If you come across an orphan baby raccoon (or any wildlife baby for that matter) here are some tips on what to do.
1. Make absolute sure that mom and baby can not be reunited.
Mom may be off finding food, or in the cases of raccoons, the mothers often move their babies to different dens periodically to throw off predators.
2. While using gloves, place baby in a carrier or box, lined with a thin blanket.
Place box on top of heating pad, set on low.
Allow the baby to warm slowly.
3. DO NOT FEED! Most orphaned babies are dehydrated, and trying to process the solids in formula
take up energy that they don’t have to spare.
They also easily aspirate. Feeding should be left to those with experience.
4. Call a rehabber. A quick google search of wildlife rehabbers should tell you who’s in your area.
If there isn’t one in your area, try searching the area’s around you.
Often times, rehabbers will drive within a few hours to get a helpless baby to their facility.
They are trained, and have the experience needed to identify illness, injury, and to take care of babies
who may need advanced care. They also have access to vet care.
5. If a rehabber isn’t immediately available, or it takes them a day or so to reach you, only feed warmed pedialyte.
Do not use those small animal care bottles. They often cause aspiration. Use a syringe, or a normal baby bottle.
You will have to stimulate the babies genitals with a warm rag to help them urinate.
Also, NEVER feed a cold baby. Allow them to warm slowly (read #1). A cold baby can’t digest.
Trying to feed a cold baby is usually fatal.
6. NEVER call animal control, or a game warden. More often than not, they will take the baby and destroy it,rather than looking for a rehabber.
7. Keep in a quiet, dimly lit room away from other animals.
You don’t want one of your pets to contract any illnesses that the baby may be carrying.
In most states, rehabbing wildlife without a permit, or trying to raise one as a pet, is illegal.
If someone reports you, or the Department of Wildlife discovers you have done so, they will destroy the baby, and you will be fined.
While most wildlife babies are rather docile, once they get older and their hormones hit them, they become aggressive, destructive, and will not hesitate to bite/scratch/otherwise injure even the person that raised them from a newborn.
A raccoon especially, can destroy your house in no time flat.