This cute little guy fell out of the eaves of the vacant house across the street from us yesterday afternoon. I don't know how long it had been on the porch of that house when I noticed it, but when I saw it hobbling back and forth in the 95° heat, I knew something had to be done. Luckily for me, Shane was almost home from work, so I found our cat carrier, then Shane scooted the little raccoon into the carrier with a shovel. The raccoon is about the size of just-weaned kitten.
Off Kat and I went to Lakeside Nature Center, where the raccoon will be nursed back to health then released back into the wild. All we were told was that despite having fallen about eight feet to the porch and being a little dehydrated, it seemed pretty healthy. They told us they'd send us a post card to let us know what happens, good or bad.
Unfortunately, there are more raccoons in the attic of the house across the street; Shane saw another one nearly fall while we were transporting the first one. It's been vacant for two full years now, but there were already bandits in the attic when the previous owner lived there. No telling how many are there now. We can't watch for and rescue all of them, but I did let Lakeside know there are more, should they want to try to remove them themselves. I guess only time will tell.
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July Grocery/Pantry Challenge:
Items Purchased Today (store brand unless indicated): None
Amount Spent Today (including tax): $0.00
Amount Spent To Date in July (including tax): $146.90
12 comments:
What a great story! Aren't raccoons neat looking creatures? When I was little my grandma was always rescuing little orphaned animals. I remember bottle feeding baby raccoons and opossums. We always released them once they were big enough.
Bless you for helping the little guy. I'm glad there is a place close to y'all that you can take wildlife to.
I'm still impressed with your spending---or not spending--as the case may be!!
Have a wonderful weekend.
Poor little guy.
Someone's going to have a big mess to clean up if they ever sell that house.
Remind me to tell you about the time I drove around PA with a dead possum in my car.lol
Did the people next door abandon the house? If the raccoons have been living there for that long I am surprised ya'll haven't had them in your yard/trash/garden/etc. alot.
If the wildlife center doesn't want to deal with them maybe a call to your animal control office so they can get rid of them. I sure wouldn't want a pack of raccoons living next door to me. Be careful around them even the baby ones!
Miranda: I think they are very cute. We had a semi-tamed one for a while when I was a child.
Sheila: This is the third time we've taken an animal to Lakeside. Kat's mom rescued a baby squirrel with a broken leg, and another time, a baby rabbit whose nest had been mowed over, about 10-12 years ago. Both of those animals went to the nature center.
Shelli: If...is the operative word there. We were pretty good friends with the guy who owned it, but he got married, bought a farm and just walked away from it. It was in much worse condition than we thought it was when he lived there.
Sluggy: They were in the attic when Zach lived there, but he made only a half-hearted attempt to get rid of them. Back when I was trying to catch the feral cats in our yard to get them neutered, I trapped a very large raccoon, but that's the only one we've ever seen in our yard/garden/trash. Now 'possums are another story. We've seen several of those. Also, our animal control guy is worthless. We quit trying to get him to do anything a long time ago.
I forgot to mention that Shane also went over to the house and did a quick "repair" to the soffit where the raccoon fell, so hopefully no more of them will fall out now.
So cool that you could help rescue him (her?), but yeah - I'd be a little afraid of how many there will end up being & how they'll spread...
Tug: Thanks for commenting. I've been thinking about you, but haven't got up off my lazy butt to send you an email. :)
That was so sweet of you! We rescued 2 blue birds once. They loved Den. We called to see if we could drop them off and we told to let them die. We broke the law and raised them anyways! They were cute and would come circle us when they we free.
That baby is a cutey! Good for you for rescuing him/her
I don't think I would want them to live next door, though.
SonyaAnn: I've not rescued any birds, but I have had to put one or two out of their misery. :( Sad, but the right thing to do at the time.
Frances: I don't mind them much. they don't bother our stuff and our cats are safely inside all the time.
We've had wildlife at almost every house we've lived in. At one house (in the city), we had a huge groundhog that lived in our back yard, we watched a mother fox and two of her kits play in our yard for about an hour, and one morning I looked out and saw a big red-tailed hawk on my clothesline pole, just a few feet from the house. In the country, of course, we saw everything from deer to coyotes to 'possums in our yard.
No worries...I'm totally the same way. *sigh*
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