Baby Squirrel’s Release to the Wild doesn’t go to plan (Episode 5)

[Music] Ru has had an unlucky start to life he was made an orphan but luckily ran into the right hands Rue was making great progress until he broke his leg after a month of recovery Rue is ready to be released to the wild R but ruse luck soon runs out because he returns sick and [Music] skinny it's August and Rue is 13 weeks old we visit Rue once a day and it's the highlight of his day ow oh my goodness look this is what he does r do you want to come in ru's leg had healed in the right position and although there was was a slight lump at the fracture it didn't seem to bother him look at your leg it's so good yes all right it's coming if you sit there I can get you milk yeah I know I know I know here here rud we're [Music] ready come on jump [Music] good have some more have some more oh okay that's it that's it apparently it's been 2 weeks since Rue broke his leg we're not sure whether it was just a slight fracture rather than a full break come on come here but we had to delay releasing him um but now his leg has almost completely healed you can see that it's a bit weak and sometimes after running for a bit he sort of draged it but generally the leg is really good at this age so he's around 3 months now this is the age that his mom would basically stop feeding him milk and would actually start kicking him out but I think we might wait a couple more weeks until we release him just because of the [Music] leg we visit him every day for about maybe 10 15 minutes and I think we've sort of forgotten that he is a baby squirrel without siblings and he does like to play so we need to do this basically thanks r hi more milk that was his bad leg careful don't want to fall over what are you eating it's almost like he's got whiskers on his [Music] arms [Music] [Music] me this what's this it was obvious R was coming bored in his enclosure as he would spend several hours a day running around I think he wants to go go in there go in there yeah that's [Music] it he wants to find somewhere to go you're not going down there sorry you have short no R sharp claws although Rue would love to sleep in my pocket or hoodie we have to separate ourselves to ensure a successful release to the wild bye have a good [Music] day that's it life feels slow these days I've changed all my plans to be here for R we're just waiting for him to be healthy and ready for the wild hi come here how are you look I brought your favorite [Music] snack you're warm we discovered Rue is addicted to avocado so we give it to him every few days as a treat Rue is more focused and alert these days but we can't forget his middle name Chaos he don't put my microphone rud no come on r r r you can't do that it's not edible tomorrow is ru's big day we're going to release him he is 14 weeks old now and he has grown so much his leg has completely healed he's definitely ready to be released he runs around the cage for hours and jump it's been hard because we want to release him but we didn't want to do it until his leg was in great condition and now it's like it was never broken he runs around he uses it he's really agile but he's ready rud can we not eat my microphone rot no not the cable rot please you're naughty now aren't [Music] you you got avocado oh my [Music] goodness gotcha I gotch you I'm nervous for ru's release I have no idea what to expect nice jump will we open the door and he will disappear to the wild careful gentle CL are these the last days I will ever see of [Music] him hello from a wintry Sweden I just wanted to quickly mention that my group trip to Alaska is now live we're going to be staying at a lodge right next to where the salmon migrate upstream and there will be lots of of bears feasting on the salmon they call it fat bear week because the Bears are building up their fat reserves to survive a winter hibernation and they're just feasting on salmon if you're interested in joining head to my website and you can see the itinerary and I'd like to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this video and making it so easy to have a professional website this week I've been updating the web pages about the Alaska trip there are so many different ways you can present your content and I love that you can view it as a phone as well as desktop so you can create a website that fits different devices if you'd like to give Squarespace a go head to squarespace.com danyon wild and you can save 10% off a new purchase of a website or a domain okay back to Sweden in the [Music] summer ruse's big day has finally arrived he has spent the past 10 weeks with people what will he do when he is free [Music] ready Welcome to the Real World what do you want to [Music] do so the idea is that he can come and go so it might be that he sleeps in his box tonight I'm pretty sure he will but he wants to jump you look let's go to some trees there we go when I imagined this day I always thought Rue would go to the tops of the trees and find his route to the forest what I didn't expect was rue to share his excitement with us there was nothing stopping rof from leaving but he spent 2 hours playing Chase