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Bath time!!

1/26/2011

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Irving Berlin in his bath
Aaaaah! Baths are so great! Finally after sitting in my water dish all morning Victoria got the hint that I wanted a real bath and it was awesome!

So much of wildlife rehab is learning as you go. No one ever told me to offer a bird a bath, but as of today I am going to start, Irving Berlin (the Rock Dove or pigeon in the picture) LOVED his bath this morning!


Irving was found in a snow drift in early December very weak and thin, about a third of the weight he should have been. He was found to have a bacterial infection in his throat (i.e. a flagellate in his crop) which is commonly found in Rock doves. He was treated with antibiotics and is on his way to getting healthy, gaining over a 100g to reach 230g, but he won't be ready for release until he is 300g...and it is a bit warmer.

When I am in the animal room I leave his door open so he can fly around if he wants. He likes to fly, but he knows that his cage is a safe place and flies back there after a few minutes. So, he goes back and forth all day! He also seems to eat more when I'm around, and is getting calmer when he is handled. We are getting used to each other!


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About to jump out of nest box and attack!
And what about Mrs. Angry hit-by-a-car grey squirrel? She was hit by a car and found by a Good Samaritan. Another Good Samaritan came across the scene and brought her to Wild Things, over an hour away. She was very out of it, but no obvious broken bones. After a week of being treated with anti-inflammatories for any brain swelling, and several weeks to rest, she was ready to go!


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I left her with lots of food!


I brought her back to just where she was found. With adult animals it is best to release them where they know and have possible food caches and dens/nests. I hated leaving her in a slightly urban area with streets, etc. But it is where she knows. And yes, I was very worried as it is super cold and snowy...but that's what is sometimes tough about rehab: balancing keeping them in rehab and safe, and recognizing that they are wild and stressed out being kept in a cage. The lady in who's backyard she was left was left with lots of food and instructions to put lots out for her. And I left behind her cozy nestbox so she would have a place to stay before finding a proper squirrel nest!



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I hated leaving her crate on the ground, but I couldn't bring it up a tree!
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Updates!

4/20/2010

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Maxie in his nest
The baby animals have started arriving at Wild Things! But before I start mentioning a bunch of new characters, I wanted to give a few updates on patients in this post.

As previously mentioned, Maxie made a very fine nest for himself in a watering can hanging on my house! I don't think this is his main nest, but he certainly uses it from time to time and it looks very cozy inside! He regularly comes by for snacks, as seen in the pictures below. He has become quite wild and just usually takes a nut and runs for it!


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Runty!
Runty, seen here with his one snaggletooth hanging out, has had some dental work in the past two weeks. After his teeth and nasal sinuses started getting infected, he had all his incisors taken out. Ouch! Many thanks to Dr. Spindel of Animal Ark Veterinary Hospital in Baldwinsville, NY for performing this surgery.

The goal of wildlife rehabilitation is to return healed animals to the wild. However, sometimes, despite our best efforts, animals end up unreleasable, like Runty. Though some advocate for euthanizing all unreleasable animals, I believe in many cases they can be used as educational animals and can be given a good life with the proper housing, companionship (of their same species) and enrichment. This is my goal for Runt. His teeth were so screwy, and the vet found that both upper and lower jaws were a bit screwy as well, so it was for the best to have this operation performed. He still has his molars and in time he should learn to use them to eat nuts. For now he is happily slurping down delicious squirrel-shakes made out of nuts, veggies, applesauce, and other goodies! He is fighting some infection post-surgery, but is doing very well and is much more active than pre-surgery. Below are some pictures of him playing with a new toy: a pink octopus.




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me & Peter say goodbye


Peter finally was able to be released to the Wild Woods! He overwintered here while his injuries healed and was super strong and ready to go. Everyone will miss him :)




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Peter leaves WTS


And what else has been going on as winter turns to spring?


Many wild things have been using the Wild Things brush-piles built by volunteers in the Wild Woods (left), and all the squirrels came out in the early spring, despite the snow...


The turkeys have been visiting. And now that the snow has melted, they have been displaying and gobbling to all the little turkey hens. They are so handsome!


And, of course, LilMo, is back and is nursing her 2010 babies!
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LilMo grabs a peanut
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Runty's teeth

3/22/2010

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Runty's teeth before trim
I did it! I very successfully trimmed Runty's teeth no problem at all with a little help from Valium! A friend had given me some Valium/diazepam in case I ever needed to sedate an animal. Well, I decided to try it! I calculated the appropriate dose, erring on the low side. Runty lapped it up from a syringe. And 20 minutes later, he was "resting" in his food dish while sleepily trying to have breakfast. 5 minutes later the teeth were trimmed and he was all set, running around a short while later ready to eat all his yummy nuts in shells--almonds, pecans, acorns--once more! :)

As you can see, he has one upper tooth that grows BEHIND the other one. The one behind does wear down a bit on the bottom ones, and the bottom teeth do not have to be trimmed as much as the upper one. Below is a picture of his teeth AFTER being trimmed.

