Here is little Oona at five weeks. She is really doing well. She is small, but feisty! I have moved her to the barn during the day. Her cage in the barn is much larger and I think she is less bored. Daytime temps have been very warm here this week (low 80s), but cool enough at night, that I still want to bring her in since she has no siblings to help keep her warm during the night.
She is beginning to eat pellets, hay, oats and other snippets of fruit or veggies that I have on hand. I am still feeding her a small amount of the Goats Milk Esbilac (about 10 cc) once a day, which she takes with relish! I am trying to get her to eat more solid foods.
It appears the GM Esbilac is the way to go. There have been no digestive issues so far. Feeding has gone much easier since I bought the assortment of nipples from the squirrel rescue folks. Here is a nipple that has become a favorite and works well for this age. I have been using it for about 10 days now.
It fits right on the end of a luer lock syringe. The kit I purchased had about 6 or 7 different nipples and syringes. Some of the nipples are really for newborn small mammals. Too tiny for this baby!
However, the syringe I liked the best when she was about 3 weeks old (and I would have used it sooner, if I had it then) was this silicone nipple:
This nipple was very easy for her to nurse from without taking in too much milk and aspirating. Sadly, it only lasted a few days before her voracious appetite and growing teeth damaged the nipple to point of uselessness. I would definitely try this nipple (a new one!) on a younger kit, probably one as young as a day or so. It’s very soft and pliable, more so than the nipple above that I am using now.
While I am at it here, I have included photos of
Oona’s parents: Samson’s Nitro is her dad.
He is a bit special, coming all the way from Ontario, Canada when Leslie Samson visited here last March.
And Windsor Farm’s Glissade, a fabulous
doe I got from Gail Smith last summer. I have
re-bred Glissade to Nitro and this time hope to
have a more successful outcome!
Here is a parting shot of Oona in the house with her pal Buddy, the Oriental Shorthair. This was taken about a week ago.
