The Seal Ordeal!

Winter...tis often a much calmer and quieter affair here at Stapeley.  A time for doing jobs we are often too busy to do during spring and summer. A time of catching up, tidying up, stocking up.  A time to restore, reorganise and recharge. But this year our winter serenity has been short lived...we have had the calm before the storm...literally.

If you have read or seen the news recently, you will probably be aware of the terrible storm surges which happened recently in Norfolk, resulting in vast numbers of grey seal pups being washed up, washed out and separated from their mums. The RSPCA East Winch branch is currently caring for 100 grey seal pups! One hundred!!! Here at Stapeley, we have a very modest 6! A minor group in comparison, yes, but they have certainly kept us on our toes ever since their arrival!

    

The 6 seal pups came to us just over a week ago aged less than three weeks, and still covered in their fluffy white/yellowish fur coats (pictured above left). They have since moulted these furry coverings (pictures below) and are now velvety grey with varying shades of speckles on them. At the hospital, the seals are reliant on the staff to feed them regularly; 4 times a day at the moment. Christmas we know is a costly affair, but even more so now! Five weeks of fish for 6 seals will cost us £2000! In the wild, they suckle fatty rich milk from their mums and would put on nearly 1.5 kilos in weight a day! They would then be abandoned by their mums just after they have moulted and weighing in at approx.40 kilos.

Presently, whilst in our care, they do not have the fat reserves to warrant being released back into the sea. So it is our job to feed them up so they reach a good weight and are able to lay down blubbery reserves. Ours currently weigh in at approx. 26-28 kilos.

The seals certainly take some handling when we are tube feeding them fish soup. We have to straddle and grip them to keep them steady. We are all after one week, achy, stiff and with thigh muscles of steel! The sounds of the seals when you walk down the corridor, is not dissimilar to a labour ward...lots of grunting, snorting and huffing!

  

As a newer member of the team here at Stapeley, I have had a very fulfilling week. I am being trained by experienced staff in the handling and safety of working with seals and in the correct use of equipment. Today I got to use a seal net for the first time, as we moved one of our weightier seals from indoors to an outdoor pool (pictured below). The fun continues and will do so for many more weeks. (I just hope my thighs can take the strain).  

If you would like to help us in the care of the seals, we would gladly receive any unwanted towels, blankets and bed linen. Alternatively, if you have £5 to spare at Christmas, please text SEAL02 £5 to 70070 and help feed our fishy friends. Any donations are always truly appreciated and gratefully received. Thank-you.

And check out this recent report by Lee Oliver: http://youtu.be/bHI7QLX_H0o

By Lynsey Cale

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Blog

Seasonal Success at Stapeley

After a lot of preparation for the event and eager anticipation, the day of the Christmas Fair arrived full of festive fun. This was only the second year Stapeley has run the event and thankfully the weather was on our side again as were the excellent numbers of people who came along in support. They all enjoyed the stalls, games, tasty refreshments and the chance to tell Santa what they would like for Christmas. 

To complete the festive mood Claire and Kev from The Cat Radio station provided the music and entertainment broadcasting live from Stapeley promoting the event. Many visitors took the opportunity to look around the Cattery, we hope to re-home many cats and kittens over the coming weeks, which is a massive additional benefit from the day. There was also the exciting draw of the Grand Prize Raffle which many local businesses generously donated many fantastic prizes towards. Please see our facebook page for a list of the Prizes and lucky winners!

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/RSPCA-Stapeley-Grange-Cattery/362438010515120

All the hard work and contributions from everyone paid off really well with the total fund raised on the day amounting to nearly £3000!

This is incredible news and fantastic achievement, without all the tremendous help the success of this year’s event would not be possible so a huge thank you everyone. At Stapeley we are determined to make 2014 events even bigger and better, so we would be delighted for your continued support for all the animals at the Centre.

Written by Michelle Bite

Photos by Claire Faulkner and Samantha Taylor

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

  To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Come and celebrate with us at our Christmas Fair

Come to Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery this Sunday (24th November 2013) between 11am and 3pm to get into the festive spirit. There will be lots of exciting stalls, a fantastic Grand Prize draw, fun games, yummy refreshments and even Father Christmas himself will be here!

