🏠 Housing & Husbandry · 7 min
Species notes: mammals
Why this matters
Generic husbandry gets an animal through the week. Species-specific husbandry gets it released.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to
- Apply species-specific housing requirements for common New York mammals
- Recall the stimulation requirement for young mammals
Stimulation
Most young mammals, before their eyes open, must be stimulated by the mother to urinate and defecate. After each feeding, gently rub the genital and anal area with a cloth or gauze pad moistened with warm water. Without this, baby mammals sicken quickly and die.
| Species | Husbandry notes |
|---|---|
| Cottontail rabbit | Extremely stress-sensitive. Handling an adult or older juvenile causes stress that can be as serious as a physical injury. Feed roughly every 3 to 4 hours during the day, not around the clock, to mimic the natural dawn-and-dusk cycle. Start diluted, not full strength. Lactobacillus is a useful formula additive. Independent by about 4 weeks. Coprophagy is normal and necessary in rabbits, so do not clean the cage to prevent it. |
| Opossum | Prone to metabolic bone disease, obesity, and dermal septic necrosis in captivity. Juveniles can be aggressive and even cannibalistic toward littermates, so separate as needed. A healthy young opossum 10 inches or longer including the tail is generally self-sufficient. |
| Bobcat | Needs secure, tall caging with climbing structure and visual isolation. Do not use bare hands or light gloves on an injured adult. |
| Muskrat | Adults should not be housed together. |
| Flying squirrel | Northern flying squirrels should be housed separately. |
| River otter, weasels, fishers | Psychological and physical needs are very hard to meet in a hospital cage. Mustelids are not beginner species. |
| Beaver | Needs constant access to clean water for digestion and skin, branches to work, natural foods, and companionship. Extremely territorial, so a kit cannot simply be placed with an unfamiliar colony. Antibiotics such as penicillin are too harsh on their gut flora, as with rabbits and rodents generally. Lumps under the fur on rear legs and along the back to the tail base are usually abscessed bite wounds that healed over on the surface. |
| Fawn | Never bind the legs or bag the head for transport. Housed away from other patients because hay is a fungal risk to birds. |
| Black bear | Not a species to approach with gardening gloves and a blanket. Large mammal handling requires specific training and equipment. |
All pre-release mammal caging should encourage physical activity to build muscle tone. An animal that has been resting in a small cage for six weeks is not ready to outrun anything.
This lesson is part of the NY Wildlife Rehabilitator Exam course. Open it in the course to answer the retrieval checks that go with it, track what you have read, and quiz the whole unit. Lessons, quizzes and the glossary are free.