This week it was going to be exciting to report how many raccoons moved to outdoor enclosures. It’s exciting for them, obviously, but also for ME. Because when Older Daughter moves wildlife babies outdoors, her workload lessens a bit. Cleaning multiple crates (indoors) every day is more work than cleaning an outdoor enclosure a couple of times a week. And if a baby has reached the point of moving outdoors, it means it doesn’t have to be hand fed anymore. All good for Older Daughter. The nice thing is that it’s also great for the wildlife babies. They have SO much fun moving outdoors where they romp and play and learn the things they’ll need in order to one day be successfully released.
Last week I reported that five raccoon babies had moved outdoors. Now several more have moved. A few were released into the same (largest) outdoor enclosure that the first five went into.
I told you last week that Ms. Wobbly had come to one of the outdoor enclosures to have her kits. Well, she moved them out at the end of last week. It’s a smaller enclosure, so two siblings moved into that area.
Finally, the third raccoon enclosure now houses a group of babies as well.
These two little sweeties are still indoors. These are the two who were in pretty bad shape for quite a while. They came from separate situations. Now that they are showing signs of improvement, they have moved in together for company.
The opossums have also reached (finally) an age where they can move outdoors. They have a doghouse full of straw (which opossums love) in their outdoor enclosure, but at first they still needed the tiny little house they were used to from when they were indoors.
So many babies finally old enough to move outdoors and begin to learn how to survive. There are still six babies inside. AND – unfortunately, Older received a call on Sunday night about some raccoon babies that didn’t even have their eyes open yet. The people who found them explained that a tree was down and they heard the babies screaming. They only scream when they are starving. The tree was hollow inside and there were the babies. These people live over an hour and a half from Wild Angels. But they had called EIGHT other wildlife rehabbers before Wild Angels and either got no response or were turned away by all. So Older has these bottle babies now.
In addition to the tiny new raccoon babies, a situation at the humane society where my daughters work has added a bunny to Older Daughter’s population. Younger Daughter was working the morning shift. All day long dogs are turned out into the large grassy play areas. I’m not sure how she knew, but Younger became aware that something strange was going on. She ran out to investigate and a dog had grabbed a baby bunny. It was too late for that one, but there was one still scrambling around in the grass. So Younger Daughter grabbed it and brought it inside. These two little bunnies were just barely old enough to be out of the nest. They weren’t as fast as adult rabbits. After getting the dogs back inside, she walked the entire play yard but found no additional baby bunnies. Then when Older Daughter got to work that day, she took over with the saved one. Luckily, it had gotten old enough not to need formula. But it was truly tiny, so Older set it up for some days indoors and will release it very soon in a safe place.
Just as her workload had gone down a bit by moving so many outside, new babies have joined Wild Angels – the ins and outs of wildlife rehab. It’s a good thing Spring doesn’t last all year long.