yep – I was going to text the hospital today to ask which weight she recommends – someone asked her the same question on her facebook page – her response said she’d like to see them reach 600g before hibernation. So I ended up choosing not to pester her.
But I think, given the hospitals are brimming, also as they have access to my feeding station, and given that it’s not healthy for them indoors (increases the internal nasties), I don’t want to rescue if above 450g –
In any case, the hospital wouldn’t take them in, they would probably ask if I saw it in the night or day, ask if it has supplementary food, and then tell me to release anyway.
So no point.
Ideally it would be nice to rescue them all – but I think we have to allow for nature to take it’s course.
I shouldn’t have posted this article, because at the end of the day – the article doesn’t account for the fact that the hospitals are all full this time of year. It could lead people to think that hospitals will always take on under 600g – which, isn’t the case, many aren’t taking them in at all.
In addition, I’ve known that I’ve had autumn juveniles in since end of October, but decided then to leave them to fatten up naturally before I started weighing, but it got colder, and only weighed the two (Calvin and Sweetpea), that was a couple of weeks ago -have I left it too late? Should I start weighing them end of October next year?
Thing is, if the weather has turned colder but still fairly mild, is it not better to wait a week or two before it gets colder, or rescue them earlier for better chance of survival?
