Don’t feed the baby

Your task is to KEEP THAT BABY WARM! Even if reuniting with mom is possible, she won’t take a cold baby to her healthy warm babies and compromise the entire litter.

Keeping the baby warm is more important than reuniting or hydrating and feeding the baby. Even if you know what you are doing, have the right formula and the right dosage, if the baby is cold, you can’t feed him/her because the baby’s body will refuse to digest the food. KEEP THAT BABY WARM is #1!

All orphaned animal babies are dehydrated from missing even a single meal from mom. With artificial feeding comes problems (like bloat) that can be a slow killer to any infant. Just like adults, giving pure water (let alone full-fat formula) to a dehydrated body will cause the stomach to swell instead of digest. If severe, it can even induce vomiting and further dehydration.

For dehydrated infants given formula, this has deadly effects as the body tries to quickly absorb the water content while leaving an undigested wad of curd that plugs the intestines, preventing digestion and causing a slow, painful death. 

It looks easy enough – put the artificial nipple to the baby’s lips and watch him/her latch on. Right? In truth, it’s easier to accidentally flood the baby’s lungs with formula (drowning), because unlike the real thing, artificial nipples have one hole instead of tiny “watering can” style small ones. Syringe feeding takes practice and even the most experienced rehabilitators will tell you it still requires concentration (watching the baby breathe, then swallow before carefully pushing more formula in) and skill.

The wrong formula could cause the baby to grow patchy fur, develop a nutritional disorder/disease (blindness, paralysis, etc.) or worse – take the baby’s life. Licensed Wildlife Rehabilitators not only have access to the correct formula, but know what additional nutrients to supplement as well as providing veterinary care when needed.