Her big stepsister, Marge, is starting to display some of that obstinacy, too, but I can cajole her a lot easier into eating than Cheyenne. Marge is also picking up on worrying my hair and ears. I've taken to wearing an scarf around my head but they still find my ears to nip at anyway. Wonder if they can be trained to understand the word "no"? Midge, the middle one, continues to be more docile and gentle. But they are all so cute when they are napping. Pretty laid back in this picture, eh?

So why did I want to take on more punishment? Like another raccoon? Because it is so hard to say no. My local rehab contact, Barb, called and said some gentleman had found a baby raccoon out in his yard. It had been there for several days after a hollow tree had been cut down and the mother and two other babies were ousted. They weren't sure if the mother ever came back but after a day two of the babies disappeared. So, they let the last baby stay where it was hoping the mother would come back for it or disappear like the other two. It didn't, so they took it in and called Barb. She told them get a baby bottle and feed it Pedialyte for a few feedings and then some of the formula that she told them how to make and see if it would survive the night. It survived.

Barb is absolutely up to her armpits in animals--bunnies, muskrats, starlings, a fox, and I really don't know what else--so she just absolutely couldn't take any more. She called me to see if I wanted to. Me, who can't seem to turn anything request down, said sure. The man and his wife brought it over.

She (and I've determined that it is a female) looked pretty weak still and skinny. There was crust on its eye and the man said that there was pus in it. They said it was probably ready to eat again. I took the baby bottle they offered me along with the cardboard box lined with a towel and a bathroom rug that they didn't want and told them thank you very much. They left and I took the new one out to the breezeway and ensconced it in a small cat carrier that I asked Bill to bring up.

This one is more golden colored. Wiping off the crust on the eye, I did see there was pus in there. I applied some Neosporin to it and hoped that would help it. Reading on the Internet later, I discovered that the eyes sometimes crust up but the mother takes care of it. The pus develops because the eye has crusted and the tears that would normally be coming out can't come out, hence the pus. Well, okay. Her eye seems to be better now after three days of wiping it clean and Neosporin. I fed her the powdered formula and two parts Gatorade and one part water for all of the first day and a half, then have her on the regular formula mix now. I used a child's oral medicine injector to feed her because she seemed so weak. I am happy to report that she appears to be gaining some strength and sucked on a regular nipple today.

Now that's what is the rewarding part about this rehabbing gig. Weaning a wild toddler, well, now that's enough to make me want to quit. That and having to pick deer ticks off the new one. I wasn't sure what they were at first so wrote to the raccoon list to ask about these "nubbies". After I got the answer, I was pretty disheartened. I just went through a raccoon feces scare after having tracked one into the house now I gotta worry about deer ticks and the threat of Lyme disease that they carry getting into the house? I didn't know for two days that this little one had them. Ack!!! So, I was inspecting her thoroughly yesterday while sitting out in the yard and pulling them off of her. There was about a dozen of them. I also check her bedding thoroughly every time I get her out to see if any more dropped off her. Let's just hope and pray that none of them crawled out and onto the floor and then into the house in during the time I didn't know she had them.

Bill is out in the yard today building a bigger cage for the ever-growing older group. He'll put in a large tree branch for them to practice their climbing skills on. I won't be able to put the new girl in with them for a week or so to make sure that she's not carrying any disease that could be passed on to the others.