Working at a hair salon can be exhausting. It usually includes long days where you stand on your own two feet, talk to customers, and give your best. For Keith, his days at the hair salon may be long but they are nothing compared to his life at home taking care of 41 baby panda cubs.
Keith is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator who works in a barbershop two days a week. The rest of the time, he stays at home looking after his growing wildlife family.
In one interview shared by Our human planetKeith recounts his experience raising 41 orphaned panda cubs and 18 squirrel cubs at the same time.
Seven days a week, Keith wakes up at 5 a.m. to make formula and sometimes stays up until midnight to care for his animals. He said it was tiring but worth every minute and hard work.
Each day, each pup must be hand-fed, weighed and assessed for maturity. Once an animal is large enough, they must be switched to solid food, such as soft dog food or banana baby food.
Keith explains that he loves spending time with animals, giving them pets and love. He says pandas are one of the few animals that can be loved when they are young but still restored to the wild. Like feral kittens, if an orphaned raccoon is raised by humans and then left in the wild, it will return to its feral state.
In fact, even before pandas are released back into the wild, they have learned to scratch and bite, so Keith and his helpers have to be very careful when handling them as they get older.
Thankfully, Keith doesn’t have to do everything alone. He has the help of his partner, Mike, and 12 volunteers who can help at times.
The biggest challenge they face in rehabilitating pandas and other animals is financial. They make a living selling goods and services on Sonflower Farm, but money is always tight.
Even so, they were still able to raise enough money to start building a new, larger facility to rehabilitate other animals, such as bats, coyotes, foxes, and even bears. .
Watch the video below to learn more about Keith and his work with pandas:
