Ugly is a black baby grey squirrel (yes, I know), found by some neighbourhood kids wandering up to people with his eyes nearly closed. I'm not a wildlife rehabber or vet tech or anything. They just know I used to bring my rats out all the time, and see us out with a variety of cats on harnesses. It seems to really intrigue them. So naturally it was us who they brought him to.
Now, the first thing I got my mum to do was call a bunch of wildlife rescues. However, I kid you not, as we continued to call of the next few days, either they didn't answer or said they were full. I guess there are a lot of orphaned squirrels in the spring.
Well, since I feared leaving the little fellow with roads on all sides and plenty of cats lurking about was a death sentence, we brought him inside. Yes, inside our cat infested home. Yes, of course we kept him safe and secure, you dummy.
He started his life with us on electrolytes (sugar and salt in water) and in a huge Tubberware. Then he moved onto puppy formula and a 4ft, two story rat cage decked with branches, pinecones, dandelions, leaves and helicopters, to get him acquainted with potential foodstuffs out in nature.
Finally we set him up with bananas, apples, carrots, berries, sprouted sunflower seeds, rat blocks and peanuts as treats (once we got him begrudgingly weaned), and he and his cage was moved outside with his cozy hot water bottle and a tarp of garbage bags to keep him dry in the rainy weather.
Now, this was not something that took place over night. It was weeks of waking up early to feed and clean him, nights of being too worried to sleep, and then when he was out in the garden the trouble was still not over. Now he dug up my seedlings, played in mulch, broke my plants and nibbled on name tags and poisonous flowers!
If you ever find an injured or orphaned animal, please do your best to get it into the hands of a wildlife rehabber. If you're unable to, you MUST do as much research as possible to give the animal the correct care. Especially with baby animals, doing the wrong thing at the wrong time can result in big trouble for them.
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