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BABY CHIPMUNKS 1998 !!!
NB: all pictures and text copyright of Kirsty Tallon
Clovis Chipmunk made Minky Chipmunk pregnant on 1st June, 1998. This was quite an achievement for Clovis, as he has only one hind leg (the other leg had to be amputated earlier in the year). Minky gave birth to five tiny babies on Thursday 2nd July, between 16.00 and 17.00. Minky was a good mother for the first three days, but then abandoned her children on Monday morning, when they were only just four days old. As soon as this happened, I contacted the Vet who had operated on Clovis' leg, and she gave me instructions on how I should care for Minky's abandoned babies by hand rearing them.
Chipmunk babies are born only 3 centimetres long, bald, naked, blind and deaf, are helpless and totally dependant on their mother. The mother chipmunk would feed her children, wash them, encourage them to digest their food and encourage them to defecate by licking their bottoms! It is extremely rare for neonate chipmunks abandoned at this age to survive being hand reared. Hand rearing would be a very difficult and time-consuming task, and I would probably be unsuccessful, as a human could never care for them as well as a chipmunk mother..............The odds were totally stacked against me, and it would be a miracle if any of the neonates survived to adulthood, but I couldn't just leave them to die, I wanted to at least try to help the abandoned babies.
To simulate the mother's care, every three hours (which means I wake up several times during the night to tend to them) I have to:
Feeding has to be done very slowly and carefully, as the tiny creatures can only swallow very small amounts at a time, and therefore it is extremely easy to accidentally cause them to choke on their food. It is also difficult to tell if a neonate is choking, as they are so very tiny. The food has to be as close to the consistency and composition of chipmunk milk - the nearest to this is a weak and thin mixture of warm water, baby cereal, evaporated milk, and honey.
Thursday 9th July
Here (below) are pictures of the chipmunk babies taken on Thursday 9th July, when the chipmunks were seven days old.
There are four babies in the pictures above. The coins for scale are (from left to right) two pence piece ( 26 mm diameter); old style fifty pence piece ( 30 mm diameter); and a penny piece ( 20 mm diameter). The fifth chipmunk baby, the runt of the litter, unfortunately died a few hours earlier on 9th July. The surviving babies are two females and two males.
Below are some pictures of one of the little baby chipmunks in my hand (which is quite small), at feeding time.
At present the babies are almost totally bald, apart from a very fine covering of very short hair around their muzzles. Their fingers and toes are fused together, and they move their legs like paddles.
Tuesday 14th July 1998
Unfortunately, since 9th July three more of the baby chipmunks have died, leaving only one remaining. The little ones died very slowly by losing heat, because their homeostasis had malfunctioned. There was nothing I could have done to prevent this- it was extremely upsetting and heartbreaking, and no matter how hard I tried to keep them warm, they were unable to retain any heat to keep the temperatures of their tiny bodies constant. Eventually they stopped eating, and sadly died.
The last remaining baby chipmunk is a male, and he is now 13 days old. He seems to be a strong and active creature. The fingers on his forepaws have now almost completely separated - only the centre two remain fused, making him look as though he is constantly making a hand signal opposite to the Vulcan gesture Mr. Spock frequently used in Star Trek (the First Series). The baby chipmunk now has a fine coating of fur all over his body, and hopefully this will help him to retain heat and enable him to survive until his eyes open. There are now faint stripes visible on his back, and his eyelids are now striped, too. His ears and eyes are still closed.
Below are some pictures of him taken on 14th July.
In the top right and bottom photoes, the baby chipmunk's stripes are clearly visible. The coins for scale are (from left to right) two pence piece ( 26 mm diameter); New style fifty pence piece ( 27 mm diameter); and a penny piece ( 20 mm diameter). The mouse is also for scale, so that people not familiar with British currency can get an idea of the size of this tiny creature.
Wednesday 15th July
Very Sad News.
At 9.00 am the last remaining baby chipmunk died. I took his body the the Vet, who told me that the little creature had died from PNEUMONIA. This is an extremely common problem in all hand-reared animals, whether they be chipmunks, kittens, puppies or lambs. The natural mother of the babies would have provided specialised antibodies in her milk, which hand-reared animals do not have access to.
Without their mother's antibodies to help them fight illnesses, the last four of the little chipmunks had caught pneumonia and died. There was nothing else I could have done for the abandoned babies, and even if I could have stayed awake 24 hours per day to look after them, they would still have caught pneumonia.
The Vet told me that I had done everything right in looking after the little chipmunks, and I had been doing extremely well to get them to survive this long, especially after they were abandoned at such a young age. It had just been unlucky that they had caught pneumonia.
Hopefully, if any more of my chipmunks breed in the future, they will look after their babies properly.
I am sorry that viewers of this page have had to read such a sad story.
Although animals may be cute and lovely, we must all remember that Nature is Sometimes Cruel, and in the end only the fittest with the best chance of survival make it to old age.
Minky gave birth to another litter in 1999, and happily, these babies survived. Here is a link to their page.
