Hurricane Ike's orphaned Squirrels are coming to the Rainbow Wildlife Rescue in Stephenville, Erath County, Texas

Hurricane Ike's orphaned Squirrels are coming to the Rainbow Wildlife Rescue in Stephenville, Erath County, Texas

The IWRC (International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council) put out a call for help to all wildlife rehabilitators to accept transfers of orphaned squirrels left behind in Houston and surroundings by hurricane Ike. Caring people found the squirrels and turned them over to the various wildife centers and animal shelters, which got so overwhelmed. One center alone received over 700 infants squirrels.

If I understood everything correctly, the rescue organizations are working together to transfer a load of squirrels up to the SPCA of Texas in McKinney, Texas.

I have volunteered to accept 15 squirrels for now. I will pick them up in McKinney on Sunday, September 21st at 11 am.

I could accept more later on if I had more outside enclosures. Thanks to the Tarleton Wildlife Society efforts of doing a fundraiser at tonight's Texan football game, we are off to a good start, but we are far from having a suitable enclosure up and read ty move squirrels into.

Material to build outside enclosures and/or aviaries as well as a garden utility shed to store cages and food.

• 1/2 inch galvanized hardware cloth (most useful at the moment!)
  
• 50 ft privacy fence panels
• concrete for cage foundations
• 2 x 4's and plywood for bottom frames and back walls
• utility or garden shed for cages, supplies, and feed (right now the stuff takes up an entire room in my house which I could use as a nursery)
• large ferret type cages with enough room for squirrels to climb around in
  

If you want to help with a donation, supplies, or just ideas, please CLICK HERE or EMAIL me!

Outside Enclosure (Example ONLY):

Hurricane Ike and orphaned Squirrels

In the past 2 days I am getting literally hammered with phone calls and emails from Houston. So many nice and caring people are contacting me about having found baby squirrels, most of them with eyes closed.

To make things even worse, many of the people that contacted me don't have electricity, so they have no means of keeping the babies warm. Stores and Vets are closed, so there is also no way of purchasing Esbilac somewhere.

So we are working with limited resources here. Most of the people found me via their PDAs, so I'm going to write down some emergency care instructions.

IF re-uniting with the mother doesn't work:

You hopefully know that cow's milk is a big No No. Why? Because the lactose will cause diarrhea which can lead to death fast in such fragile little babies due to dehydration.

For the first 24 hours you can simply feed the baby with the following solution:

1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 cup of warm water.

Feed every 3-4 hours.

If the eyes are still closed, do not feed more than 2 cc (or 2 ml) at one time. If you can not get a hold of a puppy or kitten milk replacer (preferably Esbilac Puppy Milk Replacer Powder), see if you find Ensure, preferably Vanilla flavor. It will work for a few days.

Other TEMPORARY Options:

• lactose-free milk
• skimmed milk
• goat's milk
• lactose-free baby formula
• oatmeal
  

Evaporated (canned) milk is NOT recommended!

If the eyes are open you can also offer

• nuts (unsalted and untreated)
• acorns
• fruits
• vegetables
• any baby jar foods with fruits and veggies
• baby cereal
• Cheerios
• Cornflakes (stay away from sugar)
• oatmeal
• rolled oats
• anything rice, grain or wheat based

Do NOT feed cat or dog food, meats, spicy foods, or any canned foods meant for humans.

How to feed:

Eyedropper or Syringe (without the needle!).
Baby squirrels like to suckly hard and often get formula down the wrong pipe and it shoots out of their noses. This is called aspirating and can easily result in fatal pneumonia, so we do not want that to happen.

Therefore only feed tiny amounts at a time. Squirrels also suckle eagerly and like to swallow half the eyedropper. That is normal! I usually use a special made extra long nipple that fits on a syringe, so they can't get hurt.

Here is a link to a Video on HOW TO FEED A BABY SQUIRREL

Keeping the Baby warm:

Fill an old sock with rice (just the foot of the sock), tie a knot on top and place it in the microwave for 2 minutes. Wrap an old t-shirt around the sock and you have 2-4 hours of snuggly heat for the baby.

You can also use old bottles and fill them with warm water and place them around the baby.

If you have electricity and can use a heating pad, make sure the baby has enough room to crawl off it in case it gets too warm.

Peeing and Pooping

If the eyes are still closed the baby needs to be stimulated to go pee and poo. Simply use a papertowel or piece of toiletpaper and moisten it with warm water and pad the bottom. If it's there, it'll come out. If not, it'll work next time.

I hope I covered everything in this short time.

Chip the raccoon, 9 weeks old

Chip needed to be moved into a bigger cat. He is 9 weeks old now and has outgrown the other smaller cages I have!

He hasn't met Roxy yet, she's sleeping all day and was not interested in interacting with me, which is perfectly fine by me. This way she will turn on her "wild switch" much sooner, I believe.

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He's having 2 stories of this cage to climb in now, he loves it!

Roxy, the Raccoon, and 2 Kittens

Feeding Chip, the orphaned Raccoon

Six Squirrels

Olliver, Great Dane, is up for Adoption

Yes, you are seeing correctly. This was one of the hardest decisions I had to make in a long time, but I have to declare myself defeated. I simply do not have the time that dog needs to become a balanced part of the pack.

Due to lack of exercise and daily walks, he has turned into a bully. He is not aggressive, but he has no respect for smaller dogs or people. He simply steps on them or runs them over or treats them like toys. And he does kill chickens and squirrels and skunks and whatever else he could get his teeth on.

He needs somebody to work with him. He is so intelligent, but without the constant assertiveness and stability, he is going to backfire.

So I made it a requirement for people that are interested in adopting him, that they have to do it Cesar's style.

Here's his petfinder url:
http://www.petfinder.com/petnote/dis...petid=11847135



We'll see what comes out of it. I'll leave it up for a month. If it's meant to be, the right owner will show at the right time, just like with Honey and with Grandma (she went off to New Mexico today!!!!).

If not, we'll work something out.

Six Squirrels

I have six squirrels at the moment from 3 different litters. 2 came yesterday. They are all outside and starting to eat solids, except the 2 new ones. They need another week or so before they are there.

Here are a couple of pics of the 4 older ones I have since they had their eyes closed:





Chip the raccoon, developed ringworm on his tail, so he's being treated for that and Chuck, the opossum is growing fast too.

Besides the wildlife I have two 2 weeks old kittens and 2 foster dogs. It's starting to quiet down a little. Time to shift the focus on building this rescue, so we are prepared for more critters in need by spring!