Operation Orphan Wildlife Rehabilitation (Fran Kitchen) will be closed September 12, 2024 until October 1, 2024. Fran is going on a much needed vacation!! 🎉 Baby animals will still be with her while she is away and during her trip she will be picking up an unreleasable fox that will be used in education and…
Thank God that I have my husband Ron to help me answer the phones (we can literally get over a 150-200 calls per day during baby season or bad weather) while I am doing all the things that need done to care for, feed, clean and house the animals. Not to mention running back and…
These two baby Screech Owls were brought into Operation Orphan this week. They were found on a median strip and had possibly been blown from the nest in high winds during the storms we have had. Approximately five weeks old, the larger one was not in as good condition as the smaller one. Copyright 2018…
It is that time of year once again: BABY SEASON It is that time of year once again when may you see a baby animal in the wild all by itself, and your first thought may be that the baby is an orphan. However, at least 85% of baby animals seen by humans are not…
I would like to thank Karisa Bethune-Zinsmayer for the donation of Force Flex trash bags and one dozen towels to Operation Orphan Wildlife Rehabilitation. I use A LOT of towels. They are used to put on the bottom of the bins that baby animals are in, to wrap around the snuggle-safe heat source for the…
I received three bottles of Flys-Off and a bag of cracked corn over the weekend. Thank you Melissa Hornak–this is a BIG HELP! Without Flys-Off, it would be very easy to have a parasite problem. Flys-Off allows me to safely get parasites off of the mammals. Without it, the fleas would get out of control. …
Once again I find myself saying THANK YOU. Kate Powell donated Clean & Cozy bedding, plus a bottle of Pedialyte. Mr. and Mrs. DeAngelis donated paper towels, bleach and Tide. Items donated not only help with caring for the wildlife but it saves me TIME because I do not need to go shop for them….
On behalf of Operation Orphan Wildlife Rehabilitation, Inc., I would like to thank Kimberly Boone for her recent purchase of Pedialyte from Amazon Smile. The four bottles of Electrolyte Solution arrived today. Often the babies are dehydrated when brought into the facility, so this will definitely get used! Donations do make a difference. Thank you…
My days normally begin between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. My routine is to put the dogs out, get my first cup of coffee (if it is baby season I feed babies as I drink my first cup of coffee) and then let the dogs back in the house. I like, when able, to take that…
I was sent a boxful (17 to be exact!) of these cute mini hats that were knitted specifically for baby wildlife. The group, Cuyahoga Falls Knit and Hook, made these to be used as “nests” for the baby wildlife such as bunnies and squirrel. These are going to be WONDERFUL as baby season will be…
It was Easter Sunday when the call came in about two baby Great Horned Owls. One baby was injured, but the other seemed all right. The woman who called said she had watched for several hours to see if a mother came in to care for the young and it was clear that no parent…
A number of years ago on a cold rainy day in April, I received a call from a Tallmadge dispatcher for the police and fire departments. The fire department was at the scene of an abandoned house fully engulfed in flames. When the firemen went into the house they could hear something crying and thought…
This week’s post is not so much a TBT but more of a look into what goes on here. As I mentioned last week, the facility is full of baby animals as we enter the fall birthing season. Right now I have well over 30 squirrels and chipmunks, a dozen opossum, a goose and one…
That’s what it is like here at Operation Orphan these days. Add some opossum and 25 baby squirrels that just came in this week. Did I mention that they all need to be handfed? Yes, folks, baby season is NOT over yet! With no time to write a TBT this week, I want to repost…
Here at Operation Orphan Wildlife Rehabilitation Inc, we have to carry a large variety of foods to care for the animals, since every species has their own diet. Today’s story illustrates the challenge of keeping these different kinds of foods around for the animals. One unusually hot summer, several years ago, we had several Green…
After 53 years of rehabilitation, I have come across a new species of wildlife. I was notified of this new species when a man came to my door with a litter of four bunnies and an egg. The egg was in with the nest of bunnies (looked just like a robin egg, but how much…
Without thinking about it, each of us do little things each day that impact our environment and wildlife in a negative way. For example, who would ever think that something as simple as throwing away the ring that is attached to a bottle cap could cost an animal its life? One year when I was…
ATTN TEACHERS: BEFORE you decide to purchase eggs for the purpose of hatching them in the classroom, PLEASE know what you are going to do with them once they hatch and get too big for your classroom. They do not belong in the city limits and they are not a pet for a child that…
Drum roll please… I’d like to introduce to you our newest education animals at Operation Orphan Wildlife Rehabilitation, Inc., Thelma and Louise! These two opossum sisters came to us earlier in the week from The Ohio Wildlife Center in Columbus. Their center has a program at the local Marysville prison where inmates help to raise…
This week, I wanted to address an important upcoming event… BABY SEASON!!!! It will be here before I know it, especially with the unseasonably warm weather that we are having. Baby season is my busiest season by far and recently, that season has started earlier and lasted longer than ever. (That is a whole different…