I catch him looking outside through the windows quite often and part of me so wants to release him and just hope that he does OK. The other part of me just knows that a few weeks of fun freedom might condemn him to a death of gradual starvation once his teeth started growing abnormally again. I'm looking for a home for him and hope that he can find a place where he has buddies to play with and places to run, climb, bury nuts and build nests!



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Teeth trimming tools and drugs
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Good Morning Wild Things!

3/7/2010

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Goodmorning Peter!
Goodmorning Peter!

This is how I find Peter most mornings. Somehow he finds a hole in his double layer bedding, crawls inside and uses it as a cozy sleeping bag!
Peter is doing really well. He is walking as if he didn't have a massively funkily-healed back leg, eating as if he still had all his canine teeth, and his tummy bed-sores are all healed as well (thank you Joshua for helping shave his belly!). Plus, after getting a bit chubby, he is down to 4.6kg from 5.5kg, so he's lost about 2lbs and is running around quite fast with his svelte new form! Below is a picture of him helping me prepare breakfast for all the Wild Things patients.



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Peter helps prepare breakfast for other patients

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Donation from HSUS 'Coats for Cubs'
And look what else arrived at Wild Thing: a box full of donated fur pieces thanks to the Humane Society of the United State's Coats for Cubs program! Fur hats from 5th Avenue furriers, fur collars, stoles, and even a chain of Pine Martins linked together to be worn around the shoulders. These will be such a comfort to all the little babies soon to come to WTS this spring and summer. A big thank you to all who donate to this program!


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Max's home


I found where Max the squirrel has made his home... in this watering can hanging from the side of my house (I stuck it up there for the winter)! I'm so proud of his innovation and he has stuffed it full of all the toilet paper I gave him (see posts below), and other cozy things that he has come across. I was wondering how he always appeared so soon after I open the back doors...I thought he might be living in the drainpipe, but no, the watering can! :)

He still comes by for breakfast as well (see picture below).

In other news, Runty is doing well. Tomorrow I am going to try to cut his teeth after trying a new sedative. Stay tuned....

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Help yourself to cashews Maxie!
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Bare Bones update: Maxie & Peter

1/22/2010

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Max helping me email
Max has been doing great out in the wilds and comes by every few days for a hello and a nut. But just when I thought I wouldn't have to worry about Max anymore, he turned up limping. A toe appeared badly broken. I kept an eye on him for a few days every time he came to visit. The foot was getting more swollen and after a few days he wasn't even using it. I lured him into a carrier and took him to the vet, this is what they found...


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3 crushed toes







... 3 crushed toes!


With lots of swollen soft tissue surrounding the joints.


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Ouch!!
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This is a really weird injury. What could have snapped/crushed off the ends of 3 toes?? All 3 toes had to be amputated. As you know, squirrels really need their back toes to go down trees (plus they love to hang on by their back legs and stretch!). I hope, hope, HOPE that this won't impede Max living in the wild. He has to stay with me for at least 2-3 weeks, and I hope that both Max and I won't go crazy. Even though he grew up with me, he is wild and gives very hard bites when he gets unexpectedly annoyed and even in "play." Meanwhile Runt is so happy  he's back, but they can't play together yet. So, lots of very pissed off energy in the animal room at Wild Things at present!

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And then there is sweet Peter the Opossum (named by my Dad, seen here with Peter at Thanksgiving). Peter has been at Wild Things for over 2 months. He was hit by a car, suffered a terribly displaced fracture of the leg that was not reset well by the initial vet, several cracked teeth, and now is dealing with various skin sores. All the while he has been such a good, sweet patient and seems very happy at Wild Things, where he is allowed to walk around as much as he wants for physical therapy (though usually he likes to walk over to the stacks of towels and blankets and find a good place to go to sleep!).

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November 2009, 2 views initial Xrays
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Slightly reset, 2nd Xrays
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January 2010, 3rd set Xrays

As you can see, the leg kinda realigned, but basically the tibia appears to have fused with the fibula and then a whole callous is forming around the whole area. In the meantime, he's had his bad teeth pulled and now we are dealing with his tummy sores. Egad! But he is so energetic and loves sticking his nose near the crack in the door to smell the wild that is waiting for him. Once he heals (and I hope he does) he will be returned to the area where he came, up by Syracuse, but only once it is warmer.

