Simon’s spirit has certainly been with us over the last few weeks. Our vet team has faced some of the most difficult cases, of late, and in the spirit of Simon’s stubbornness, they have persisted and saved the lives of several critical patients.
The most recent one being none other than a badger cub, of course. This young female is our very lucky number 13! Rescued by the RSPCA, “Willow”, as she is now known, was found with a stick firmly wedged inside her mouth, making it impossible for her to eat or drink.
With the majority of our cubs now weighing in at 7 to 8kg, Willow was a tiny 4kg; on arrival, and so collapsed that our thermometers were unable to detect her temperature. As our vet team got started on warming her, Willow proceeded to make things harder when she stopped breathing.
Vet nurse, Kayleigh, sprang into action to get Willow breathing again, whilst vet, Paddy, intubated her in order to assist her respiration. After 30 minutes of warming, fluids and stabilisation, Willow was placed into a warm pen, where it then became a waiting game to see if her body could recover.
At 8pm, whilst watching Willow via CCTV, we finally saw her tiny body begin to respond. Whilst not fully out of the woods yet, Willow is making slow progress, and now has some good badger attitude when it comes to her check-ups.
Willow, was able to be returned to the wild, alongside 6 adopted siblings, to a secure 8-acre ancient woodland on the 12th November.
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