Hand-Rearing Baby Armadillos

Just how to do you get to grips with hand-rearing two baby armadillos? Susie Kearley meets someone who can now offer the answers.

- Susie Kearley

Stacey Axeman from the Cotswold Wildlife Park had never hand-reared a baby animal before, but when one of the park’s armadillos gave birth, the keepers were faced with a dilemma. Their real mum had a history of neglecting her newborns, and none had ever survived, so Stacey volunteered to be surrogate mum. It was to be a steep learning curve, as she explained to me.

The birth

At 4pm on 21 February 2016, two new creatures entered the world - armadillo twins. One was called Amelia, who weighed 142g (5oz), and the other was Wallace, who was slightly heavier at 200g (7oz). Their mother, called Linda, had rejected the pups, leaving keeper Stacey Axeman, 33, to look after them, first in her nearby flat and later, at the park.

Stacey said, “I was there for the birth, so when the mother rejected them, I stepped in. I wouldn’t normally hand rear our animals because it’s always better to leave them with their mum if possible, but our adult female just didn’t seem to want them.

“She’d neglected previous litters and the young had died. We’d been unable to save them because she’d given birth after we’d finished work. We didn’t get to see the young until morning, and they were weak and cold by this time. Then, even when we tried to hand-rear them, they didn’t survive. So as I was there for the birth, I decided to take these two into our care straightaway, as their mother was clearly not interested in them.”

Raising armadillo babies

So when you’ve got no experience, and it’s just a matter of googling and playing it by ear, how does someone with no experience raise armadillo babies?