By Mickie Perkins

 

I am a teacher at a kindergarten in China.  I was cutting out fish for my four-year-old students when the bus driver entered the room carring a plastic bag.  Everyone began to look inside making comments in Chinese then he held the bag under my nose.

 

There to my surprise was three baby chipmunks.  They were a little over two inches long with black, brown and white stripes.  They were all three curled up in a little ball clinging to each other for life.

 

I asked the principle "Have they been touched?"  She asked the bus driver in Chinese, and he said "Yes."  He explained that the maintenance man found them while cleaning the air conditioner on the second floor.

 

The principal said that we should put them back in case their mother came back for them, but I knew that most wild animals will not accept their young after they have been touched by human hands.  My roommate, who was raised on a farm, explained that chipmunks eat their young if people have touched them.

 

"What do we do?" the principal said.  I looked at the shivering little bodies, and could imagine the fear they must be feeling with such large creatures peering down at them.  Their lives had litterally been turned upside down.  I picked up one of the shivering babies.  He began to cry in a shrill pitch that pearced my ears.  I held him close and stroked him.  His cries subsided.

 

"I am not sure how to raise chipmunks" I said, but I will take them home.  My roommate looked at me through the corner of her eye.  "You will keep them in your room?" she inquired.  I knew that she didn't like pets in the house, but I glanced at her with pleading eyes.  "I guess it will be ok, as long as you keep them in your room."

 

The school doctor gave me a syringe, and the staff helped me find a suitable box, and towel to wrap them.  Thus began the adventures of The Baby Chipmunk Chronicles.

 

See the Developmental stages of a Baby chipmunk, or read about the daily adventures of Chip, Lee, and Brittani by going home and clicking on the proper web page.