Well... Now what?
Location: Montana
Roughly 4 days ago, one of my barn cats had caught something, I went up to it thinking it was a mouse. It was not, it was a half dead gopher. Turns out they got to the nest of them, took out 4 babies and mom so the chances of returning it to the nest were zero. I took it in thinking it would be dead by night and I just wanted to keep it comfortable.
I started providing oral antibiotics to fight off the pasteurella (bacteria from cat saliva) and gave it a flea bath as well as dewormed the little guy.
Here we are, 4 days later, it can be a little bundle of energy but mostly just naps and comes to me when hungry. I don't know if gophers bond but it seems like he has? Has calls out for me, escapes his cage and gets into my bed with me, is with me all day everyday and refuses to go back into the cage I made it ( a large stock tank with 6ish inches of bedding that I DIY'd 'burrows' for and provided a chick heat plate that it sleeps under for warmth.
My question is... What do I do with it? I have no idea what skills to teach it to survive in the wild now.. (there are zero rehabbers near me and my parents would rather just stomp on it than go all that way) it has another week and a half on antibiotics, right now I'm feeding it assorted greens, shredded carrots and the very very occasional slice of fruit as well as grain. (Few pieces of rice only twice so far)