{"id":14184,"date":"2025-12-11T10:30:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T16:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/?p=14184"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:29:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:29:52","slug":"young-porcupine-injured-and-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Porcupine Injured And Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"close
The eye injury would heal. Courtesy of All Things Wild Rehabilitation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The following story about a baby porcupine was submitted by All Things Wild Rehabilitation<\/a> in Texas.<\/em><\/p>\n

All Things Wild gets thousands of orphaned babies. In fact, taking in orphaned and injured baby animals is a lot of what we do: raise orphaned and injured babies so that they can be released and survive in the wild. However, about a week ago, we got a baby porcupine. You can count on one hand the number of porcupines we have taken into rehabilitation. This was our first baby.<\/p>\n

The little, female porcupette, as young porcupines<\/a> are called, came to us from a backyard in Williamson County north of Austin, Texas. She was all alone with an injury by her right eye. Fortunately, the eye itself is good, and the injury can be healed. She was hungry and scared. We are guessing that she was 2\u20133 weeks old at intake.<\/p>\n

The little porcupine lapped up a warm meal of EmerAid IC Herbivore<\/a> that made her feel much better. She slowly became interested in what was going on around her and in little bits of food. Her favorite were pieces of corn and melon. Because she was an unusual patient, all the staff and volunteers gathered around to watch her eat.<\/p>\n

Porcupine babies are born with hair, no quills. The specialized hair hardens into quills in a few hours after birth. They also have guard hairs and a dense undercoat. When you are looking at the white things sticking out from a porcupine, you are looking at the guard hairs. The quills are under that.<\/p>\n

At rest, the porcupine keeps the quills down. It\u2019s only if startled or in defense that the quills are raised. The most dangerous part is the tail. If threatened, a porcupine will back into battle while lashing about his tail. Most adult porcupines have 30,000 quills, each covered with barbs that ensure the quill stays in the flesh of the victim. The quills continue to burrow into the flesh if not removed, and removal is painful.<\/p>\n

The All Things Wild staff has learned to wrap the porcupette in newspaper instead of using gloves or a towel. The quills don\u2019t stick into the newspaper like they do in fabric, and the staff doesn\u2019t have to spend time pulling out the quills stuck in the fabric.<\/p>\n

Porcupines are very good climbers and spend much of their lives in trees. Porcupines are herbivores and live on tree bark during the winter. They especially love the tender new growth on young, slender tree branches and often fall out of trees sticking quills into themselves. But never fear, the quills are covered in an antibacterial substance, which retards infection. Porcupines also crave anything salty and will gnaw on plywood (apparently the glue used in making plywood contains salt) and anything a human has perspired on like backpack straps and wooden tool handles.<\/p>\n

They are solitary and live alone, except when a female has a baby. Females give birth to a single baby each year. Even though the babies can nurse on the mother\u2019s quill-free under belly, they also begin eating solid food within days of birth.<\/p>\n

Porcupines are the second largest North American rodent, outsized only by the American beaver. Their most dangerous predator is an animal that lives in Canada and the northern part of the United States called a fisher. Fishers specialize in preying on porcupines by biting their nose until they can flip them over to get at the soft underbelly.<\/p>\n

Porcupines are very vocal. They can be seen waddling along at a slow pace while vocalizing, which seems like they are mumbling to themselves. They range throughout Canada and the most of the western United States, and parts of the Midwest and Northeast. Since porcupines are uncommon in Central Texas, when released, we will be sure to take the little female porcupine to an area where porcupines have been seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A porcupette, or young porcupine, is found injured and alone, so she’s taken to All Things Wild Rehabilitation to get help and recover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":14185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYoung Porcupine Injured And Alone - EmerAidVet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A porcupette, or young porcupine, is found injured and alone, so she's taken to All Things Wild Rehabilitation to get help and recover.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Young Porcupine Injured And Alone - EmerAidVet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A porcupette, or young porcupine, is found injured and alone, so she's taken to All Things Wild Rehabilitation to get help and recover.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EmerAidVet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-12-11T16:30:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/wp-content\/uploads\/porcupine-atwr-2512.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Marylou Zarbock\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Marylou Zarbock\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Marylou Zarbock\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/#\/schema\/person\/63d8629f8ef085b129e7375d424f0725\"},\"headline\":\"Young Porcupine Injured And Alone\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-11T16:30:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/\"},\"wordCount\":675,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/wp-content\/uploads\/porcupine-atwr-2512.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Wildlife Rehabilitation Stories\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/\",\"name\":\"Young Porcupine Injured And Alone - EmerAidVet\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/wp-content\/uploads\/porcupine-atwr-2512.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-12-11T16:30:06+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/#\/schema\/person\/63d8629f8ef085b129e7375d424f0725\"},\"description\":\"A porcupette, or young porcupine, is found injured and alone, so she's taken to All Things Wild Rehabilitation to get help and recover.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/young-porcupine-injured-and-alone\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/wp-content\/uploads\/porcupine-atwr-2512.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/emeraid.com\/vet\/wp-content\/uploads\/porcupine-atwr-2512.jpg\",\"width\":800,\"height\":800,\"caption\":\"The eye injury would heal. 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