4 New Baby Raccoons
On Monday, we received 4 new baby raccoons. Apparently, there was a raccoon causing havoc at someone's home in the city, so they set a trap and caught it. They took it up and released it into the mountains. The next day when they got up, they heard the hungry babies in the chimney. Then pulled them out and took them to a local veterinary clinic. One of the young techs who worked in the clinic thought it would be fun to take them home and raise them - her heart was in the right place, but she didn't understand how tricky it is to raise these little guys before they are weaned.
Raccoons nurse for about 12 weeks - their mothers feed them, burp them and potty them - in order to keep them alive and healthy, you have to do everything the mother would do in the wild. Anyway, after she had had them almost 2 weeks, she decided they needed a new home. Someone told her that we had a permit to have them and had raised others successfully, so she asked if we would come and get them.
When we picked them up - they were in bad shape! They were extemely emaciated - you could feel and count every little bone in their bodies. Their fur was rough and scruffy looking - they stunk and a couple of them had some severe problems with their genitals. We immediately got them on some formula and vitamins. There were 3 little boys and 1 girl. I knew they were weak, starving and unkempt, but I didn't realize they also had distemper.
The first night we had them, the female passed away. I told my girls we had to get some live enzymes in them, so I went to a friends house for some fresh goats milk. By diluting it with water and adding in some vitamins and puppie formula, we were finally able to get their bowels to work. Tuesday one of the little boys began to have seizures - at this point I still thought it was due to malnutrition. By using lobelia tincture orally and massaging his muscles, we were able to help him through 5 or six seizures.
By Tuesday night another one starting seizing. This is when it began to dawn on me we were dealing with more than malnutrition - the first thing that crossed my mind was the possibility of rabies, but when I got through researching it on line I realized all of the symptoms matched the ones for distemper - and according to everything I read, it was fatal - quite often, wiping out whole colonies of raccoons. We spent the night helping the second one through his seizures.
Wednesday morning, the first one was active and hungry - the second one was having extremely bad seizures, lasting up to an hour. Again, we used lobelia tincture and massage. Although with him, we were not only using drops orally, we were rubbing it into the base of his head and spine and on the bottoms of his feet. At 7:30 in the morning, I went to the local vets office - he refused to see or help with the coons, but he was willing to talk to me. I told him that I had brought the body of the female so that it could be sent in for rabies testing - he told me that I didn't need to bother - rabies has not come this far west in raccoons. Apparently we have it in bats and skunks, but not in the raccoons yet. He told me I was dealing with distemper and it is usually fatal - he wanted to know why I didn't just put them down - I didn't try to explain it - I just thanked him for his time.
All day Wednesday - along with the lobelia for seizures - we began giving all three of them X-Ceptic to kill the virus. This morning, they were all ready for their bottles and some play time. Their coats are fluffy and soft again and their genitals are almost back to normal from using BF&C, a good bath and getting their diet corrected. It's been less than 36 hours, and by all appearances, we have 3 healthy little boys.
There is alot of panic going on right now about the pandemic that is coming - the powers that be are trying to convince us that without the proper immunizations, medical attention and quarantine - it will be fatal. I would like to propose that if we stock up on the correct herbs, oils, supplies and knowledge, we will not need to be afraid.
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