babies babies babies!!

I have taken on an extra shift at the wild life place doing Sunday nights now as well as Tuesdays. I am really finding that doing this kind of of work is so rewarding.  I have a little bit of a break today and then I start to house sit again tomorrow at one of my very good client’s house for their disabled dog.  I am enjoying the afternoon being back in my own house and hanging out with my own animals.

 Its spring time at the wild life center. How can I tell you ask? Well it’s defiantly not because of the lovely spring days we have had. Or in Seattle’s case not had. I can tell because these last few weeks we have had an influx of baby animals arrive.  I love when the babies come even if it is a ton more work. Most of these little guys need to get fed every few hours and feeding them can take a while. Some of the animals get tube fed so you have to get a tube down into their stomachs and feed them that way. The baby ducks and geese get tube fed as do the raccoons and possums. Squirrels get syringe fed but they are pretty feisty so sometimes it’s a challenge to get them to take it. It’s nice to be able to step into the role of mom even if it is just for that 10 minutes period as these little guys eat. Baby birds are by far the most time consuming. They have to be fed every 30 minutes and you have to both tube feed and drop feed them so if you get stuck in the baby bird nursery you don’t ever get to leave.   But it’s ok because that why we are all there right? To help, save and protect wildlife even the tiny little babies that come in.

So today we have 28 baby squirrels in various stages of life a few still don’t have their eyes open while others are totally weaned and doing find on their own.  We have 10 baby mallard ducks. They are hanging out in two different groups and both still need to be tubed every 6 hours but hopefully they will be weaned soon. We have one baby Canadian goose who was just found alone in a nest. He is so cute and kind of sad that he is by him self. Well all the ducks have feather dusters because it helps them think that they have a mom figure with them. This little guy or gal is very depressed and they are not sure what to do with it cause it would be better if they could get it a friend.  We have 6 baby opossums also in all sorts of different life stages. One little guy is totally naked and pink because it’s so young. We don’t know if he is going to survive but we are all pulling for him. He was found in a dead moms pouch because someone was walking their dog and says some very fait movement on a hit by car and very dead opossums early yesterday morning.  We also have 9 baby raccoons I by far think these are the cutest but man are they not very happy they scream bloody murder the second you try to pry their little mouths open for the tube feeding.  When three people are doing it at the same time it’s an insanely horrific noise.  Finally we have 12 baby bunnies all different kinds and ages.  Baby bunnies are tricky because the stress alone can kill them so you have to be very very quiet and careful.

Anyways like you can tell lots of babies today, all these babies and a whole center full of the normal fare that comes in. In sad news we had to put down an adult raccoon this morning because it tested positive for distemper. Its weird for me cause in the world of dog and cat medicine distemper isn’t very common cause we vaccinate for it but in wild lots of stuff has it and dies from it. This poor guy was in pretty bad shape so it was nice that he didn’t have to suffer any longer.  It was sad though because he had been hanging out at this one house most of the time and the homeowners had grown pretty attached to the guy. They were who brought him in because they had started to see that he was sowing signs of being sick.   They didn’t know that it was as serious as it turned out to be but and they were sad that he couldn’t be helped. But unfortunately life is like that you can’t save everything even if you want to.