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The Complete Care of Orphaned or Abandoned Baby Animals: Expert Advice on Caring for Kittens, Puppies, Foals, Calves, Lambs, Chicks, and Many More
Whether you have a hobby farm or just love animals, this authoritative handbook is the go-to source to help you provide proper care for motherless animals—cats dogs, birds, and much more.
Here you will find formulas and feeding schedules for dozens of baby animals, common diseases and how to treat them, a guide to first aid, directions for safety in dealing with wild baby animals, advice on releasing animals back into the wild, and amusing and inspiring personal experiences from the authors. Chapters include:
Let Dr. C.E. Spaulding and trained veterinary field technician Jackie Clay coach you and your new four-legged (or winged) friend through any injury or illness.
Here you will find formulas and feeding schedules for dozens of baby animals, common diseases and how to treat them, a guide to first aid, directions for safety in dealing with wild baby animals, advice on releasing animals back into the wild, and amusing and inspiring personal experiences from the authors. Chapters include:
Let Dr. C.E. Spaulding and trained veterinary field technician Jackie Clay coach you and your new four-legged (or winged) friend through any injury or illness.
304 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 13, 2017
Very informative.
May 17, 2012
My problems with this book:
- put rabbits under "rodents" category, they are lagomorphs
- didn't differentiate between rabbits and other "rodents". Rabbits only need to be fed twice a day, they need benebac (or a cyco... from an adult rabbit if possible), and they should NOT be fed solid food (carrots) until they are 3 months old because they can cause life-threatening diarrhea.
- in the appendix she refers to rabbits eating a pellet food, but doesn't specify what ingredients to look for.
- from the viewpoint of a vet, so questions like "when to take this animal to a vet" aren't answered, they could just treat their animals.
- she does the same thing that most books I've read have done: overemphasizes the commitment required. She says puppies and kittens must be fed every two hours or they will DIE. We had 8 kittens and it took us about an hour and a half to make them pee and feed them all. That would have meant a half hour off between feedings, and no sleep! Who can give that kind of commitment? We fed and cleaned them three times a day and they were just fine.
- lots of info on farm animals and dogs.
- the picture showing a kitten drinking from a bottle shows it lying on its back, which is NOT how to do it, the kitten could breathe in the milk.
- recommends not handling the kittens, even when they're 6 or 8 weeks old, because she says they can die from over-handling. Maybe that's fine for farm cats, but pet cats need (and like) the socialization of petting them and playing with them.
- suggests beginning litter training at six weeks. We've found that they usually start using a litter box as early as three or four weeks. Why wait?
- having taken a wildlife rehab course, I find it interesting that she doesn't mention the parasites that raccoons can carry when she writes about their care. In our course we learned that raccoons carry a parasite that can only be reliably killed by boiling it for ten minutes or more, so keeping raccoons away from other animals (and possibly burning the crate you raised them in) is a good idea.
- oddly, she gives detailed advice on how to splint certain kinds of leg fractures without detailing how to tell which type of leg fracture has occurred. In our wildlife rehab course we learned how to stabilize a broken leg until a vet could look at it. I personally believe that trying to fix an animal's broken leg yourself could result in a lot of suffering for the animal if you don't know what kind of break it has. If you can't afford to take it to a vet, sometimes euthanizing it is the most humane solution. Don't make an animal suffer because you want to feel better for having "helped" it! If you can't afford the vet, you also could contact WRSOS or the Saskatoon SPCA.
- she writes about exotic animals, and I find it a bit unethical to give advice on how to find an exotic animal for a pet, and how to care for it, given that exotic animals are so seldom happy in captivity. There's a reason we call them "domesticated" animals after all! The only animal she lists that I would recommend owning at all is the skunk, because skunks have been bred for domesticity and as pets for a while now. I'd never recommend owning a "wild" skunk.
- she states in the Appendix that canned food is less nutritious for cats, which is just false. A dry food has to contain some kind of grain or it won't form a kibble, and cats are obligate carnivores, which means they should be eating mainly meat.
