Published Spring 2004

Julia Noble

You never know who or what you may encounter when you visit
Julia and Martin Noble's home, for Julia acts as a surrogate mother
to a range of wildlife youngsters

"I try, as near as humanly possible, to mimic the way the
natural mother would look after her young"

‘I have always been mad about animals since I lived in Africa as a small child. The first animal I tried to rear was a mouse, which I found in a shoe box, when I was about five or six years old. It died fairly soon after and I was devastated. Not long after this my mother and I between us reared a young hare, which I taught to do tricks. Later we had three genets.

'When I came to Britain I wasn't able to continue because we lived in the centre of Bournemouth. However, I did bring the school's pets home to look after periodically.
 

'I started looking after animals again many years later when I first met my husband, Martin. He was Head Keeper of the New Forest so people brought animals to him, which they had found apparently abandoned, but the long hours that he worked made it impossible for him to look after them and so they had to be passed on to animal hospitals and carers elsewhere. When I came on the scene he was able to accept them. The first youngster I had was a roe buck and this was followed by a weasel, tawny owl chicks and a badger cub. These were all eventually returned to the wild.

'The way I look after a wild animal that I have never reared before is first of all to read up as much as I can about how they live in the wild; what a mother will feed her young on and how she cares for them.

Then I try, as near as humanly possible, to mimic this food and care as closely as I can. The larger mammals, such as deer are reared on goat's milk, whereas smaller mammals, which require richer milk because of their size, get either puppy replacement milk or kitten milk, according to their species.

'The first very young badger cub I had began to lose hair on the original milk I gave her and in the end I used a special milk that has to be imported from the USA. This soon cured the problem. Since then I have brought up two wolf cubs on the same milk and they have turned into wonderful healthy specimens. Care also involves talking to other people who have successfully reared similar species. In this way you can learn as quickly as possible what is the most successful method to use. If you can possibly avoid it, you do not want to use any animal as a test case. Surprisingly, vets spend a minimum of their training on wildlife care, so that they have to learn from others or from experience how to treat injured animals that are brought in, in the same way as we have to learn how to rear them.'

Julia started to rear more unusual animals when a local wildlife park was first set up. This contained only British wildlife, both past and present. 'I took over the job of surrogate mum for some of the youngsters they had. These included faxes, a wild boar and the wolf cubs. I also cared for polecats, pine martens and wild cats. Some of these animals will be used for breeding future generations that will eventually be re-introduced in places suitable for this.

'You never know when the family may expand. I had one tawny owl youngster and when I came home and checked his nesting box, I found he was no longer alone. Instead of one there were three little faces looking up at me! The additional chicks had been brought to Martin and he had popped them in the box while I was away.

'It is wonderfully rewarding when you have the chance to know how the animals get on, once they have been released. When our first tawny owl, Oscar, was let free we constructed a nesting box nearby. At first Oscar returned at night to be fed day old chicks to supplement what he caught. The next year, when the box contained two owl chicks, we realised that Oscar had been misnamed! In three of the four years that have followed she has reared chicks in the box. I am fairly certain that it is her as she still gets a feed from us while she is rearing young and she still collects it in the same way, from the fence post where I have always put it. She sweeps down on the food so quickly after I put it out that I feel the wind rush through my hair. No completely wild bird would dare to come so close.

'The deer are let out gradually. First of all they have the freedom of a paddock outside their caged area and, when I feel they are ready, we open a section of fence that leads into the wood beyond. They can then come and go as they please, although I do still tempt them back with regular supplies of bramble and sallow, their favourite natural food.

'Of course, I have lost youngsters. Roe kids are extremely difficult to rear. Last year I was successful with two females but then they had an unavoidable sudden shock. The adrenaline produced by their bodies as an escape mechanism, which could not be used in escape as they were confined, had a drastic effect on their muscles which collapsed and we lost both of them. I was desperately upset. I find it very hard not to go over and over in my mind what I could have done to avoid a tragedy. If you look at problems in this way you would soon give up and I have come close to doing this once or twice.

'There is a lot of fun, and many laughs too. I reared a female wild boar piglet, Betty. She was very intelligent and very amusing, although she had a habit of biting everyone's ankles. One day I looked out of the house to see Martin mowing the lawn. Behind him a tiny stripy piglet was following him up and down the lines as he mowed! How I wished I had a video camera. Hattie, this year's badger cub, tries to dig up the five baby tortoises!