Two days a week Keith works at a hair salon in Brighton, Colorado.
But Keith has another, secret life.
Keith is raising 41 orphaned raccoons and 18 baby squirrels.
"Who's first? You wanna come out first?
Oh, you're Mr. Rocket Man.
Huh? What is it? What is it? Yes! What is it? What is it, Mr. Man? What is it?"
He came in, he was only 166 grams.
When they’re that small, sometimes they make it, sometimes they don’t.
"Come here, ya gotta find the bottle. Where is it?
Where is it? Oh-ho, there it is!"
Just to see him at that size now and that he’s getting there, he’s gonna make it! To see him
doing that chuffing and chirping and everything, I don’t know, it’s like playing with a baby.
[Laughter] I don’t know.
You only have a certain amount of time that you can do that with raccoons.
I'd say give him another month and he gonna be growly and bitey and stuff
and so right now you can play with him
and do the little fun stuff with him."
There’s a lot more to raising an orphan raccoon than just making up a bottle.
You have to weigh every animal every day.
"Barbera"
Both to check their health
"There you go!"
and figure out how much to milk to give them.
"Did she gain any? Yes, she did!"
They get 5% of their body weight at every feeding.
You also need to know when they’re ready to start eating solid food –
in this case softened puppy chow – and how to get them to eat it.
That’s banana-flavored baby food. Hopefully that gets them going
once they start eating."
They’re so cute – who wouldn’t want one of these?
"That feel better?"
Even if you know exactly what you’re doing, raising raccoons is not for the faint of heart.
You have to get them to urinate after every feeding.
Clean their cages daily.
And be prepared to do lots of laundry.
You’d better have a good machine
'cause raccoon poop is sticky, and it really stinks.
"Hold on! You're all coming out at one time!"
Like children - two raccoons are far more than twice the work of one.
Imagine raising over forty.
Also, raccoons can carry rabies so if there’s any chance you might get scratched or bitten
you’ll need three rabies vaccinations.
That’s upwards of a thousand dollars – and it’s probably not covered by your insurance.
But most of all, baby raccoons need to be fed five times a day,
7 days a week.
Keith starts mixing formula at 5AM
and sometimes doesn’t finish until midnight.
It’s exhausting.
So why does he do it?
If you can for a second just let everything else go and live in the moment
and just enjoy what’s happening. It’s just peaceful and it’s almost like you could stay there forever.
It’s what life was meant to be.
"Take a breather."
Keith is lucky
he has a dozen dedicated volunteers.
But he still couldn’t manage without his partner, Mike.
They’ve been together for almost 26 years.
We work well together, actually.
He’s the more logical, black and white, and he's more
he needs to have a schedule, he needs to have an excel sheet...
And I’m more of a, "I'll figure it out when I get there."
I don’t know why or how, but it just works.
There’s just one catch…
Rehabbing wild animals was never part of Mike’s retirement plan.
Before he met me I don’t think he would have ever went in that direction at all.
Even though it’s not his dreams I really appreciate that
he has decided to go along this journey with me.
Over time, they’ve come up with a compromise
Keith handles everything to do with the animals:
feeding,
cleaning cages,
and veterinary care.
Mike’s in charge of all the landscaping,
construction,
and design.
There’s only one place they don’t see eye to eye.
Mike dreams of having lush green lawns.
Keith rescues every bird he can
and lets most of them range free on the property.
They have African geese,
guinea hens, turkeys,
chickens,
and peacocks.
The problem is, all of them dig holes, which Mike is constantly having to fill in.
Luckily, he has a couple of allies in wings.
Kizzy has developed a taste for free-range eggs.
Lilly, the new pup,
cleans up any incriminating evidence that Kizzy leaves behind.
And every once in a while an owl or a fox pitches in.
It’s been six weeks and despite their seeming desperation
even the smallest raccoons are starting to eat solid food.
But just as raccoon season is winding down, fox squirrel season is ramping up .
Keith is well known as a licensed wildlife rehabilitator
and he’s getting new deliveries almost daily.
They often come in injured or dehydrated.
Like raccoons, there’s more to raising baby squirrels than meets the eye.
Just getting them to accept milk is much harder than it looks.
"There you go.
I know - people suck, huh? I know!
I know! Talk to me!
You're hating life right now but this is gonna save your life, buddy!"
You are not happy. Let me hold those little arms. I know! There you go. How about that?"
If you do find a baby squirrel, First try to re-unite it with its mother.
Put it in a box and use this simple trick…
Google "Baby Squirrel Sounds." Oh! And then just play it from the phone!
