Hello! Last Monday I went to Wild Baby Rescue and hour early because the volunteer that does the fawns, Kelly, was in Boston. I made 10 batches of formula, using a scoop of formula powder and three scoops of warm water and put it through the blender to mix. All of the formula is put into four containers and brought down to the barn along with the bottles used to feed them, a funnel to pour the formula into the bottles, and wet washclothes for the fawns faces if they get milk all over them or for your hands if they get sticky with milk or fawn licks. Rose, the fawn with the fractured hip, was on medication so the pill was melted and put into a bottle of formula for her. There are three stalls in the barn; the smaller fawns go in the first one, Hope's goat is in the second, and the bigger fawns are in the last one. Well, of course the fawns in the last stall dumped their water so I raked out all of the hay and wood shavings and left it to dry out a little once they were fed and put in the field. The fawns are locked in at night so the first feeding is easy because once one is fed, they can go outside so that you always know which ones have been fed and which ones haven't. I started with the first stall and fed all except for Rose and Tulip because she wouldn't eat (she's the smallest but has been eating a lot of corn so she never wants formula). Rose then got her bottle with her medication in it. Sebastion, the bobcat attack fawn, is in the barn now and stays in with Rose. Then the last stall was fed, put outside, and cleaned. Just when I finished, Hope and the other Ashley came down to the barn to feed and clean out the opossum cages in the barn. I gave the chickens water, fed them, and collected eggs, then helped clean out the opposums. Fifteen came in all at once a few days before and they are all different sizes. They get a bowl of yougurt or baby food and a bowl of formula (same formula used for the squirrels). Once they were done, we all went back up to the house to do laundry and syringe feed three bunnies. There was a loose bunny from the day before that was found wandering around the room and caught. Then once 1:30 hit, I made 8 batches of formula for the second fawn feeding. Nick and I went down to the barn and fed them. He can't tell them apart and some of them lost their tags on their necks so it was up to me to make sure they were all fed. It actually wasn't that difficult but once again, Tulip wouldn't eat so Hope came down later and got her to eat half a bottle. The last stall was fixed up after feeding was done. Yes, Monday was a longgggggg day.
The rest of last week started with one of my brother's friends finding a baby squirrel, which was brought to my house and I brought it in to WBR. He was about 4 weeks old and named Merlin. He was hydrated with pedialyte twice, warmed up on a heating pad and a microwaved IV bag in a sock, and later fed formula. The bunnies were syringe fed, the outside squirrel dishes were made up and given to them, the squirrels and opossums in the barn were fed, the fawns were fed, and then I did dishes.
Thursday the person I got the baby squirrel from brought in three more that they found. The bunnies are so hard to keep alive. Everything in the world is done for them to keep them healthy and we always end up loosing about a third of them. I found two dead in the incubator so I syringe fed the one that needed it. The outside squirrels and fox were fed, the raccoons went into the outside cage so their carriers were scrubbed and hosed out, I made the barn squirrels food and then those two groups of squirrels were put in outside cages, I found a tick on one of the skunks ears and that was taken off, and the other Ash and I cleaned out the outside opossum cage.
Today! I started by feeding the four squirrels. One of them got formula in its lungs so I told Hope and she said that they are all on an antibiotic. They were all fed formula and given 3ccs of antibiotic. Another one of the bunnies was dead today, so I got to release the three that were left. I then made up the squirrel dishes, and gave the fox water, because we ended up running out of water from what we brought down to the cages originally. Hope told me that I'm the only one she allows in the fox cage! I was excited. The entire barn was cleaned out- stalls and sweeping the entire floor. Laundry was done and then we all helped in the second baby squirrel feeding. The fawns no longer get a afternoon bottle, so they are only fed twice a day and starting to get weaned because giving them formula stops the beginning of August.
Baby squirrel
There are 8 baby opossums crammed in there!
Rafiki
Raccoon playing with enrichment college students made
Grey fox kit
Bunny being released
No comments:
Post a Comment