Creating A Wildlife Rehabilitation Care Plan

Creating a care plan is vital for successful rehabilitation of wildlife. It acts as a road map providing structure from the time the animal is taken in, to the time its released, allowing you to track its progress. It’s also helpful in the sense that you can continuously refer to it instead of trying to remember everything, which can be very hard to do when you’re working with many animals and maybe different species. So, what goes into a good care plan?

Base measurements. It’s really important to write down a few base figures in your care plan. This you would have already done in your exam. This includes the animal’s weight, its dimensions, and its overall development. Make sure to also write the date. It’s incredibly easy to lose track of that. These values will be very important moving forward with other aspects of rehabbing.

Rehydration therapy. Most animals who come in are dehydrated so some degree or another. Stress alone can dehydrate an animal. Before we do anything else, the rule of thumb is slowly warming an animal and then rehydrating it. But rehydration is not as simple as giving it fluids. It’s extremely important the type of fluid you are giving as well as how you’re giving it. Even in the case of severe dehydration, we do not give an animal all the rehydration fluid at once. Instead, it is spread out with half the rehydration fluid being administered the first twenty-four-hours, followed by a quarter the next day, and the last quarter the day after, with the fluid being spaced out throughout the day in small doses. This is why getting an animal’s weight is extremely important as it is used to determine the volume of fluid needed to rehydrate the animal.

Medication. Medication is an area you will be interacting with a lot. From antibiotics to dewormers, to pain meds, and slew of others things, medication is something most animals will require. But not all medications can safely be used on all species. This is another reason why knowing the species you’re working with in depth is important. What I like to do with my care plan is write out dates alongside the medications I will be using. Some medications may need to be given every twelve hours and others every twenty-four. Some medication may be dosed every two weeks. Having your medications listed and the dates you will be giving and how much you will be giving is important so that you are not missing doses or overdosing.

Nutrition. Once the animal is stable for a few days it can be introduced to food. I rarely wait that long, however, as most animals are very hungry at that point and sometimes waiting seventy-two hours to eat does more harm than good. If I do introduce food before it is fully rehydrated, the food is easy to digest and typically offered frequently but in small amounts and initially diluted. With that said, when I write out my care plan, I will add the formula I will be offering in the case of orphans, along with their feeding schedule and any recipes I need to make for them. I sometimes even go as far as using a grid feeding schedule where each animal’s weight is taken before feeding, the amount consumed written down, and the weight after. This is particularly helpful in the case of very sick or injured animals but also when you are caring for a litter or have failure to thrive babies. This section is also where I add the supplements that should be added. Calcium for example is very important for baby opossums and squirrels who are two species susceptible to metabolic bone disease. For adults a list of the types of food they find in the wild is preferrable as they are already accustomed to eating what is normal for them and are most likely already getting all the nutrients that they need. Wildcrafting their food can be fun in these cases, as well as watching them enjoy a few things they may not traditionally find on their own but that can aid their recovery.

Milestones. Lastly, for each species I work with I have a page of what I call “milestones.” This acts as the trajectory the animal should be on and what markers I should be looking for. This is mostly applied with orphans not adults. But it includes stomach capacity, what age they can go to the bathroom on their own, what age they begin to thermoregulate, when they should be receiving certain vaccines, what behaviors they should be showing, and what pre and post release should entail. Though this doesn’t pertain to an animals care plan per say as a care plan is designed for a specific animal, it does offer me a quick refresher.

You can make your care plan as detailed as you like, so feel free to get creative with it. The care plan is really a tool that helps you, the rehabber, care for the animal effectively and efficiently. Sometimes you won’t feel the need to create one and other times you won’t be able to live without out. Either way, the care plan is there to help and its very rewarding to look back on where you and the animal started to how far you have come.