Fawns Galore!

Yes, we officially have the most fawns in since I have been volunteering. The count was at 6 as of last Monday. We get fawns in for numerous reasons. Like this little one:

Cute, no?! But if you look closely at him, you can see a bump on top of his head. Here's a blurry pic (he would NOT hold still) of it.

They have removed it and are doing a histopathology report on it. This little guy also has what appears to be a bony protuberance on his lower left jaw.

They have no idea what this is. They took an x-ray of it and here is what they saw.

You can clearly see the bony bit and some teeth on that side are out of alignment. Luckily this isn't keeping him from eating. In fact, all the fawns were put outside in a small portion of our outdoor fawn pen last weekend.

They all were initially color-coded to make sure we didn't feed a fawn more than once. But now that they are outside, we are feeding them from the bottle-rack, as the sooner they disassociate themselves from humans the better!

The three opossum babies we got in are doing well. They were found abandoned in a garage in Mt. Vernon. One was large enough to go outside into our Opossum cage.

He's pretty much staying entirely in the hammock we have setup in there. So much so that we took him out to make sure he knew where his food was, as he wasn't eating much at all initially. The other two were in a box in their carrier and I didn't want to bother them. Maybe I can get pics of them tomorrow.

The raccoon baby we have in is SO CUTE!

This little girl was found in Anacortes, alone, cold, and lethargic on someone's driveway. Obviously she was being moved and mom got scared off, dropping her in the process. She wasn't eating initially and had to be tube fed. Now she's eating like a champ!

The Mallard ducklings we got in were actually overflow from another rehab place on the mainland. Thankfully all but one were big enough to go into the outdoor wetpen.

We got in a young bird, a Goldfinch I believe, from off island that had an unknown leg issue. And when we examined it, we discovered that it had broken it's tibiotarsus, the feathered upper leg bone. So we had to put a splint on it and immobilize the joint nearest the break.

Needless to say, it was NOT a happy camper after all was said and done.

Unfortunately, this was not the only issue this wee one had, as every time we tried to give him food, and believe me he was HUNGRY, he would spit it back up before it even got down his throat, like he had a major gag reflex or something. I found out that it didn't make it through the night.

While we are now deep in baby season and I could go on and on about the other birds and whatnot, let's end this post with the latest and one of the most unique residents ever admitted while I have been volunteering there. I went in on Sunday to get notes on the patients I had taken pictures of and heard we were getting a fawn in from Orcas Island and went along with Serena to pick it up. It had been found not even 6 inches off the highway on someone's property who was NOT a deer fan. So much so they threatened to shoot it if it stayed there. Mom was nowhere in sight and there was no safe place to leave it so over to Wolf Hollow it came. Now, Orcas Island is known for having a deer population that has beige/white patches on them. We even had one at Wolf Hollow when I first started volunteering. It had a circular beige patch right on it's side. They are called goat fawns as they tend to have stockier bodies and faces. We were told that's what was coming over.

When one of our weekend volunteers showed up with it, she had it in a blanket and all we initially saw was its head, which looked like this:

Pretty, brown with a few white patches. And then, when placing her in the carrier, we saw the rest of her!!

Isn't she amazing?! Yet she doesn't have the stocky face like we were expecting, especially considering how white she is. And yes, she will stay this color even as an adult.

She was very young, with her ear tips still curved from being in the womb and her teeny tiny hoofs still had white tips on them!

She looks like she went in and got a French tip manicure!

I have offered to be the Volunteer Coordinator at Wolf Hollow and will find out what all that entails tomorrow, along with meeting any new residents. Just to give you an idea of how slow we still are, to date we have admitted 193 animals, most of which we got in but some of which our off-site volunteers have cared for. The last 2 years for the same period, Jan. 1 - May 28, we had admitted anywhere from 248-270 animals. Most noticeably missing, at least to me and Serena, are the Barn owlets! We haven't had any in and I do love them so. I also like seeing the summer interns freak out when first having to go in and get them, what with their screaming fits and all!

That's it on my end. Til next time...