animal to eat). For all those who have been following his story, he came to WTS at about 3-4 days old. As you all know by now, it is almost impossible to keep these tiny ones alive as they don't receive the important nutrients in their mother's milk. I tried new formula and infant anti-gas formula, and this got him through the first 3-4 weeks with no bloat or diarrhea. This was amazing! Well, then he broke his arm, a sign of metabolic bone disease (MBD). It healed well and I gave him extra calcium. He got bigger and bigger, but still never seemed right. At 300g, much bigger than the size I usually release bunnies, he was still here as he didn't seem quite right. At two months old he still wanted to eat formula more than anything else, and he didn't hop much. He got diarrhea at 2 months old. It went away, but then came back the next week and he was gone.

As you all know, I've been trying to X-ray some of the very young bunnies that have come to Wild Things to learn more about their health. So, I brought Bunchowski for a post-mortem X-ray. Well, take a look below. His long bones look thin but OK, but I have NEVER seen anything like his spine- neither had any of the vets. The way it is wavy is a sure sign of MBD, and poor little guy, I hope he didn't suffer too much.

All of this has been a BIG learning experience, which I had shared with lots of other rehabbers. I may even do a presentation on it at the wildlife conference this month. All of this indicates that there is something in the mother's milk that helps the digestive system to develop. Without this mystery factorX, the digestive system is not able to develop correctly and does not seem to be able to digest well or absorb the essential nutrrients. This winter I want to come up with a plan to help all those itsy-bitsy bunnies that come in next year. Perhaps they need uv light to help calcium absorption, or perhaps the pH of the formula needs to be tweaked. It's a real mystery- so stay tuned!
 

But I don't want to end on a sad note...so here are a few more pictures. Here are two of my 10 or so recently released squirrels, a little grey onthe left and a red on the right. All looks harmonious, right? Well, actually the little red was totally bullying the grey! I have now put out two food dishes!

Also, below is Soixante-neuf, or Lil'Girl as I've been calling her. She is released, but like Lil'Mo, she likes to come visit to play and even offers her nose for a kiss! She was VERY happy with this little piece of corn on the cob! I have to break it to her that they are not selling it anymore up here as it's out of season!

And check out the great insulation area that Ingrid and I made around her snapping turtle cage (wearing a mask because of the fiberglass int he insulation- we were mid-construction!). She will be hibernating her 6 year old almost-manhole-cover size snapper, but needed something to help keep the water from freezing. We'll get a top on it as well. As you all know, Ingrid is a great friend of WTS and my reptile/amphibian/fish expert. She has helped me all summer: Thank you Ingrid!

Just when I thought the season was nearing the end and I might be able to catch up on sleep and other parts of my life, the last summer litters of babies started to arrive! Here are the stories on a few of them.

This is Bunchowski. He is an Eastern cottontail, and came to me at only 4 days old. He's about 3 1/2 weeks old now. Anyone who has been following this blog knows how incredibly difficult it is to keep these tiny ones alive, but Bunchowski was a real fighter! However, like my other tiny ones that survived to this age, it appears that he may be a victim of metabolic bone disease; his right arm broke a week ago (you can see it wrapped up in the picture) after jumping a few inches. But he is bright and alert and is almost weaned and LOVES cilantro! He is almost 4oz.

And this little lady is a Southern Flying squirrel. Her name is Lady Sedgwick and she weights 20g, or about 2/3 of an oz. Baby flyers are a funny shape- they are about 1/3 head, 1/2 tail, and have a little body in between. She was found when a cat walked up to its owner with her tail hanging out of its mouth. She suffered a few injuries, and is now on antibiotics and is doing really well. If you all remember, Amelia, my last little flyer, came to me with suspected neurological problems. And comparing Lady's behavior to Amelia's at the same age (she is about 4-5 weeks old) confirms this: Lady is so much more "with it" at this age, and has even decided to wean herself!

And these two cuties are 4-5 week old Grey squirrels. They are "Soixante neuf" (on the right) and "Soixante dix," or 69 & 70- their patient numbers (but it sounded so much better in French!)- and were both found wandering on their own flea ridden and thin. 69 is a little girl. And the day she came in, 70 arrived later that day. They are not related, but the same size and instantly snuggled and adopted each other as siblings! After only 24 hours of warmth, snuggling and TLC, their tails started fluffing up! :)

WTS also welcomed another little Virginia Opossum. She was in a wonderful local bakery/lunch place for a week raiding jelly bellies. And she arrived with green poop to proove it! She had some bad abrasions around her neck, but they look OK. She'll stay for a few weeks to get her nutrition back on track and to grow a bit bigger before release.

So what's happened to all the Wild Things Cottontails??? Well if that's the question you're interested in, this is the post for you!

Sadly, as previously discussed, bunnies are some of the hardest baby animals to raise in wildlife rehabilitation. They have particular dietary and digestive issues which it is almost impossible to replicate as a human! However, WTS has had about half of all its bunny patients survive. All of the bunnies that were 12+ days did really well and have been released, but as you all know, I got so many tiny babies, and those have a less favourable statistic of survival.

An exception to this high mortality rate was Silver Blaze & her sibling Sparkles. If you go back to the posts in May, you can see that they arrived at about 5 days old, and Sparkles (or Catattack as she was previously known) had a giant gash along one arm. Amazingly not only did they survive the injuries, but they survived their rehabilitation and are doing great! To the right is a picture of Silver Blaze in the release hutch.

Here is the lovely Silver Blaze, about 3 weeks after her release, in the overgrown grasses of WTS. She is about 12 weeks old in this picture. The release cage is to the right, and she often goes in and out of it, looking for oats and other goodies.

She has been joined by another long-term WTS resident: Pale Pink! Pale Pink's nose finally healed, and here he is in the release cage 6 weeks ago (below) at about 11 weeks old. He left but returned 4 weeks later- perhaps he's taken a  fancy to the lovely Silver Blaze! Though they were both here for a couple of months each, they never met....until they were released. And now they are together all the time. Of course, he also may have returned because he has what appears to be some ugly botfly larvae in his neck (see pictures below)!

And guess what??? The 4th wave of baby bunnies has just begun! There are about 4 "waves" of litters throughout the spring & summer. So that means that there may well be more babies at WTS very soon!! Just like this little Bunchalicious who was part of the 3rd wave!