New Arrivals

Dusty, out white fox cub, is now about 6 weeks old. She is doing well, starting to grow and be more alert, yet she still has her pale, creamy coloured fur.

Tiny and Lucky Star are growing too. All the cubs are now weaned and have moved from our house to a large cage in our animal room. Soon they will be able to go out into sheds and then an outdoor enclosure.

Valentine is our first baby animal of the year. She is a tiny, two week old badger cub, found by a dog in a park and taken wounded into Coastway Vets on St Valentine's Day.

Valentine is doing well, drinking from a bottle and growing. She needs 3 hourly feeds and is quite vocal!

7th March - Valentine is now 5 weeks old. Her eyes have just opened and her fur is growing visibly. Her stripes are much more defined and she is noticably louder and stronger.

Her appetite has increased and she is drinking well from a baby's bottle.

At 6 weeks Valentine is doing really well. Her eyes are bright, she is very vocal and is starting to play.

Wow! Don't they grow fast! Little Valentine is now 7 weeks old and starting to take her first steps around the room. She is wobbly and unfocused at the moment, but already floows Roger's feet. She loves to be played with and is getting very noisy!

At 8 weeks Valentine has very much found her feet. She moves quite fast and follows us or Rebecca about. She loves to play and roll around. Time to start thinking about weening!

Now, at 13 weeks, Valentine is finally starting to eat solid food. She is as playful as ever and very cuddly, but will soon need to be less humanised. She loves company and will follow to heel around the house and garden.

Roger went to Partridge Green to collect two badgers who had become shut into a barn and had been fighting. Amazingly, one of the badgers was much whiter than usual and even had red eyes. Even more amazing, the farm where he collected the badger from was next to the farm where Dusty the white fox cub came from.

It was a sad result for the old white badger. He had a wound full of maggots from his neck to his tail and had to be put to sleep.

The other badger, a normal coloured boar, has a nasty wound on his neck, but is healing well and will soon go back home.

We had a call from people who had a family of fox cubs in the garden. Their cat was mothering them, and the cubs were pestering their dogs to let them suckle. Clearly something had happened to their mum.

The people managed to trap the cubs in the house and we collected them. They are small cubs, no more than six weeks old, but should be fine.

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred were found in a kennel in a garden. They came in at 3 weeks old and are now about 5 weeks and eating meat as well as drinking rearing milk. They are active little cubs and growing well.

The cubs are now big and have moved into a shed. They will soon be joined by another larger cub who came from a garden in Brighton.

Oh so cute! Tiny Parsley the baby rabbit was caught by a cat. He is old enough to eat for himself, and eats loads of cabbage and parsley. Soon he will be able to go back to the wild.

This barn owl had been spotted around the area roosting in trees before it flew into someone's garage and allowed itself to be caught. Obviously tame, it is now enjoying life in our birdroom!

Good news! The owl has now been collected by its owner who bred it himself 14 years ago.

Sometimes, caring for animals, you hear a story that makes you think animals actually choose to make use of us humans when they know they need our help. A friendly vixen, who would come to a lady's house and take food from her hand, suddenly appeared outside with a cub. The cub was poorly and could not stand. It kept going round in circles. Normally a vixen will leave cubs they know are very unwell and not "waste" time rearing them. This vixen did not leave her cub, but waited until her friendly human had picked him up and taken him in. Only then did she leave him, knowing he would be taken care of.

This may seem far fetched... but we have seen foxes apparently use us before. Softie, a fox who blessed us with 7 wonderful years of friendship, would not come to any human except us, other than when she needed a vet. One particular year she had bad mange and we had been treating her. She had even been to the vet for treatment. When several of her cubs caught mange too, we found them one day all sitting in the car, as if waiting to go to the vet too!

Other people have told us tales of animals seeming to come to them when they need help. Animals have more sense than people credit them with!

This little cub, named Georgie, is very sick. He has an infection in his umbilical chord and can hardly stand. However, he is now on antibiotics and is starting to eat, so he may recover. We will do our best!

April 29th, Georgie is still cirlcling, but much steadier overall. He can stand and eat and only cirlces when under pressure. Whether he will ever be releasable is doubtful, but we will keep on with him and hope for the best.

Our first three baby bunnies were named Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail by Rebecca (a Peter Rabbit fan).

At first their eyes were still shut but now they are open and all the babies are starting to eat grass, parsley, rabbit food and of course, dandelions.

Our second set of three baby rabbits had just opened their eyes. Rebecca named them Amber, Blackberry and Cobnut, after three pet rabbits who I used to own.

Baby rabbits are very hard work. We spend long hours slowly bottle feeding them all and they can suddenly die for no apparent reason. We are hopeful that these are doing well.

 Houdini the adult wild rabbit had a road accident. He has a damaged eye but his other injuries have healed well. Houdini is so nbamed because he learnt to open the catch on his cage and now lives loose in the Bird Room, returning to his cage when all is quiet to devour vast quantities of greens and cowparsley.

Fluffy (yes, Rebecca named him) has a respiratory problem and needs medication.

Hopefully he will make a good recovery.

Brave Foxy Lady was found hanging in a wire fence by her leg. The hind leg was completely mangled and sadly the vets had to operate and remove it completely. We know from experience that foxes do very well in the wild with three legs. A few years ago we released Acorn, a fox who survived a road accident and lost an eye and a front leg. He was seen in the area up to two years later, and even had cubs with him!

Foxy Lady, named by the vets, is doing really well. She has finished her medication and should be ready to go soon.

  Foxy Lady has now been released and went off like a rocket!

We have more baby squirrels, named by Rebecca after Thomas the Tank Engine characters. First came a little female - Rebecca named her Mavis. Later we had slightly olders babies in and they are Percy and Madge. All are now together and are eating nuts and fruit, although still need 3 bottle feeds a day.

This squirrel fell from a roof in Lewes and hurt its nose. It arrived terribly frightened but has now settled in with the others and should be fine. It's nose has cleared up and it is less terrified.

We are getting numerous nestling birds in now. The phone rings constantly and our incubator is filling up with little chirps. Blackbirds and robins are the most frequent at the moment, although we have had song thrushes and dunnocks too.

If you find a baby bird on the ground with no feathers or sparce feathering please bring it indoors and warm it up then phone us or another local rescue centre. Parent birds cannot take their babies back to their nest! If the baby is out of the nest it will chill and starve.

Fledgling birds are different. A fledgling is fully feathered and up on its feet, hopping around. It will probably not fly well because it is yet to learn how, but it needs to be left with its parents who will continue to feed it and teach it to fly. Such fledglings do not do well in captivity as they are often too wild to take food, and they do not need rescuing.

For more information please see our wildlife problem pages.

Three not so blind mice ... these little cuties were caught in a house. Their mother had been humanely evicted before their existence was known, so they came to us to be reared. They are eating and should be no problem.