Animal husbandry can become a real challenge even for the most expert. It is not an easy task to find the most suitable food, provide the best possible care or ensure that nothing serious or possibly dangerous happens. This situation can become even more extreme if the animal being taken into custody is unknown, or very little is known about it. An experience that Rebecca Stoneback has lived firsthand.
This glass artisan is the latest protagonist of Little But Fierce, the section for small animals of the animal portal The Dodo. The woman found herself, overnight, taking care of the baby of an animal that her parents had found. Despite not knowing what species she was or what could have happened to her, she helped her recover and grow into a mouse. An experience that has lasted about two months.
“A few months ago, I got a call from my dad saying he had found something, but I didn't know what it was. He lives in the middle of the forest. There are all kinds of little wild creatures there. “He had no idea what he was going to find me,” explained the young woman. When she first held the creature in the palm of her hand, it was the size of a distal phalanx, the upper bony segment of the finger, and she didn't know if it was a baby opossum or a tiny squirrel.
“I never thought I would have found something as small as a mouse. It actually looked like a little bean, that's how it got its name,” explained Stoneback, who decided to nickname the tiny creature Bean. From there, he had to overcome several obstacles so that the calf could grow properly. One of them was feeding, which he solved by dipping cat milk substitute into a thin paintbrush.
The caregiver says that, after collecting the mouse in a small box, she fed it every two hours in the middle of the night. As the days passed, the animal grew little by little and showed more signs of life. It was a week after rescuing her that her ears were able to open, since they had remained attached to her body and prevented her from hearing anything. In her own words, her eyes also widened around that time window.
Almost two months after his discovery, Bean was already eating seeds and had completely abandoned milk. A moment that Stoneback celebrated, in addition to leaving a reflection for The Dodo team that interviewed her: “All living creatures deserve our kindness, love and respect, including the smallest of mice.”
