Christmas PUPdate! We hope everyone is having a wonderful festive period! We are loving the sunshine and hoping the weather stays nice and calm for the seals out there :) We have a big update this week with lots happening and new arrivals... Pictured here we have Fluke and Saltee (named after the Saltee islands by the Wexford Sub Aqua Club who have sponsored him!). Saltee was found on Curracloe beach in Wexford and was rescued by Neil who was a real hero and drove him straight to the sanctuary even though it was dark! Thank you Neil :) Saltee is a very emaciated pup with all of his bones clearly visible and not an ounce of blubber on his frail frame. He is also suffering from a nasty respiratory infection and is on antibiotics and worming treatment. Thankfully after a couple of days of fluids he perked up and found his appetite and is not tearing up fish, but due to his thin body and bad chest we cannot give him a bath all the time, so he is limited to supervised baths and then popped back under a heat lamp so that he does not get a chill. Saltee is in very poor condition and we can not say yet if he will make a full recovery but are remaining positive :) Fluke Was rescued in County Mayo by Noeline from Mayo Animal Welfare, fed and monitored over night by Vet Neil at the Animal Hospital and then transported to Kildare Animal Foundation Wildlife Unit where she was looked after for a following 2 nights to break up the long journey and stabilise her before Trevor transported her to the rescue centre. Huge thank you to everyone who helped in her rescue! She is another painfully thin pup suffering from parasites - but thankfully she is responding well to treatment and has a great appetite - so fingers crossed she will improve quickly. On a very sad note, we suddenly lost Ripple last week. Anyone following her progress would be aware that she was a critically sick pup, and so though we were obviously upset at her passing, we were not surprised of the outcome. She has battled with serious infection and illness since her arrival and was on antibiotics and steroids for weeks. She has seemingly turned a corner and was eating and starting to gain some condition and so the decision was made to wean her off the strong medications she was on in the hope that her own immune system would be able to cope. Within a short time she quickly declined and passed away. Post mortem results found she had an enormous build of pericardial fluids (fluid in the body cavity around the heart and organs) which essentially stopped her heart functioning at the end. Near impossible to diagnose and there would have been no way of saving her regardless - so we are very upset :( But everything was done to help her and at least she was comfortable at the end. Rest in Peace beautiful girl. On the happier news front, we have several more pups who are fast approaching release including...(drum roll please!) Flotsam! Anyone who was following Flotsams progress would know she was a nightmare to get eating on her own. She much preferred the life of luxury and being hand fed and took a ridiculous length of time to figure out how to feed herself. Finally she has an epiphany and was able to progress to the pools. She is now only a few kilograms off release which is very exciting! We also have The Ladies - Ariel, Skipper, Tide, Misty and Marina who are very close and will hopefully be released next week after new year. Marlee is doing well and is about 5kg away from release. Bo is now in the nursery pools and thriving. Popeye is also in the pools but is on close observation as hes a bit of a push over and gets bullied by the girls so doesnt always get his fair share of food. If he doesnt Man up over the next few days he may need to return to the kennels until the pools are freed up with less bullies in them, so that Popeye can continue to gain the weight he needs. We have also moved Sailor into the pools this week which is wonderful, but he is another who is being watched closely due to the injury to his flipper where bone was removed. He is no longer on medication and has been piling on the weight and in great form, so we hope that he has fully recovered as he fast approached release weight. He will be completely vet check prior to release to ensure he is 100% :) We also have the lovely Splash who is still in the kennels. She has been wormed this week and a bit knocked about trying to pass the parasites so is not yet able to progress to the pools. Plus, she still needs a lot of assistance eating fish, so until she is able to eat on her own she will remain in the kennels and hopefully in the next week or so she will be able to progress. Sea Mouse remains in intensive care as she is refusing to eat and is therefore not thriving as she should. She is still on antibiotics and has recently been wormed which is taking its toll on her tiny body. We continue to encourage her to self feed, but for now she still required tube feeding to ensure she receives nourishment. Shes certainly not out of the woods yet so keep your fingers crossed. Cuan is the last to update on now! Though he had progressed to the pools we had to return him to the kennels when we spotted an injury to his mouth that had simply taken this amount of time to show itself. Though is is great shape and absolutely thriving with a great appetite (and gaining 3-4 kg a week!) he is now back on strong antibiotics for bone infection. A loose tooth initially thought to have an abscess turned out to be a potentially fracture to a section of his mandible (lower jaw). Though you would imagine this would be terribly painful, it actually bothers him very little and does not impede his feeding ability and vets are for now happy to keep him on antibiotics for several weeks to ensure no infection. Surgery to wire the jaw would be extremely risky as seals have a dive reflex which often leads to death under anaesthetic - so if he is able to heal and perhaps have only one or two teeth removed then this will be the best option for him. We will certainly keep you posted on his recovery. In the meantime he is extremely annoyed being back in a kennel and doesnt understand what all the fuss is about! :p And...Just when we thought we could go eat some Christmas pudding another call has just come in for another poorly pup locally which looks like another rescue needing care over Christmas. No rest for the volunteers here! Have a Merry Christmas everyone and thank you so much for all the support for the seal pups in care :D Fishy kisses all round!
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 14:19:20 +0000
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