Every year the RSPCA rescue, rehabilitate and re-home hundreds of thousands of animals. Here at Stapeley Grange we deal with over 5500 wildlife admissions and find safe, loving homes for hundreds of cats and kittens each year. However to care for all these animals it costs over £800,000 to run the centre annually. 

We hope you can come along to the event, enjoy a bit of Christmas fun and may be a mince pie whilst supporting and allowing us to continue our good work.

See you on Sunday!

By Michelle Bite

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

  To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

House Martins leaving home

Everyone enjoys a sunny day but for the the Stapeley Grange team it provides a window of opportunity to release some of its wildlife back to the wild.  When releasing house martins we are ideally looking for fair weather for three or more days.

Following rehabilitation in the hospital our house martins are transferred to an outside aviary where they are given an opportunity to build up their flying skills and to acclimatise themselves to the various weather conditions that they will have to deal with when released.  Giving birds time to prepare for a return to the wild is very important especially for migrating birds that travel back to Africa for warmer weather. So before they left us we needed to catch them up to give them one final check over, to ensure they were fully fit for release.

To enable us to catch the birds we used a special mist net which is very similar to a volleyball net but virtually invisible so they fly into it.  It sounds easy but house martins are very clever and skilled flyers which is great in the wild but makes catching them up very tricky!

                        

Once each individual had been checked over they were placed into a container. Once we had caught all that were being released we took them to a suitable location onsite.  And then came the best part of the job; opening up and allowing them to fly off.  I knew they would be far too quick for me to take photos of them flying away so I filmed them instead.

Many of these birds were brought to us as orphans over the summer.  They had to be hand fed with meal worms every hour so it was a joy to see all that hard work and patience pay off, it was fantastic.

By Michelle Bite

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

  To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Following our Foxes

An exciting part of being a Wildlife Assistant is being involved with the releases and the post-release monitoring work.  We are now in year 2 of a 4 year project that is looking into survival rates of fox cubs following release.  This year 6 cubs are being fitted with GSM collars which will collect important data on their movements post release.  I was very privileged to observe the collars being fitted and was in charge of recording all the details of each fox as they were being fitted and checked over.

Taking measurements.

Recording weight.

In order to fit the collar the foxes were given an anesthetic; this gave us an opportunity to take important body measurements and for our vet to give them a full health check before their return.  The team had to ensure the collars were fitted correctly so as to firstly avoid the fox pulling it over his head but secondly allow for a little more growth.  The collars where then sprayed with a bitter spray to deter the foxes from chewing them, which had been a problem last year.

Giving a health check and checking its condition.

Spraying the collar with bitter spray.

  

We will now be able to monitor the foxes post release which is always important from a rehabilitation point of view, to ensure that we are returning them back to the wild, fit and able to survive and integrate back into a wild population.  It will be great to see if our foxes decide to stay where we release them or move on to establish their own territory as they tend to do in the wild.  

Using GSM collars is an important step forward in terms of monitoring fox cubs. Although expensive, they will allow us to collect important data without having to track them on a daily basis.  Using GSM collars is also far less labor intensive than using VHF collars.  Information gathered from this project is likely to be very useful to anyone involved in the care and release of orphaned fox cubs and will hopefully give us all peace of mind that we are giving them all a fair chance of returning back to the wild successfully.

The collar will allow us to trace the fox by satellite.  

By Michelle Bite

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

  To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Sticking your tongue out is not always rude

As a child I was always told that sticking my tongue out was rude. However we needed to encourage a buzzard to show us its tongue when a quick look in the mouth revealed it was not quite right. There was a white crust on the tongue which looked sore and inflamed. A swab was taken using a cotton bud and wiping it on a microscope slide. Strangely it appeared to be worm eggs which could have been transmitted from prey it may have eaten that was carrying the parasite.

  

The buzzard was given tablets to combat the worm alongside a course of antibiotic and painkiller. Despite how nasty the tongue appeared it did not stop the bird from eating. Once the course of medication had finished we put it into one of our outside aviaries so we could continue to monitor the tongue.

On recent observation in the mouth there appears to be improvement however the buzzard needs to be kept under observation for a little bit longer.

      

After a couple of weeks and a re-check with the vet hopefully it can be released back into the wild with a healthier looking tongue. It just proves having a tongue stuck out at you is not necessarily rude!

