Rescuing Baby Stoats Ready For Life in the Wild ｜ Rescued & Returned to the Wild ｜ Robert E Fuller

Every year I help rehabilitate lost stoat kits, an animal I've come to know well. I love watching stoats in the wild. These elusive mammals are part of the weasel family and I've spent the last 10 years photographing them, filming them and documenting their behaviour. With hidden cameras I was the first to film wild stoats in the nest, capturing unique moments of courtship, mating and even young kits. Six to 12 kits are born in spring and as they grow the females move them between sites frequently to protect them from predators, exploit new hunting grounds and move to a new clean nest. Unfortunately kits are sometimes lost in the move. Thankfully with plenty of experience rehabilitating stoats I'm on hand to help them and get them ready for life in the wild. So I've had a call this morning someone's found a baby stoat in the garden and it's in here. So her eyes are just opening which indicates she's about four weeks old but she's quite small for that age. It's fairly warm which is a really good sign. Sometimes when I get them in they're really cold and they take a little bit of warming up before I can feed them but straight away without any hesitation I'm going to give it some food and look at that straight in eating away. Baby stoats can eat solid food at just a couple of weeks old. I'm feeding on a tiny chicken leg. That's incredible just within a few minutes there's only a bone left. That's great she's eaten that food straight away but I can tell when I pinch her skin it doesn't fold back into place. She's a little bit dehydrated so next thing is to get some milk down there and this is puppy milk that we're going to give her. Just one drop at a time. It's a gradual process too much milk too quickly can flood her lungs. She was clearly very very thirsty. So that's amazing she hasn't spilled a drop she's had her first syringe and she still actually wants more she's actually trying to suck off my finger now. Now I've fed her and given her a little bit of milk it's now time to weigh her so I can monitor her progress and just see how well she's doing. She's 51 grams at the moment it's going to be really interesting to see how she grows over the next few days. She's doing really well and after all that food and drink she's going to want to sleep now just like any other baby. She hasn't got her mother or other siblings to keep her warm so I'm just going to pop a heat mat underneath her. She'll need feeding by syringe 10 times a day so I have to take her everywhere with me even when I'm out filming. This is only the second time I've fed it with a syringe and it's already got the hang of it. So this is a really tricky job syringe feeding this little stoat while keeping an eye on all these cameras waiting for the kingfisher to come. So I've had a little stoat with me six days and it's doing really well it's clearly growing fast and it's just about five weeks old now and I'm just going to try giving it a bit more milk. After feeding it's time to weigh her. She's gained 38 grams in just under a week. She's putting on weight so fast I decide to name her Rocket. So now it's got to this stage it'll be exploring just beyond the nest so it's ready for its next stage which is going into a bigger enclosure. So she's now exploring a new enclosure and now she's got more space I can see she's slightly wobbly on her back legs sometimes they're actually caught by cats and carried around and this may be the case for this stoat as well. With a bit more space and exercise I'm sure it's going to recover fine. Two weeks later Rocket's thriving and I've had another rescued stoat handed in. So the lady's had this and has been raising it from a little kit and she's done a pretty good job it's looking pretty healthy this one but she's given it to me for the next stage of rehabilitation which is eventually getting this little stoat back into the wild. I've got a separate enclosure ready right next to Rocket this one's been sleeping in the woolly hat I'll keep it in that to help the kit settle faster. I'm going to be keeping a close eye on this one over the next couple of days and feeding it regularly but Rocket in here has just heard the commotion and has woken up and wanting some more milk I'm handling her a lot less now but I still top her up with a bit of milk every day. So stoats are used to being part of a big family and it's really important for them to be with other stoats so even though Rocket's bigger than the stoat that's just arrived in I might just try them together in the next couple of days and just see if they get on. So I'm going to spin these two enclosures around so these two young stoats can get used to each other's presence. I can't wait to see how they get on. The next day it's time for them to be introduced. So I think this one knows something's going on it started calling a lot squeaking away sounds a bit like a cuddly toy doesn't it now's the time to try them together. Yes this is going to be a fascinating moment see what these two do. I've done this many times and I'm on hand if they don't get on. After some nervous sniffing and squeaking the kits are playing together like old friends. So now these young stoats have got each other they're going to become less dependent on me which is key for them going back into the wild. The next step will be moving into an outdoor enclosure but just a few days before they're due to move I get another stoat handed in. Right this one's going to be a lot harder to handle it's very wild this little stoat. It's quite wild and quite frightened but it'll be missing its family and it's just the right age to join the others. Right so I'm going to try them in together so let's get them in there. So there's a few squeaks and chitters introduced in that third stoat and the little one's just falling asleep down here. The three stoats are getting along well and they're soon ready for the outdoor enclosure. So it's time to get this enclosure ready it's been a year since I've had stoats in here so we're just topping up the pond for them. Stoats absolutely love water and this little shallow pond is going to be ideal for them. So next is to sort out the nest which is just down here they love somewhere safe to hide away. So that's the enclosure all ready I've just got to get the stoats in here now. All right this is the first one I had handed in to me she only had one eye slightly open but you can see how quick they're moving now. She's absolutely raring to go and wants to be outside. So this is the smallest of the stoats I've got at the moment but I'm sure it's going to be okay outside with these other two as company it'll be just fine. So now I challenge this third one's really quite wild so I'm gonna have to use this cloth. Yeah there's your mate there you go. So I'm just going to leave them to it and let them settle in now. The enclosure is rigged with cameras so I can capture footage of them exploring. Playing and snuggling down in their nesting chamber. And I've got an ingenious way for the stoats to get even closer to the wild. A secret hatch leads to an underground chamber that I built for a family of rescue badgers a few years ago. The badgers have since moved on so it's the perfect place for the stoats to explore the network of tunnels and passageways. And what they don't know yet is the final doorway opens up to the great outdoors. So the stoat kits have been in this vacant badger set for nearly a week now so today's a really exciting day I'm going to open up the grills here and let these stoats out. After three months in my care they're ready for life in the wild. One after the other the kits make their way outside and over the next weeks it's amazing to see them exploring and playing around my garden. They're still popping back to the enclosure to sleep which is great to see. They're growing in confidence and they'll soon be ready to establish their own territories. They've come so far from the tiny kits that were handed in and it's just amazing to see them wild and free. Thank you for watching and I hope you enjoyed the video. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to see more. Here's a taste of what you'll enjoy seeing on this channel.