Endless Dilemma’s with wildlife.

Mother and baby rabbits at the rescue.

The  wildlife unit is absolutely swamped with a wide range of youngsters at the moment, the usual mid summer casualties, and the endless rain is not helping matters. These wee critters are suffering from a range of problems, including being orphaned, injured or sickly. An extremely sickly baby hedgehog.

The problems with caring for wildlife are the endless dilemma’s that arise. A few weeks ago, a young magpie came in with all sorts of problems. It had head tremors and poor vision and was struggling to feed. All those problems have now been overcome but the main issue was that it was walking on it’s elbow joints, sadly, the reason why has now been diagnosed. It has fused bone joints and will never be able to walk properly and…. the condition has no cure. It’s absolutely heartbreaking, the bird is constantly rubbing the joints and will end up suffering so it has to be put to sleep…..it is a dreadful thing having to watch a fiesty little creature that has struggled against all the odds, with such a strong will to survive, be put to sleep. After weeks of caring for the bird it is a dreadful outcome and of course such close handling results in emotional attachment…. Another problem we have is a duckling that came in as a tiny chick. They rarely do well on their own and the last two we had in, died. This one however has thrived and is almost fully grown. Unfortunately it has a condition called angel wing which means it will never fly. So what to do…it is a wild animal and now it can never go back to the wild. We’ve decided to let this bird join the other ducks on the farm, at least it can run wild and will be fed each day and mucked out. Shame it can’t go back to the wild though.

A crow chick.

People often express their annoyance and disgust when they find out we care for birds like magpies, woodpigeons, pigeons and crows as they’re regarded by many as pests. We just see them as wildlife, struggling to survive in an over populated human environment..

A blackbird chick on my arm.

As I was cleaning out a rabbit’s hutch today, I came across a very bedraggled young mouse shivering in the rabbit’s hay. Although we do clear the mice and rats out of the unit every so often we do leave the youngsters alone until they’re old enough to survive. I felt sorry for this tiny, shivering scrap of life so I put it in a make shift nest in a hamster cage with food and water. I don’t know if it will live but at least it has a chance….utter madness you say???? maybe, but just another dilemma to face.