Yeah, and you play it under the box.
Mom will come back and take the Babies to a different location, usually.
And if that doesn’t work, keep it warm and call a professional.
You're getting very tired.
Yeah, your eyes are getting heavy.
Your stomach's full.
You wanna take a nap.
With so many new mouths to feed, Keith does his farm chores at 90 miles an hour.
What? Okay, watch out, Mr. Man.
His volunteers start bringing fast food since Keith has no time to cook.
That steak dinner with Mike is a distant memory.
It’s not just time – it’s money.
Rehabbing wild animals isn’t cheap.
Sonflower Ranch supports itself – just barely – by boarding horses and retired yoga goats.
They sells farm fresh eggs -
"There's usually one back here."
and turn goat milk into scented lotions.
They raise – and sell - alpacas, donkeys, goats, and sometimes puppies,
Though saying goodbye to Lily is very hard on Mike.
All right. It was fun. You're a good girl. She's really smart."
They also run a family-friendly petting farm.
But none of that covers raccoon and squirrel expenses.
And… Keith is building a new facility to take in bats, coyotes, fox, and even bears.
So they’re putting on a gala.
They’ve been collecting donations for months for a live auction.
The farm’s five dogs and four cats
are doing their best to work the crowd.
But there just aren’t enough people to bid the prices up.
"One hundred and seventy-five dollars!"
Keith has one last hope…
They’ve organized a big dinner and silent auction.
The animals reposition themselves for maximum impact
but mother nature has other plans.
It looks like Keith’s dream of caring for all of Colorado’s wildlife will have to be put on hold.
But gradually, things start to change.
Keith and Mike are will liked by the community
and neighbors start showing up to support their cause.
A band sets up
and a party vibe kicks in.
Mike’s wine and beer bar gets busy.
Dinner is a hit.
"Well I'm glad I came."
And the silent auction does well.
They raise enough to continue working on the new rehab center.
"Come on, buddy!"
The baby raccoons are about to go through their first big life transition.
Keith is moving them into the outdoor cages.
That means no more 5AM bottle feedings,
but they still have to be taught how to survive in the wild.
For starters, Keith adds eggs to their puppy chow.
They’re initially a little skeptical
but their curiosity gets the better of them.
It doesn’t take them long to figure out they like the IDEA of eggs,
they’re just not sure what to do with them.
Until one gets a lucky break.
and they’re immediately hooked.
That’s when Rhonda starts hiding them around the cages.
She enjoys playing easter bunny as much as they like finding eggs.
Their next lesson is considerably more difficult.
They’re going to learn how to fish.
They’re certainly enthusiastic.
They just have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.
They eventually figure out how to flip the fish out of the water
but they’re still not entirely sure they like the taste.
At least compared to this:
earthworms.
That’s a happy sound.
The earthworms teach the racoons how to feel vibrations in the ground
and dig for food.
Raccoons hunt with their hands more than with their eyes and ears.
It’s almost time to set them free.
These are no longer the cuddly babies Keith bottle-fed just twelve weeks ago.
Still want an exotic pet?
Adopt an emu
or a pig.
Today’s the day.
Keith and Mike are releasing 12 raccoons.
But first, they have to get them into a box for transportation.
Time for the gloves to come on.
"He's a mean one, huh?"
Raccoons are the only small-to-medium mammals that you can rehab.
They will turn wild. They're like a feral cat.
If you leave them out in the wild for two or three days
They're gonna go wild and they're not gonna wanna see you again.
That's why I like raccoons. It's cause you can love on 'em when they're little and... [laughter]
They'll be mean and growly and bitey when you're ready to release them
they're ready to go.
So as a pet, they're not a very good pet because they will bite, they will scratch,
There's not a raccoon around that I've seen that will not bite or scratch to get their way.
Raccoons have to be released within 10 miles of where they were found.
This keeps them from spreading any disease they may be carrying to the wider population.
"We're gonna have to walk them down in there a little bit."
Keith looks for places that have a water source,
and lots of trees, and not too many humans.
He’s made up a final care package -
enough food to last them for a night or two.
The second release is on the Platte river, near a friendly farmer.
I ask Keith how it feels to see them go after raising them for all those weeks.
You get bit, scratched - that's what they're supposed to do in the wild.
That's what we need to get them back to. So you have to take all of that
emotion and the adrenaline, and you have to put that to the side
and understand what the end result is that you want.
And when you get close to that, that's when you're like - okay, I did what I was supposed to do.