Ever wondered what it's like having a beaver around the house? If people keep ponies, donkeys, squirrels, raccoons, spiders, ants, scorpions, foxes, hedgehogs, and a variety of other more or less exotic or unorthodox pets, why not a beaver, right?
Well, all’s fun and games until the beaver starts living out its Mother Nature-given instincts and starts building a dam. And if it wants to build a dam, it will, and it will use whatever building materials it finds lying around the house. Like pillows, tissue boxes, statuettes, metal frames, buckets, plungers, and whatever else it finds in its path!
Ever wondered what it's like having a beaver around the house? Well, it's very much them living out their instincts
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
Meet Beave, the lovely neighborhood rescue beaver who has been taking up residence with Nancy, a licensed wildlife rehabilitation specialist with whom Bored Panda got in touch. Beave ended up here in May of 2020, being just 3 weeks old, when he was found abandoned by the side of the road.
She speculates Beave’s parents were killed because they couldn’t have left him there in the first place. It’s likely, but not for certain, that poachers might have left him there.
Meet Beave, a rescue beaver who has been taken in by a wildlife rehabber until he's ready to go back to the wild
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
And, no matter where he is, he does what beavers do best—build dams, of course!
While there has been quite a lot of wildlife here for rehab, which includes medical care, food, housing, and making sure they are able to return to the wild, beavers are quite different in that matter.
You see, beavers stay with their families for around 2 years, during which they learn everything from them. Everything ought to be highlighted here as that is truly an understatement. They learn EVERYTHING from their parents.
Beave was picked up from the side of the road when he was just 3 weeks old
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
It is speculated that Beave's parents were killed by poachers and Beave was simply abandoned at the road
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
According to the rehabilitation program, he'll stay with the wildlife rehabber for around 2 years
The specialist shared in a video how she needed to teach him to eat solid food once he was done with receiving special beaver milk (formula). When he was introduced to vegetation, he wouldn’t eat it. It wasn’t until the specialist started mimicking what to eat that Beave finally understood and started switching to other foods. And he still needed to be hand-fed at this point.
So, for all intents and purposes, Beave is in rehab, and plans to stay there for 2 years. And what does Beave do with his time in rehab? Well, besides swimming around and learning new things, he does what beavers do best—build dams!
"Beave is just starting to dam with household objects, but has not yet started outside or in water," elaborated Nancy. "He dams pretty much every evening. When I clean it up, he just rebuilds!"
Videos of Beave building 'dams' at home using various household objects have begun surfacing
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
His dams involve everything from pillows to metal racks to plungers to anything else he gets his paws on
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
And these aren’t your ordinary dams that are normally made of wooden sticks and whatnot. Oh no, he scavenges for whatever he can find lying around the house and shoves it in the doorway to form a dam.
Statuettes, pillows, shoes, metal racks, blocks, buckets, plungers, cloth, toilet mats, brushes, boxes, toys—you name it, he’s probably already used it as a building material for one of his doorway dams. And you better believe it’s adorable!
Rehabbing a beaver is no walk in the park though, as explained the wildlife rehabber: "The most challenging part about rehabbing a beaver is trying to teach him to learn all the things his parents would teach him. He does chew everything in the house, but with each rehab, there are unique challenges."
Beave has his very own TikTok channel with over 370,000 people following his daily shenanigans
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
If given enough time and items, Beave is sure to leave a messy pile of random stuff in the doorway
Image credits: Beaver Baby Furry Love
Note that building dams isn't all he does as he also goes outside from time to time for his regular baths and exercise, and he also wanders around the sanctuary. He will eventually be released into the wild once he's around 2 years of age and has learned everything he needs in order to survive alone in the wild.
Now, Beave has his very own TikTok channel dedicated to his life, which includes much of his shenanigans. Besides the many dam-building videos, there’s also him swimming, wandering and sniffing around, eating, and Q&As as he has over 370,000 followers now people want to learn more about the little critter. Oh, and before you ask, Beave thoroughly enjoys grapes and kale!
Beave’s dam-building videos often get tens of thousands of likes with hundreds of thousands of views. One particular video garnered over 700,000 views with nearly 100,000 likes and around 9,000 shares, so it’s safe to say that the internet has truly fallen in love with Beave and his shenanigans.