Sloth-Squirrel-Farm Update!

Our good friend Karen made Christmas sloth blankets for all the sloths!! As you can see they love them...Thanks Karen!

Little Twili had a vet check up yesterday and she is doing great! Growing ever soooooo sloooowly...which is good for a sloth.

Farm Update!

We visited the farm last week with our good friend Jerry Jennings and a professional photographer friend of his Paul...I was nervous that the animals and birds might be hiding, but we were very lucky! I wanted them to see toucans and they appeared at the feeders in front of the house! Jerry is a world famous Toucan Breeder and conservation enthusiast, check out his website for all the toucan infomation you will ever need! http://www.emeraldforestgardens.com/

Then we had this very close encounter with a friendly three toed sloth.

Here at the main house we have been having several new hummingbirds arrive! Here is the beautiful Purple throated mountain gem!

The Whistling Ducks have discovered the mirror in our display case on the porch and every morning they are on the here greeting the ducks in the mirror :) and making a mess of the porch!

LuLu the squirrel has been out on her own for about a month, everyday she comes to visit and she has made a huge nest in the tree by the house...she seems to be doing fine and there are several squirrels around that she can get to know. Here is Jerry Jennings visiting with LuLu and Jorge as well.

Our coffee is drying and will be going to the local roaster soon!

The new guest house is almost done! The windows are in, tiles all done, they are working on the intricate bamboo ceiling and it is really beautiful, I keep joking that I am actually moving out to the guest house to get some rest!

Next blog will be soon with Christmas ideas! Please give the gift of life and hope to our rescued animals...photos, ornaments and ideas for adoption in the next segment! Donations are kindly accepted via Paypal on our blog.

Thank you from the animals!!

Construction Update!

Jou Jou, Kinkajou's Enclosure is finally done!!! It's been very busy here, we don't have many guests in the Bed and Breakfast now, as it is green season, but we are always busy with the animals! Jou Jou was very shy about her new enclosure, at first she had to smell everything, then hide in her box, then come out for her favorite banana, then she got comfortable with me sitting on a wooden stump for an hour playing with her and she is now a happy camper. The first night out she had a stand off with the whistling ducks, they surrounded her cage and she was paceing back and forth, then the ducks got bored and left her alone. She did get a few minor sores on her feet from the cement, but we have fixed that now by adding hay to the bottom of the enclosure. We still need to decorate it with bromeliads from the farm...I'm sure she will love to destroy them!




Charley the Scarlet macaw is now staying out all the time!! She is loving being outside and as you can see, although she is severly handicapped she enjoyed taking her first rainbath!



Our little terror Georgie has been enjoying the sunny days and now can reach out to the almond trees we planted next to the outside climbing gym and can have a snack when he wants!

Please consider a donation to the Teresa fund!! Teresa mottled owl was dropped off here about a week ago, friday night. I was just settling down to dinner and TV (I know it's a bad habit, but relaxing) and I received a phone call from La Condessa hotel in San Rafael. They had our brochure and were trying to identify an owl that their driver had picked up on the side of the road. They said the wing was "bad" and they wondered if they could bring her down. So, I said, yes and at 9pm they arrived with Theresa, a juvenile mottled owl. She was in shock and not feeling very well with her broken wing. She was very dehydrated and in pain. I gave her electrolytes, pain medication, antibiotics, and basic first aide treatment for the wing, it was not severly mangled like the other wings I have seen, but the point of the bone was sticking out. The next morning I was trying to figure out what to do with the broken wing, I thought maybe it could be saved.

I had had a visit from the vet who works at the downtown zoo just a few weeks ago. He was telling me about starting a Raptor Foundation and about the various surgeries he has performed (bone grafts, pins, complicated orthopedic surgeries) to save wings. My first thought was to call him and see what he could do for Teresa. I have a vet on staff now, but she does not do orthopedic surgery like this, so for us it was the consideration of a "double expense". After talking it over with my vet, we decided to take her into the zoo and meet the orthopedic surgeon. He said it would be complicated, but gave her a 50% chance of recovering the wing.

We have so many owls with amputated wings that we felt that if we can give Teresa a chance of keeping the wing we needed to do this for her well being. So, a very long surgery ensued and she is now back with us. She has two internal pins, a outside fixator for the pins and a small bone graft. In two months we will know if she will regain use of the wing...it's going to be a long wait.....and of course expensive...so please consider a Teresa donation to the Toucan Rescue Ranch!!! She will need another surgery to remove the pins once the wing has healed.

My good friend Carol has volunteered to give Teresa flying lessons if and when we get to this point!! She will need to have daily exercise in hopes of release...but for now we are in intensive post opps.

Coco and Lulu are now weaned and in a small cage learning to eat fruits on their own, they had a few setbacks, but are now doing really well.

