When He Finds This Helpless Creature In A Bag Of Mulch, He Has No Clue What It Is

Let’s face it, humans are suckers for babies. Baby anythings.

If you have a heart, you’ll find it touched by the sight of a baby that is in need of care, no matter what species it is.

Certainly, Reddit user Nadtacular proved that his heart was in fine working order when he opened a bag of mulch at his Florida home and found a tiny baby…something.

Nobody knows the tiny helpless creature got there, but it quickly became famous after Nadtacular posted the picture of his unexpected find on the internet.

However it ended up in there, it is extremely lucky that Nadtacular found it when he did!

Mulch bags can get incredibly hot if they’re in the sun. The poor thing was also in danger of being smushed to death if the bags got tossed about too hard. 

But what was it exactly? It was hard to tell given how tiny it was…but finally, upon closer inspection, he realized it was a newborn baby squirrel!

Then he went straight to work fixing it a warm bed and finding the correct formula to feed it.

Most wild animals can’t digest the formulas we use for hand-feeding our domesticated animals.

But Nadtacular knew what he was doing, and Zip the Squirrel survived!

Tiny Zip couldn’t have been over a day or so. His eyes weren’t open and didn’t open for another 4 weeks; during that month he required around-the-clock care.

This was care he received without question from Nadtacular, who took this rescue very seriously!

He said:

“We knew nothing about raising a squirrel before this and after researching he is up to par with developing time and what not.“

For the first two weeks, Zip was “force fed” formula through a tube, and at about 2 weeks he began to eat on his own.

By 4 weeks his eyes opened and he got his first look at his savior.

He also got his first look at a cookie, and that got even more attention that his rescuer had!

By five weeks of age, Zip had started to play and get into trouble. Squirrels are well-known for nipping their rescuers, even when they don’t mean to.

Nadtacular learned to be very careful when feeding him from his hand!

“He gets plenty of time outdoors, he is pretty much on a shoulder or being held constantly,” he added.

Raising a squirrel is rewarding, but it’s also lots of trouble.

A young squirrel can get into trouble that we humans haven’t even thought about…

There’s nothing they won’t poke their nose into when they’re looking for fun.

They fit into a lot of places you wouldn’t think they could squirm into, too! And they rarely want to go into places you want them to be.

But this tiny survivor seems to know exactly how lucky he is!

As cute as he is, however, and as much as they are enjoying sharing life with him, it’s obvious that Zip won’t be happy as a house pet forever.

They plan to introduce him back into the wild at some point.

Joanna Fitzgerald, director of the  Conservancy of Southwest Florida told the Naples News that wild animals are never good pets.

“All wild babies have extremely specialized nutritional requirements and will not thrive on commercial milk formulas sold at pet stores,” she said.

“A wild animal raised with people is already at a disadvantage because it will become tame and lose its natural fear of people.”

Well, at least when the day comes, this happy healthy squirrel will remember his first “mom”! 😀

Source: The Animal Rescue Site