By Michelle Bite

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

  To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Flying for a Hobby

Everyone has a hobby they enjoy but I think my new one is the most fascinating. It is not a sport or a craft but a stunning type of falcon called a Hobby!

An RSPCA inspector brought the Hobby in as it was thin and unable to fly. Closer examination showed the left wing was slightly dropped with a small wound so he was put on a course of antibiotics and painkillers. There had been no improvement after a few days so the Hobby was anaesthetised for an x-ray to be taken. While the falcon was under it gave me the opportunity to admire the beautiful colours and patterning of his feathers.  Some of the key features are their dark slate grey colour, black ‘moushache’ and rusty red undertail. It was great news the x-ray looked good so he should just need feeding up and a bit of time for the wing to recover.











It is important that on release the Hobby has the strength and full use of its wings to be quick and agile enough to catch prey as well as for its migration to Africa for the winter. Hobbies are rarely spotted in the wild and it is not often that we see them at Stapeley so I felt very privileged to be taking care of one.

 

By Michelle Bite

 

 

 

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

 

 To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

 

 

Special VIP treatment for hedgehog – And Breathe…...

One of our adult hedgehogs has been suffering with a bad chest, a bit wheezy and crackly! He had been on medication for a week but this had not appeared to have remedied the problem. An x-ray was inconclusive as to what may be causing the respiratory problem so it was time for the tank!

The tank is in fact a nebuliser but we are hoping that a daily visit into the mini tank may help to ease his chest. For twenty minutes a day, the hog is popped into a perspex box which links up to a tube, which attaches to the nebuliser machine. This machine, along with a dose of medicated water, creates a steamy vapour which then travels down the tube and into the container, which is then inhaled by the hedgehog.

There isn't much room in the box, but this ensures the hedgehog is secure and gains maximum benefit from the surrounding vapour. We hope this assists in clearing his chest, although he still has a few more visits to go yet.  I will report back in a week or so as to whether this has worked out or not.

By Lynsey Cale

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

 To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Who has been eating my food?

Shortly after my last blog on the progress of the orphaned hoglet it was decided that he could be signed off ready for release. As he was admitted at just over a week old the hedgehog now just needed a suitable location with a short period of support feeding.

I thought it would be wonderful to carry out the release in my own garden so I may still be able to occasionally see him. So, that day after work the hedgehog came home with me and I left him in an open skipper with a bit of food to start exploring his new environment when he was ready. Watching from a distance I saw him tuck into the food before wondering off into the big wide world.

However the story does not end there!   Keen to see the hedgehog again I set up a special sensor camera that is triggered by movement. I was hoping to capture him on film eating the support food I was putting out for him in the evenings. As usual the food disappeared, so I was very excited about checking the footage, however, I was a little surprised to see that it was not a hedgehog that was scoffing the food but a very intelligent and healthy looking magpie!  This magpie was obviously not going to pass up on the opportunity of an easy meal !!

  

I will continue to keep an eye out for the hedgehog in my garden but I am guessing he has probably now moved on.  I just hope he has taken well to his new life back in the wild. 

By Michelle Bite

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

 To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Something’s ‘Afoot’ with one of our Swans!!

The element of surprise is constant during the summer time at Stapeley! Amidst all the everyday feeding and cleaning, you actually never know what will come through the door at any given time, or what it is you might witness next...

I witnessed a small operation last week, carried out by our vet, Bev. A lame swan had been brought in to us, having been observed limping quite badly. On further examination, it was apparent there was a hard lump under the skin of the swans’ leathery foot.

On removing the lump, it was clear to see why it had caused such a problem for the swan to walk comfortably. A large marble sized ball of hardened pus was the offending mass, caused by an initial infection. 

On successful removal, the swan was made comfortable in our isolation unit. Once the wound has healed, the swan will be put onto the outside pool area and will then get to enjoy meandering around the grounds in new-foot-heaven!!

By Lynsey Cale

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

 To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Hoping for a Swift release

Amongst the orphan birds brought into Stapeley, Swifts are one of the more challenging to raise. Whilst admitting one I could not help but look at it in awe.  They spend most of their life in the air carrying out all of the usual activities of feeding, mating and even sleeping - pretty amazing!

Always on the go Swifts only land to nest and raise their offspring.