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hello!



Finally, a hello from one of the wild visitors, a 1st year White tailed deer,  from the Wild Things woods!

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The Beautiful Star at Wild Things

10/6/2009

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My little beautiful star, Stella Bella!

For all of you lucky enough to have spent time with this little beautiful angel, you will be sad to hear that she passed on last week. It is unclear what was wrong but it appears that something was wrong with her digestion. She was about 6 months old.

Stella was a
Grey special needs squirrel, a "Down's baby." She loved to play and run around the best she could and was only ever sweet to all species around her. She was a true angel and so many people were touched by her gentle, special nature. I will probably make a special page for her on this website, but wanted to have a little tribute to her here on the blog.

I miss her so much but feel truly enriched by her goodness and blessed that our life paths crossed if but for a short while. Stella taught everyone kindness and love by the sweetness she expressed every minute of her life.

Bless you Beautiful Star!



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Didn't stand a chance

4/13/2009

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This dear little girl Grey Squirrel didn't stand a chance. Though she appeared to have some sensitivity in her hind limbs, she just dragged them around and was very thin. An X-ray (see below) revealed that she had been shot (the pellet is the white spot next to her spinal cord). The bullet had severed part of her spinal cord and probably lodged in a kidney, as she had some blood in her urine. On careful examination we found a semi-healed bullet hole (see picture to right). She had probably been shot a week or so before and had been dragging herself around like this, in pain, for a week or so. We humanely euthanized her.

How could someone do this to a little innocent animal?


I feel like it's been a really tough week or so. So many people have been so supportive of my work at WTS, and it really keeps me going because sometimes I just feel emotionally spent. And it can be lonely work too; no matter how wonderful all the animals are, and how much I'm sometimes ashamed to admit it (because I feel like I should be stronger), emotional support from the human species has become more important to me than ever before, and I miss my friends who mostly live out-of-town. I think that I never really realised that until opening WTS. Some days are hard physically: building cages and enclosures and carrying around animals and food on little sleep. Other days are tough emotionally: animals dying in your hands after suffering pains we will hopefully never experience. Many of these animals leave mates and young behind, and that just adds to the sadness.



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José the blind squirrel, the sapsucker & construction!

1/30/2009

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Meet José, an Eastern Grey Squirrel. I've mentioned him before. He was hit by a car back in November and was in very bad shape with a badly broken nose. Amazingly he survived but couldn't see. His eyes were fine, but the part of his brain in charge of vision had been injured. It can happen that once the swelling of the brain subsides the brain will function properly again. However, after 2 months José is still "brain-blind" and there is little hope that he will regain his vision.


Can you find him in this picture? He loves sleeping in a shoebox with blankets outside my bedroom all day (construction of the animal room is still going on, so my whole house has transformed a bit into the animal house!). I have just filled out an application to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to officially adopt him. He is very sweet but cannot be released into the wild. It is my hope that he can be a foster dad to the all the baby squirrels that come to WTS, especially when I get "singletons," lile Lil'Mo, who need to learn squirrelness!


And look who has come back to WTS this winter: the WTS female Yellow Bellied Sapsucker! Sapsuckers are a kind of woodpecker and are not supposed to be here in the winter, but this is her second winter here. Last spring a male joined her, but all winter long she was here all by herself. She loves the suet feeder and will park there for ages.

And there seems like a lot more to report about what has been going on at WTS, but its been super busy with the construction, which is slowly finishing up: exciting! I am so happy that I will now have a real animal treatment area that is clean and doesn't leak (!) (see below picture) for all the wild things (about 100 so far) that come through these doors. And it should be up and running for the spring baby season. I've spend my whole nest egg on this construction, and that kind of a leap-of-faith is a bit scary (don't forget all of WTS work is out-of-pocket, helped a long with some generous donations) but it is definitely something I believe in!


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Poster-girl!!

12/8/2008

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I was just looking on The Squirrel Board (http://thesquirrelboard.com/forums/index.php) to see if I can find a place for my blind squirrel if he does not recover his sight (though he is doing pretty well and making progress), and I found that some of the rehabilitators from the wildlife conference back in October posted a picture of the tiny little girl runt squirrel and the picture won first place in a photo contest! She is SO cute and is still smaller than her brothers. She is not loving being out in the sold weather, but I let her in for a little while each day to play!

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A busy baby week at WTS!

8/26/2008

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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.

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