- finally, she does list some companies where supplies can be obtained, but only their phone numbers... and this book was published in 2011! Web sites should definitely have been provided.
- the books she recommends on raising rabbits were all published in the 1970's or earlier, which perhaps explains the advice she gave.
- the books she recommends on cats were published in the 1960's or earlier!
- I cannot recommend this book. Based on the errors she made in kitten and baby rabbit care, there may be errors in the other areas that I don't have enough experience to spot.
- put rabbits under "rodents" category, they are lagomorphs
- didn't differentiate between rabbits and other "rodents". Rabbits only need to be fed twice a day, they need benebac (or a cyco... from an adult rabbit if possible), and they should NOT be fed solid food (carrots) until they are 3 months old because they can cause life-threatening diarrhea.
- in the appendix she refers to rabbits eating a pellet food, but doesn't specify what ingredients to look for.
- from the viewpoint of a vet, so questions like "when to take this animal to a vet" aren't answered, they could just treat their animals.
- she does the same thing that most books I've read have done: overemphasizes the commitment required. She says puppies and kittens must be fed every two hours or they will DIE. We had 8 kittens and it took us about an hour and a half to make them pee and feed them all. That would have meant a half hour off between feedings, and no sleep! Who can give that kind of commitment? We fed and cleaned them three times a day and they were just fine.
- lots of info on farm animals and dogs.
- the picture showing a kitten drinking from a bottle shows it lying on its back, which is NOT how to do it, the kitten could breathe in the milk.
- recommends not handling the kittens, even when they're 6 or 8 weeks old, because she says they can die from over-handling. Maybe that's fine for farm cats, but pet cats need (and like) the socialization of petting them and playing with them.
- suggests beginning litter training at six weeks. We've found that they usually start using a litter box as early as three or four weeks. Why wait?
- having taken a wildlife rehab course, I find it interesting that she doesn't mention the parasites that raccoons can carry when she writes about their care. In our course we learned that raccoons carry a parasite that can only be reliably killed by boiling it for ten minutes or more, so keeping raccoons away from other animals (and possibly burning the crate you raised them in) is a good idea.
- oddly, she gives detailed advice on how to splint certain kinds of leg fractures without detailing how to tell which type of leg fracture has occurred. In our wildlife rehab course we learned how to stabilize a broken leg until a vet could look at it. I personally believe that trying to fix an animal's broken leg yourself could result in a lot of suffering for the animal if you don't know what kind of break it has. If you can't afford to take it to a vet, sometimes euthanizing it is the most humane solution. Don't make an animal suffer because you want to feel better for having "helped" it! If you can't afford the vet, you also could contact WRSOS or the Saskatoon SPCA.
- she writes about exotic animals, and I find it a bit unethical to give advice on how to find an exotic animal for a pet, and how to care for it, given that exotic animals are so seldom happy in captivity. There's a reason we call them "domesticated" animals after all! The only animal she lists that I would recommend owning at all is the skunk, because skunks have been bred for domesticity and as pets for a while now. I'd never recommend owning a "wild" skunk.
- she states in the Appendix that canned food is less nutritious for cats, which is just false. A dry food has to contain some kind of grain or it won't form a kibble, and cats are obligate carnivores, which means they should be eating mainly meat.
- finally, she does list some companies where supplies can be obtained, but only their phone numbers... and this book was published in 2011! Web sites should definitely have been provided.
- the books she recommends on raising rabbits were all published in the 1970's or earlier, which perhaps explains the advice she gave.
- the books she recommends on cats were published in the 1960's or earlier!
- I cannot recommend this book. Based on the errors she made in kitten and baby rabbit care, there may be errors in the other areas that I don't have enough experience to spot.
October 2, 2011
I loved the pictures in this book. The book itself talked too much about poop and nursing but books about human babies are probably like that too. Sometimes it felt like the authors were just copy and pasting from one chapter to the next. I really really liked the pictures. So cute!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews