Captain
August 14, 2019
On August 14, 2019 we received a call about an injured porcupine and that he had his paw severed in a claw trap and maggots on his tail. His eyes were weak and you can only image the amount of pain he was in. We contemplated euthanizing on intake but he still had quite a bit of life left in him and he was very docile. Or was he just weak? How can we release a porcupine with one front paw for an animal that climbs trees??? But there was just something special about this little boy. So we thought we would give him a chance and he may be a good candidate for an ambassador at one of the local facilities as a worst case scenario. And if need be, we could always make the choice to give release if we find his quality of life is lacking.
The Exam and Cleaning
It took almost 2 hours of working on his tail alone to remove all the maggots and trying to repair the damage that they did. People always try to use the old medical use of maggots as "Well maggots are good because they only eat the dead tissue" but they fail to realize that maggots also create dead tissue. When they are used medically they are first cleaned and sterilized then used for a short period of time then quickly removed before they start to destroy more than they cleaned. Once we got the maggots out we assessed his severed paw, and all we really had to do for now is keep it clean. We got him hydrated and on some pain meds for comfort of the healing cavern in his tail that the maggots left behind plus the paid of the severed paw.
Endurance and Resilience
Hours after getting him settled and set up he was climbing around on his cage and eating like a champ like nothing was wrong with him. We could tell that the pain management was definitely important through this process. He started learning to adapt to his missing paw. Instead of sitting up to hold his food at first he would pin it to the floor and cross his injured arm under him and use his good clawed hand to hold it against him arm. It was absolutely fascinating to watch him learn how to cope with his disability. You can see that method in the video below.
2026 Calendar
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