Here are some photos of a couple of my foster babies from a few years ago. Meet Gizmo, the vole, and Mortimer, the Deer Mouse. (There’s only one photo of Mortimer, when he was just SO tiny). Both of these babies were brought into the local wildlife rescue center (where I worked at the time as a feeder for all the rehab and ambassador animals), and I agreed to foster them. I don’t have a big enough place to foster larger mammals, like raccoons and squirrels, but tiny rodents? That I could do. I syringe-fed both of them several times a day (and during the night, at first), and they were both so incredibly precious. Gizmo was released by me into a local county park (Crane Creek; pictured below). Mortimer ended up self-releasing (in other words, he escaped. :D). I trust that both of them led happy, healthy lives. At least I hope that they did.

We get a lot of mammals at this center, but not very many rodents (other than squirrels, which we get in large numbers). I was side-eyed by several people for fostering MICE, since most people consider them vermin, and heaven knows we go through hundreds of feeder mice (received frozen from some laboratory) to feed the other foster animals (raccoons, foxes, opossums, the occasional coyote or hawk). What made these special enough to foster?

That question was easy for me to answer: the only reason these babies were in my care is that somebody came across them while out hiking or jogging or whatever, and cared enough to pick them up and bring them to the center. And that, to me, was really, really amazing. There was no way I would give these babies anything but the utmost I was capable of giving, knowing that someone else out there thought the life of “just a mouse” was worth saving. <3