with us [Music] he [Music] yeah he's right at the top of this R [Music] Tree [Music] why is he looking why are you licking you weirdo stop licking go on be a wild Squirrel R I need a calendar photo you're now a wild Squirrel stand still for a moment I'm so quick Rue was extremely hyper but I did manage to get a few photos between the [Music] playing where is [Music] it oh my God I'm dizzy it started raining and then Rue did something incredible R started to collect lyen to make a place to sleep Rue had found an old tray a nestlike structure where squirrels sleep and he decided it needed fresh lyen squirrels are independent very young and many of their behaviors are innate or instinctive behaviors that aren't taught by the mother Rue knew exactly what he needed to [Music] do [Music] [Music] that's [Music] [Music] come here hello should we go home come on let's go home that night it was forecasted to be rainy and windy so I decided to bring Rue back into his enclosure for the night it let's go this way R what's this it was easy to convince him with some avocado that's what you want come on then good good good okay the following day we let R out and he disappeared into the Woodland next to our house it's fine were you getting worried we let R out about an hour ago and more nuts he had basically disappeared and we came to this small Forest to try and look for him we couldn't find him then we went inside Juan looked with binoculars and spotted him in one of these trees and he came and said hello [Music] Rue was still so excited to be wild he had found a new Dre and started adding lyen Ru spent the whole day and that night in the [Music] [Music] Woodland last night Rue slept in the forest in a wild Ray and we were just inside finished our dinner and I got a notification from the camera that there was movement and I could see Rue on the outside of the cage and he wanted to get in but he wasn't sure how to get in so I managed to grab him bring him in and he immediately went to eat on the box so I think he's had a rough day and he's been hungry but he's eating now at this point I realized something was wrong he's breathing hard isn't he Rue wasn't okay he was breathing heavily and seemed exhausted is okay I mean he doesn't have any injuries we decided to lock the gate so that we could see how Rue was the following day just overnight Ru had lost wait we brought him inside to monitor him but there wasn't anything evidently wrong there were no wounds Rue was just weak and not eating and less [Music] woken come here by the evening Rue was worse and his lungs were clicking I slept next to Rue that night I didn't think he'd make it when I checked on Rue in the morning I thought he had passed but to my surprise he'd survived the night Rue has been sick now for 3 days he has hardly eaten hardly drank anything and I think he has aspiration pneumonia now I can hear his lungs sound Wheezy and almost like there's water in them we need to get to a vet which is really difficult with a wild animal so I don't know what we're going to do I had already contacted various vets and finally we had an appointment in 2 hours the vet was able to diagnose Ru with what I expected aspiration pneumonia and he was given a week's course of antibiotics I gave him the first dose in the car park and the reaction was immediate he parked up in the car and he was very confused where he was the drive back was tough but Rue relaxed when we were home it's crazy how much the medicine has helped like it was instant he even [Music] alarmed like before we didn't react to anything we tried to put Ru in another hoodie but he wanted to stay close to us okay sorry sorry I'm know stuck there we go by the afternoon Rue had lost his appetite again and nothing seemed to work his favorite foods hazelnuts or avocado weren't working but I remember remembered there was one food that Rue always ate crackers I smothered boiled egg and avocado onto a cracker and it worked Rue was finally eating and I worked out another trick if I placed the syringe of antibiotics and milk in maple syrup it would mask the taste of the antibiotics and he would happily take the medication [Music] Ru responded incredibly well to the antibiotics and was back in his enclosure 2 days after visiting the vet come on skinny eat more Rue slowly started to gain weight no ow to this day we're not sure what happened with R in the wild it definitely seemed like he was fighting an illness or maybe he had eaten something he wasn't supposed to or attacked by an animal it's impossible to know what matters is Rue gets better completes his antibiotics and gains weight I had spoken to various squirrel rehabilitators and they were all fascinated to hear that Rue returned Rue was Wild and Free but he still came home he knew we could help in the next episode Rue gets released for the second time we put up a feeding station in the Woodland that will hopefully help support rub but will Rue make it to the [Music] wild

Channel: Dani Connor Wild

Views: 1,078,796

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Id: q5cqkDrdN2k

Length: 23min 35sec (1415 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2024