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Sensitive Content Warning: image of deceased animal below!
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Disclaimer: I've had lots of experience with sick animals! Please don't ever handle any animal without first researching the risks associated.
Last week I was tending to my vegetable garden and found an orphaned deer mouse pup. He was in bad shape when I found him, and honestly I thought he had already passed.
But he persisted, and even perked up a bit as the day went on.
He was incredibly friendly but very thin and bony. He would not drink kitten milk but nibbled a bit at oats. Although he survived the night, he had visibly weakened by the next morning. At that point he would eat nothing at all and only want to curl up in my warm hand.
I held the sweet fellow as he took his last gasping breaths. We buried him in the late afternoon.
Elegy for the Deer Mouse
In leafen bower
where Jack o' pulpit sways
with violets' spent flower;
in languid summer haze —
that is where he stays.
Thora M. 2026.