Millie, Milo and Georgie love hibiscus flowers and we have planted an entire hedge of them so that we are sure there are no chemicals on them!! Yummy treat!

I took this photo of Jorge helping with the construction of Issy's enclosure...note his constant companion and supervisor Josie the goose!

The enclosure will be completed this next week. Very exciting!

Isadora Issy, and I had a fun play afternoon in Jou Jou's enclosure. Before we moved Jou Jou in, I took Issy over there to see her reaction and to start getting her used to being away from the porch. For the first five min. she would not let go of me, but after some coaxing and encouraging she would leave me for a few seconds, and 10 min. later she was having fun exploring. I think she will love her new huge enclosure. It is 8x7 meters. We are going to have a decorating party when it is complete!!

Still trying to get the perfect photo!! Here is the Scintillant, smallest hummer in CR in our front yard!

Our good friend Rita, from Casa Bella Rita Bed and Breakfast donated this display case for our store! Now we have eveything in one place and it looks great on the porch.

Thank You Rita!!

The official greeters, the ducks have taken over the railings.

Summer Update!

It's been two weeks now and the little squirrels are doing great. One morning I was taking the birds outside to the flight, when the neighbor called me through the fence, shaking the bushes! I wondered what was up, and he said that he had just found a nest of baby squirrels on the ground all torn up! There were two babies that he picked up, one had just opened her eyes, the other still had her eyes closed.
He passed them through a hole in the fence, I showed the babies to my mother who was here visiting and she was very excited. She loves to tell the story of when I was younger in school, living here in Costa Rica, we had a pair of squirrels that lived with us. One day I went to school with my favorite squirrel hiding under my long hair, the teachers did not see the humor and asked my mother to come pick up the squirrel....So there we were years later looking at baby squirrels, remembering the fun times we had had. I called the vet and she alerted me that being so young they would be very difficult to get started on milk and raise, that they would probably die...well, now that's a challenge! So, we set out to give these little ones a chance at life, every 3 hours around the clock, fresh goats milk and pedialyte and as you can see they are doing great! We have so many squirrels here in the yard, hopefully when they are older they will find some friends to teach them about living outdoors!

Corazon (heart in spanish) Is recovering well from his amputated wing. Soon he will be able to be outside in a handicapped flight cage. I'm sure he will feel better once outside with all the night sounds and activity. Currently he is in physical therapy learning how to hop and get around off balance. He is our 3rd owl with amputation, so now we have the routine down! Last week another owl came in needing amputation as well, a Mottled owl, with bones exposed, but unfortunately he died the next day of internal injuries before the operation. That's how it is sadly. We can save some, others pass on.

The Amazons are recovered, gaining weight and are no longer the quiet stressed out birds that came in. Now they are super loud, and having a blast in the new enclosure that we built for them...well actually we built it for Jou-Jou the Kinkajou, but we had a design problem with the roof, for the Kinkajou it was dangerous, so we did a switch and put the Amazon parrots here and they are loving it. Our porch is almost clear of cages!! Lorita, the two new Amazons (we need names!) and Bella are here, as well as handicapped Charly, Scarlet macaw. Charly is still inside her smaller cage, as we are building a handicapped jungle gym for her. Once that is complete, she will be able to be in the larger area. They are all getting along well...whew! It's just very loud!

So, now we have started Jou Jou the Kinkajou's enclosure and it's actually almost finished! We love the design and style of these cages, they are elegant, simple and very spacious. Cement floors with drains make it easy to just hose down. Each one of these cages cost $900.00, so please keep that in mind if you are able to do any fund raising projects for us!!

We had our first guest request to help with taking a little stray kitten back to the States! Carol Beck and her lovely family found this little kitten on the side of the road one night in Guanacaste. They were staying their last two nights in Costa Rica with us and asked if we could help with the paperwork and vet care to be able to take little Corazon back to the states. He was absolutely adorable and loving his new pampered life! They call him the black panther from Costa Rica. I loved the name so much, we named the Black and White owl in his honor. Janet the vet spent two days running around getting all the papers, shots, carriers etc. and now little Corazon is in San Diego, with his loving new family.

For the rainy season we have actually had very sunny mornings, so the sloth's have been outside on their perch getting some much needed exercise.

And for all of you that have met Ralph the whistling duck on our tours, he says hi!

Next up is Issy, Isadora Spider Monkey's enclosure/palace and then finally Prince the hawk!!! We need to do some major fund raising for the hawk, as it needs to be a tall flight cage with plenty of room for his huge wingspan!....and then eventually our sleepy sloths!

Hope you all had a wonderful summer, we are bracing for our heavy rains this time of year :) Thanks to everyone who has toured or stayed with us, and who have sent in donations...as you can see, these do go directly to our rescued animals and are put to very good use.