Jessi: We're back at Animal Wonders enjoying working hard, doing what we do. I'm Jessi.

Augusto: And I'm Augusto.

(Animal wonders intro plays)

Jessi: With the help of the occasional intern and a few volunteers, we make up the team that keeps Animal Wonders going. We do a lot of educating about animals, like we showed you in this video featuring one of our favorite public presentations. Another big part of what we do at Animal Wonders is care for all of the animals, which takes up most of our time.

Augusto: The third part of Animal Wonders' mission is to help animals in need. Here are two animals that we rescued just this week.

Jessi: This is a young female African pygmy hedgehog. She was dropped off at a pet store for boarding. Well, her owners never returned and after three months the pet store wanted to sell her, so they called us to see if we wanted her.

I went to go meet her and found that she was extremely skinny. You can see her backbone and her hip bones through her skin. So, I offered to take her in to rehabilitate her, not really knowing what we were committing to.

Augusto: And that's what we've done hundreds of times. We've taken an animal and are committed to whatever the animal's needs are, however long that takes.

Jessi: This little girl has seen the veterinarian and we have a plan in place. Since no tumors, parasites, or external infections were found, we'll take a non-invasive approach. We're thinking that she has been poorly nourished, and her overexercised herself causing malnutrition. Sometimes hedgehogs can obsessively run on a wheel causing actual harm to themselves.

So the plan is to feed her a higher nutritious diet, reduce her exercise, and weigh her every couple of days and see if she starts gaining weight. If she doesn't start to gain weight after about two weeks, then we'll take a blood sample to test for internal issues. Sometimes if they're poorly nourished for an extended period of time, it can cause organ failure.

Since we've taken away her wheel to reduce her activity level, we have given her lots of things to interact with so she doesn't get bored. If she starts to gain weight, we can add her wheel back in for short periods of time, because she really does like her wheel.

Augusto: This sort of story, where the previous owner doesn't take care of their animals properly, is a story of many of the animals here at Animal Wonders. Here's our second animal we rescued just this week.

Jessi: This is a very young and possibly female budgerigar, and she was brought into a local vet clinic wet and missing all of her tail feathers. The person said that she was given to her by a friend and she didn't want her. The vet did a physical exam, and warmed her up and fed her, then she gave us a call. She needed to find a home that was willing to take in a sick and fragile parakeet.

Augusto: Jessi couldn't say no, and I admit I have a soft spot for budgies too, but we couldn't just take in every animal that needs help, we wouldn't be able to afford it.

Jessi: And that's why we like to educate about the animals that we rescue, because in doing so, we hope to prevent some of these sad stories from being so common. Our little friend here will get as much TLC as she needs to heal up. She's currently being treated for a respiratory infection, and she's being kept extra warm in quarantine, to make sure that the other birds stay safe in case she has a contagious illness.

When she's healthy, we'll see how she interacts with our smaller bird ambassadors. If she gets along, great she can stay with them! If she doesn't, then we'll probably put her up for adoption because we have limited space. We're small, but we try and do the best we can with what we have, and we're always looking for ways to improve wherever we can.

Augusto: Thanks for watching and a big thank you to all our donors and supporters who have given to animal wonders.

Jessi: And a special thank you goes to all of our Patreon patrons, who help make these animal rescues and videos possible. If you would like to support the work that we do, you can go to patreon.com/animalwonders and become an Animal Wonders patron yourself. And if you'd like to go on an adventure with us every week, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel Animal Wonders Montana. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments below or find me on twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. Thanks guys.