Unlike other birds Swifts can only feed while flying because their soft beaks are unable to pick up live food. It is therefore necessary to regularly force feed their diet of wax worm larvae, crickets and flies which is very time consuming to prepare, especially with the substantial amount they seem to get through!

They have extremely delicate, extra long and extra thin wings which have to be in tip top condition in order to support their lifestyle in the sky.  So while looking after the orphans, exceptional care is taken to prevent any feather damage which could delay their release.

     

To add to the pressure they must be ready and released before the end of the summer so they can migrate to South Africa along with other Swifts. Hopefully it will not be long before the orphaned Swifts at Stapeley can be taken to a field where they will have the space to gain the height to start their life in the sky.

By Michelle Bite

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

 To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Woodmouse with babies - 3, 4 and then 5!!

Whilst most people are celebrating the birth of our Royal baby, here at Stapeley, we are rejoicing in the surprise arrival of four baby wood mice!!  

The mum-mouse arrived at Stapeley after an encounter with a cat, fortunately escaping relatively unscathed. After cleaning out her temporary home I mentioned to a colleague that this mouse was quite large...hmm, pregnant maybe, or just well fed!?!

The following day as I lifted her bedding, I was greeted with the sight of 3 squirming pink, naked babies!

Turns out she had actually had 4, but the 4^th was well covered. A sign was immediately attached to her container reading ‘DO NOT DISTURB’.

Two hours later, another tiny pink mouse was admitted into the hospital and we put this alongside the new arrivals to see if mum would adopt it. There was a chance she would expel it from the nest, but we thought it was worth a try...

Yesterday we took a sneaky peek to see how the family were getting on and as the picture below shows all appear to be doing well :)  Will keep you posted on their progress. Would be fantastic if they all survive and get to be released in the near future....

By Lynsey Cale

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

 To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Haven't you grown!

It never ceases to amaze me how fast wildlife develops, they do this to have the best chance of survival.  I was reminded of this when during the routine cleaning out of hedgehogs in the orphan room I saw how much our first orphan hoglet had grown. You can read the previous blog about the hoglet that was left behind.

When the orphaned hoglet first arrived.

It has now been six weeks and it has grown from a small sausage with spikes into a very active juvenile hedgehog.  During the six weeks it has gone through various stages of feeding; stomach tubing, lapping milk formula, having it's first taste of meat to becoming fully weaned. Now weighing in at 400g more than when it was admitted it will not be long before this juvenile hedgehog will be transferred to an outside pen and eventually back to the wild.   

What a difference in only 6 weeks!

With one well on the way to release there are still plenty more hoglets going through the stages of weaning which i keeping us all very busy!  The wild hedgehog population is in decline so their rehabilitation and release is really important from a conservation perspective, so that we can all continue to see them in gardens around Britain.

                                       

                                                   Lapping at milk formula.

Enjoying some mushed up kitten food.

See the footage below of one of Stapeleys juvenile hedgehogs enjoying a meal.

By Michelle Bite

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

 To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070

Summer is here...as am I !!

Hello once again wild lifers!  Its Lynsey again, I am back for another summer spell at Stapeley! I cannot believe it is already over a year since I was last here, and once again our busiest time of year is in full swing!

Having arrived in May, things were off to a slower start than usual, with seemingly fewer admissions and quieter rooms. We put this down to the practically non-existent spring having impacted the arrival of many newborns.  However, now into July, the pace has really quickened and we are as busy as previous years.

 

Yesterday our new vet Bev had her work cut out for her, with the task of attempting to remove a fishing float from a cygnet’s oesophagus. It was well and truly stuck with decaying food lodged all around it, a pitiful and frustrating sight indeed. One can only imagine how miserable the signet had been since swallowing the float, made worse by the parents having been observed attacking the poor thing.

 

Having four other cygnets to care for, in nature it isn't uncommon for a weaker sick individual to be rejected by the parents. Rearing young is costly energy wise, so the input of caring for ones offspring should be of benefit to the parents e.g. healthy individuals have a greater chance of survival and ultimately, of passing on their genes in the future. A sick or injured animal may be weeded out, thus emphasising the Darwinian phrase of ‘Survival of the Fittest’.

Sponsors of Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre and Cattery

 To donate to Stapeley text and our orphans: STAP70 £2 or £5 to 70070