End of Freddie....

Freddie was not doing well yesterday. He didn't want to eat and started to be dehydrated. We were very worried and tried to give him a bit more water. He passed away at 9pm yesterday. We did everything we could, but without success. We miss him a lot...

Freddie is Growing...

Freddie asked for a night meal again at 3am, but we fead him with great pleasure!
He now opens his tiny mouth around the eye-dropper we use to feed him, so it's much easier to feed him now. I weighed him again this morning and he has gained another gram, so he's growing!!! Today's weight was 18g. Just like a human baby, he eats, sleeps and shits... But he very much likes to be stroked when he is awake.
This is so nice!!!!!

Animal Rescue

Me and Leona very often watch the Animal Rescue on DStv, but never thought that we would have our own rescue mission! But now we're in it... I had to feed Freddie at 3am, when he signaled that he was hungry! Fortunately I could easily fall asleep after mission completed.
I weighed him again this morning: 17g, that's a weight increase of 6.25% since yesterday.
His progress is now followed by a lot of people, both locally and overseas.

Freddie is alive!

Since our little baby squirrel survived the night we have given him a name: Freddie.
He is very lively and tells us when he's hungry. Today I weighed him: 16g. To our big joy he has also let something come out at the back end! All systems running...
In the formula I wrote "salt" but it should be sugar.

A New Baby...

Yesterday our neighbors found two baby squirrels in their garden. One of them died during last night, but we took care of the other one this morning. After a phone call to the vet, we got a recipe for a milk formula, with milk, egg yolk, salt and water. It's a little boy. His eyes are not open yet, but he is quite lively! We feed him every 30 minutes. When he lies in a box with a "water bottle" to keep him warm, he squeaks, but now I have him in my breast pocket of my shirt, and he seems to be happy again. But I must stroke him a bit every now and then to keep him real happy.






Hopefully he will survive....

Another Black Mamba Post

Don't get the impression that I'm obsessed with Black Mambas... It's rather a matter of fascination!
Almost a year ago when I was less than 2 meters from the Black Mamba in our garden I realize that I was very close to certain death. I have seen the Black Mamba after that, but then in the protection of my car.
The Black Mamba is definitely one of the world most dangerous snakes, but it is not the snake that kills the highest number of people. In Southern Africa the Mozambican Spitting Cobra (which we have had four times in our garden) kills many more humans. And the snake that kills even more people in the whole continent is the Puff Adder (which we have only encountered once in our garden)
The guy featured in this article, Carl Lötter, I have known for almost 8 years. The first time I met him he caught a Twig Snake (which is VERY deadly, but seldom attacking humans) in our garden.