A farmer in the United Kingdom saved four adorable cubs in the middle of the night when he performed a C-section on a mother fox lying dead on the road.
“I saw her on the road and stopped to check and see if she was suffering,” Rofle told the Daily Mail.
When Rolfe, 24, approached the fox, he saw the dead mother’s stomach moving. He immediately went back to his car to fetch a knife and performed a C-section on the fox.
He had no veterinary training but had done C-section once earlier during lambing season, reported the news outlet.
“It was instinctive, otherwise instead of one life lost, it would have been the death of all of the cubs as well as the mum. I didn’t think about it, I just done it,” he said.
After removing four infant cubs out of the mother’s womb, he rushed home to his mother, Jean.
“After I got the cubs out, I took them straight to my mum’s and she cared for them making sure they were clean and getting their circulation going, making she they were up and running,” he said.
“They arrived all bloody, and in the wild mum would lick them to get clean. Mum would also have quite a rough tongue as well, which would help to get the circulation going. But I wasn’t going to do that,” she said.
She then gave them a firm rub with a damp towel. “We then put them in a cardboard box on top of a heater to keep them warm. Cubs also can’t pee and poo themselves and so mum would normally lick them. So we got damp cotton wool and cleaned those areas, to make sure they are able to go to the toilet because that is a major factor in what could kill them,” she explained.
Initially, she started feeding the cubs every 20 minutes, and then switched to once in two hours, then once in three hours, and now they are weaned.
“They are eating puppy dog food, plus frozen chicks. The reason being they would have fur, and bones and all sorts when they are in the wild. So we are trying to get them ready for the wild. It has taken a lot of care and effort to look after them. And thankfully all four survived,” she said.
The cubs are seven weeks old now and are called Ginger, Biscuit, Big Tip and Little Tip. Rolfe said he’s very happy that they are healthy.
The Fox Project is overlooking their progress and aims to send them into the wild at six months. If that doesn’t happen, they'll travel through other fox foster homes till they become independent.
“If Chris hadn’t stopped, they wouldn’t have survived. So Chris just got on with it and dealt with it. He was in that frame of mind, I guess because he was looking after the sheep his instinct was there. A lot of people talk about having foxes as pets, and even though they are lovely animals, they are wild and they need to be wild,” said Jean.
