In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time!

I think that pretty much sums it up when it comes to how this little girl came to be at Wolf Hollow.

This Red fox kit was playing in someone's yard with her siblings when she made the unfortunate decision to run up to a deer. The deer decided she didn't appreciate this kit's curiosity, so it freaked out and tromped on her a few times. Having heard this story, we had no idea how bad off she might be, considering her size. So Penny came in last Saturday to take some much needed x-rays of her. We already knew, after getting her in and doing her initial exam, that she had at least one broken leg. We just didn't know how bad it was or if anything else was broken. So Penny sedated her.

This was interesting to watch, as this fox kit is VERY feisty..i.e. bitey! So she had to don our heavy leather "mammal gloves" to even just go in and get her out! After the sedative took effect, she did a quick reassessment to make sure she knew what, exactly, she was going to be x-raying.

Since she was sedated, I took a rare opportunity to get a somewhat close-up shot of her face.

She really is quite striking. Red foxes come in all sorts of color variations, but the main ones we see here on the island are that dark orange/red color and black ones. And then, every once in awhile, you see foxes like this, that seem to be almost crossover of the two colors.

Then into the x-ray room we went. First she was placed this way....

...and then picked up...

...and placed that way.

Even sedated she was a bit squirmy laying on her side, hence the light taping on her legs. We all held our breaths while waiting for the x-rays to develop, as we so wanted this to be something that was fixable. Then, they were done:

YEESH! Yep, she has a nasty break in her left femur. In fact, as you can see, it almost went through the skin! Luckily it is mid-shaft, so we thought it might be able to be pinned. And sure enough, that's exactly what a local vet did for us this past week! YEA!

So now she has a partially shaved backside and some stitches. She will be reassesed in 2 1/2 more weeks, at which time, if she is healing as well as youngsters tend to do, the pin may be removed. This may be the first time that we have had a fox kit this young come in that we have been able to help. All the others have been hit-by-car scenarios and not surprisingly, none of those made it.

In other areas, all the babies keep progressing towards adulthoood and have been moved to different areas to accomodate that progression. The Barn owlets are all fully feathered now and have been moved outside to the Slatted flight cage.

Aren't they just gorgeous?!

I heard, as of today, we have 6 fawns!! But the only other fawn I have a picture of is this handsome male we got in!

Isn't he striking?! In the time I have been with Wolf Hollow, we haven't had this dark of a fawn in before. I guess he is one of a set of twins that got left behind when Mom and his sibling ran across the road. He, like all good youngsters, stayed where he was expecting Mom to come back for him. She never did. To give you a comparison, here is a somewhat blurry photo of the two next to each other.

As for the little girl, yep, she had to go back into leg splints again for a few days but they came off and she looks to be doing well. So much so that in the last week they were taken out to the fawn barn and inner yard.

It's out here that we try to get them to start drinking their bottles from the bottle rack. Again, because they imprint so easily on people, we try to get them as far away from people as soon as feasibly possible to hopefully minimize that feeling of connectedness.

We got this cutie in last Saturday. He was found at the base of a tree, with no parent in sight, which is VERY odd for crows, as they are SUPER protective of their young.

There is just something about baby crows that I just LOVE! They are so gangly and adorable. There is also that intelligence that is so obvious with them. Even at this young age, I feel like I am being studied and measured...against what scale I am not sure.

The other great thing about them is they are GREAT eaters!
And while there are parts of them, like their feet and their mouths, which look so BIG, there is one part of them, at this stage in the growth process, that makes me go "Awww..."

Let's wrap this posting up with an OTTER UPDATE! While I know I just saw them last week, it seems like they triple in size in between the times that I do see them!

I had to take them out of their carrier to clean it and I stuck them in a shallow tub, knowing that they would try and get out.

Luckily though, once all three were in the tub, they got into wrastling...it's different from wrestling....mode.

Then I went in the next day for the "Trying to teach the otter kits to eat their formula from a bowl" session, part 5.0.

And this is how that went down.

Here is a short video clip that may explain the mayhem a bit better! You will see us trying to get the otters to associate the nipple, which they love, with the food bowl. The little girl actually will suck up the formula through the nipple while it's in the formula, but still hasn't grasped that the food is 1 inch away from her face.

And after everything and everyone has formula mash covering themselves from head to toe, the otter kits get thoroughly wiped down and dried off.

Sorry little one. No food there!

Well, that's it for me. For those of you who don't know, starting tomorrow I am taking 3 weeks off to head down to the Galapagos Islands to help out Animal Balance, a wonderful non-profit organization who spays and neuters cats and dogs down there, and in other countries, since these domesticated animals are wiping out a lot of the native species. It's going to be a lot of hard work but also a LOT of fun! Til next time...