Triage

I did not give it much thought over night, however, the next morning I was back at the computer and right off I heard that familiar chirp. When I went down to the woods edge, that poor chipmonk was right where I left her the day before. I could see there was a yellow jacket up underneath her, maybe the smell of death was in the air. This yellow jacket is the carnivorous type that steals ham off your picnic sandwich. I do not know if it was biting her or not, but I suspect that is why she was crying so loud. I chased off the yellow jacket and scooped up the baby. She felt cold in my hand, oh boy, not a good sign. Now it was a life and death mission with a quick assessment of the appropriate triage. I brought her in the house and put some water on the stove to heat up. First thing I did was got a box and towel. I poured the hot water into a pint mason jar and put it under the towel and wrapped the little chipmonk in there to warm her up. Immediately I was off to the store to get some half and half...

For the first couple days I was changing the hot water bottle every four hours, warming the half and half and feeding it to her with a eyedropper. She responded well to the pampering as this went on for days. She was making progress getting stronger and starting to fill out with a soft coat of hair. As I talked to her in reassuring tones I named her "Frieda". Now that she was out of the woods so to speak, I started taking pictures of her...


As time went on I was only changing the hot water bottle once in the evening to give her a chance to cozy down for the night. I was still feeding her about every four hours. She had a ferocious appetite for such a small critter, drinking down maybe 3 if not 4 eyedroppers every feeding...