Helping baby animals

The animals have been on earth for a long time

From the original writing of this article, it was the month of May! That means the baby animal season was in full swing! But it happens every year, so even if it's not the high season, there are and there may be babies born all year. Also, after reading this article, you will be ready for the next season!

Kittens, puppies, ducks, birds: all respond to the call of nature to reproduce. Animals have been doing this very well for many centuries without the help of humans.

Then, the humans arrived, who decided to get involved in the process. Some species have been domesticated to serve as pets or work animals; others remain in nature. At some point, people thought that she was more intelligent, more astute and more capable of handling the situation than Mother Nature herself; and that's where the problems started.

Certain traits were raised inside or outside of various animals for any reason; and the original pure version practically ceased to exist. Still, the basic survival instincts can not be modified so easily, so despite human intrusion, most animals manage well.

The newborns are so cute!

Yes, everyone loves a newborn. We are programmed as part of our own survival to love and nurture young people. Many of us extend that care beyond our own species, and to some extent, that is admirable.

Unfortunately, there are still other people who seem to have fun mistreating animals, and that is where people interested in animal rescue come into play. Your efforts are very necessary. Most certified rescue groups have at least one veterinarian on duty, if not one on the staff.

In addition to the rescue groups, there are also ordinary citizens with extra love to share who will also intervene to help. This is a good thing; the rescue groups need many volunteers to be able to fulfill their mission.

Do not enter too soon!

Sometimes, however, good intentions go wrong. The day, for example, someone showed up at the door of the rescue group where I worked as a volunteer on a weekly basis, and had a shoe box with newborn kittens that they had "rescued" carefully.

Now, when I say newborn, I mean literally, these kittens still had their sacks tied! The person was worried because there were ants in the babies. Well, to be sure, that's something worrying. However, small kittens so small need their mother.

As any human mother knows, giving birth is hard work: momma may have moved away to rest or go to the bathroom. Maybe the person's approach scared her and she hid.

The point is that it was not a rescue, it was taking the babies of his mother, the situation is more similar to a kidnapping. You have to ask yourself, how would you like it if you had your newborn baby in a stroller and turned it around, for just a second, to take off your wallet and pay for your purchases, and someone decided that the baby was unattended , and snatched it to "rescue" it?

The animals are very "in tune" with their surroundings

Humans seem to have lost some ability to connect with nature, the Earth and its rhythms and cycles. Some of us have that capacity, but in more of us, it has become latent; ignored, disused and forgotten.

It is widely reported that animals seem to sense an earthquake about to occur, for example, while simple humans are usually taken by surprise. It's that feeling of being "in tune" to which I refer. In what some may call psychic or clairvoyant abilities, animals seem to "simply know" certain things about life and death.

In the scenario I just described, maybe the mother cat knew somehow that her babies were in trouble because of the ants; maybe he had not noticed a nearby anthill while looking for a place to give birth.

Or maybe, as I suggested, she was hiding, and would have returned to fight the ants, and rescue the babies herself, or at least do everything possible. In the end, mom cat knew what she had to do, one way or another.

Maybe the babies were born defective and weak, and that's why the ants attacked. Unfortunately, Mother Nature is not always a loving and affectionate mother; sometimes it can be very cruel and heartless.

Another story

Shortly after we moved to our current location, there was a semi-wild kitten that lived in our neighborhood. She alone was probably responsible for most of the cats that roamed the area.

She was also a little small, barely weighed 4 pounds, and with a barely audible voice ... she opened her mouth to say "Miau" and you did not hear a sound, unless you could get close to her, you would hear a little squeak. We call it, alternatively, "Mama Cat" and "Silent Running". We found out that it had been a long-standing accessory in the area ... so she was not a young cat.

One day, we went out and discovered that he had had kittens, again. There was only one, and it was under a bush, meowing its little heart. "Mom" was not anywhere. We left the baby, and went hunting for Mama Cat. We found her under another bush, and she did not seem at all interested in her baby, so we finally picked it up and brought it back, since the baby was getting cold.

(It is not necessarily true what people say, that if you touch a baby animal, the mother will abandon it, especially with dogs and cats, even semi-wild, like this kitten, will allow some human contact, recognize their source of food , if they have been fed here and there, which was "Mom").

In any case, she ignored the baby, and when we came back later to verify, both she and the baby were gone. Later, we heard the meow again and discovered that he had taken the baby and hid it under our back porch. Of course, it is an independent porch, and below it is concrete. It is not a warm and welcoming place.

Our attempt to help

At that time, we determined that he was deliberately abandoning this baby. We took it out, wrapped it in a blanket and held the little kitten on our knees in a bottle of hot water. My mother still did not show interest.

Finally, in desperation, we caught Mama Cat, and we put her and her baby in our vet. They tried valiantly to save the little kitten, but it was not like that. Then, we were going to pay to have Mama sterilized, but when the vet performed the "instantaneous" test, she was positive for Feline Aids (FIV), and it did not go well. (Look, she was an old cat at the moment, IVF does not have to be a death sentence in itself).

They also discovered that the reason he had abandoned the first kitten was that there was another inside that could not leave, and that he was already dead. He explained why he had ignored the first baby; She knew that she had unfinished business, and could not care for them. In the end, the nicest thing was to make her give up.

What should I do to help?

Although it seems hard and heartless, the first thing to do when finding a baby or a litter of babies is to do nothing at all. Go back, look at the area. Check these things:

• Is the child in immediate danger from traffic or predators?

• Is there enough coverage for the mother to be around, watching?

• Is the baby moving, breathing or seems to be dead?

• Is the mother near and dead?

• Is the animal (or animals) in or near a box or other container, which makes you suspect that an ignorant and heartless person has thrown them?

After consulting this list, your next move is to move away from the area and simply observe. Not for a few minutes; Not for half an hour. Obviously if you have found the dead mother, enter and continue with the rescue. Otherwise, give it at least one or two hours, maybe more. The mother may have gone to find food for herself or to take her to the babies. That takes some time.

If after several hours, the babies are still without their mother, check them again to see how they are. If they seem to be in danger, now may be the time to intervene; If they seem fine, give Mom a little more time. After all, you would not want to go home to find your missing babies, would you?

The downside of this is that, especially with cats, if they lose a litter, for whatever reason, they will return to heat and produce a new round of offspring.

A colony of wild cats is not necessarily a bad thing

If the cat is really wild, it's best to let her take care of her babies until they start eating solid foods, then try to capture her mother (and any man, too) and put them in a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program .

These programs significantly reduce the number of street cats in an area, and cats are territorial, they also help prevent new ones from moving to take their place, which is what happens if the cats are eliminated and destroyed.