Life on the Wildside: MBD, achondroplasia, and a lawnmower accident

Belmont NY small animal rehabilitation sees a range of challenges, donate today!

By Andrew Harris, pictured is rehabilitator Madison Reed and a friend

There are lots of good reasons why animal rehabilitators must pass an exam and have a license in NYS. Madison Reed from “Life on the Wild Side,” has recently had three perfect examples.

The first was a young squirrel who she has named Timber, afflicted with metabolic bone disorder or MBD. Typically this disorder occurs when someone rescues a wild squirrel or other rodent and attempts to domesticate the animal. In the wild, a squirrel like Timber would acquire all the calcium needed as part of a normal wild diet. Madison explains more about this situation :

“It was obvious to me immediately that he’s been living in captivity. He’s extremely overweight and could not use his limbs at all. He was having seizures. I immediately recognized he was having signs of MBD – metabolic bone disorder. This is due to a lack of calcium in their tiny bodies. While you can feed squirrels in the wild peanuts and seed mixes, when in captivity, they have no way of making up for the lack of calcium. Whereas in the wild they can get it from other things they munch on and even sometimes the sun.”

The natural question we posed to Reed was, so how do you reverse the disorder and save the animal? The answer is a common human antacid:

“We got tums in him immediately (tums have calcium carbonate which can ease MBD symptoms). Within 24 hours he was able to stand again and his front paws loosened up to where he could actually use them and move around. MBD is 100% human error and reversible if caught soon enough.”

FOLLOW “LIFE ON THE WILDSIDE” ON FACEBOOK

With Timber in recovery, a baby cottontail rabbit entered the doors of Life on the Wildside and was missing an ear. A lawnmower accident made a fairly clean cut and the human driving the lawnmower raced the little one to Madison and her team. They named the little bunny, “Land Shark,” and the picture below explains why. Luckily, this near disaster had a good ending and Reed expects a full recovery and release.

With two young lives saved and on the road to recovery, “Baby Face” showed up requiring some extra TLC. The name comes from the disorder, achondroplasia, or dwarfism in human terms. Madison explains:

“This issue is pretty rare and a challenge. Some of the signature traits of this are the crown of the head being so high, shortened limbs and “baby face”. It does unfortunately shorten his life span and he will require special care.”