Today is the second Sunday in May, and that means families across the nation will take time to celebrate their mothers.
At the Lexington Humane Society, we celebrate our foster care families for providing necessary maternal care to our animals in need. When orphaned baby animals are brought in to LHS, staff and volunteers provide food, shelter and nurturing to give orphaned babies their best shot at a happy and healthy life.
In 2018, LHS took in over 1,000 puppies and kittens less than 8 weeks of age. All of these baby animals needed access to additional care that they would normally see from their mothers.
When an animal comes in and can’t fend for itself, our Foster Care Coordinator reaches out to the foster care parents to see who is available and able to provide love, shelter, food and occasionally help with health concerns. The staff provides all medical care while the orphaned babies are with their foster parents. Once the babies are big enough, they are spayed or neutered and put up for adoption so they can find their forever homes.
While the support LHS staff and volunteers provides is amazing, the best outcome for these babies is if they can spend as many weeks with their own mothers as possible. Young domesticated animals that appear orphaned may not actually be abandoned, but instead their mother has left them to look for food. Consider calling the Lexington Humane Society for help if mom has been missing for over eight hours, or if the babies are in an unsafe location. If mom returns, that’s great! She needs to stay with her babies for about 8 weeks so they can receive the best health benefits from her presence. At that time, they can all be brought to LHS so they can be spayed or neutered, and find their forever homes.
Caring for orphaned babies requires a lot of time, energy and supplies. LHS uses around 100 cans of kitten milk replacement per year. To help provide supplies for orphaned babies, check out the Lexington Humane Society’s Amazon Smile wishlist so that you can help be a mother to baby animals without one.
