Raining Otters

It never rains then it pours! So true here in Cornwall this week in more ways than one. Firstly, if you’ve seen the news or live nearby you’ll know it’s wet, wet, wet here at the moment and likely to stay that way for a few days. We’ve already lost one tree to the wind and with the worst of the weather still to come so its fingers crossed that we don’t suffer any further damage.
It’s also been raining otters; we haven’t had any wild otters brought to us for over a year and the last one was so ill that it unfortunately died after two days. However, late on Sunday 24th February we received a call that resulted in us collecting a small furry bundle from a town in Devon. The otter, about seven weeks old, was seen alone on a road earlier that evening by Cindy who had watched helplessly as the wheels of the car in front straddled the poor animal as it lay in the road. She stopped and picked up the frightened baby which, very unusually, offered no resistance at all. I’m sure that if Cindy hadn’t decided to help, the cub would have perished.
When we got the otter (who we have called Cinnamon) home it was obviously in shock and still very placid. I stayed up with it most of the first night and syringed milk into its mouth. It gradually seemed to take a little more interest in its surroundings and, by tea time the following day seemed to be a bit better but was still dehydrated and suffering from diarrhoea.
Cinnamon had noticed Biggy and Smalley across the kitchen but was too frightened to do anything about it so we decided to allow them to see each other but not have any contact with them for a while. Later that evening, after a good feed and play with the Asian cubs we introduced Cinnamon to them properly; Biggy was fine about it all, touching and sniffing the new arrival but not being aggressive at all. Smalley was another kettle of fish altogether, snorting, screaming and generally not happy but after a couple of hours they all settled down in a big bundle and went to sleep. When I checked them at 3am they hadn’t moved so I decided to leave them alone and let them bond rather than disturbing them for a feed.
Then it became easier to tell that Cinnamon was getting over things. How? Because it started to bite and bite very hard, very hard indeed! That’s why I wear thick gloves, I’ve decided I like my fingers and would like to keep them all; even with the gloves on the bites hurt and easily draw blood if it bites further up my arms where there isn’t such good protection.
So there we are, Cinnamon settling in nicely and we were just getting into a routine when on the following Friday we had another call which resulted in us looking after a very small, miserable and feisty otter cub. This one is not yet weaned and that, together with its size makes me think that this one is very young, probably five or six weeks old at most. It was a very bony otter cub with no spare flesh. Rather disturbingly it also had at least three bites on its back end and several large tics spread over its body. The bites were fresh so we cleaned them up but decided to let the tics alone and deal with them when they dropped off.
Do you remember I said that Cinnamon was placid at first? Well, no such luck with this one who makes up for in ferocity what it lacks in size. The cub, which has an unusual dappled pelt (which is why it’s called Spotty), is hard to feed. It’s very particular about its milk and rarely attempts to eat any solids. We have got the milk just about right now, but solids are a different thing. It will only take solids that are literally put under its nose, usually in my hand or if it gets near enough to one of the others it will steal theirs. The otters don’t seem to worry too much about the theft, after all there’s a good supply of food nearby, but I do because it won’t take food off the glove, it has to be my bare skin or nothing! Is it any wonder that I’m going grey?
So now we have otter opposites; in one corner Biggy and Smalley (cute, cuddly and love to play with you) and in the other Cinnamon and Spotty (Atilla the Hun/Boudicca personality traits, but not so forgiving). Ah well maybe they’ll calm down soon, if they don’t Ill have to learn to type with bandaged fingers. For now they all seem happy with each other and usually snuggle up together, very cute.
That’s all for now, John.