Rescued porcupine Allen, who is recovering from mange, lies on conifer bows from recycled Christmas trees as he is cared for Wednesday by Kathi McCue at Wilderness Miracles Wildlife Rehab in Bowdoin. McCue says the center’s porcupines, in addition to their gray and red squirrels, use the boughs to eat, chew and climb on. McCue is the founder of Wilderness Miracle Wildlife Rehab. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

BOWDOIN — Once you have taken the decorations off and are ready to say goodbye to the holidays, your Christmas tree could provide one more gift in the form of a welcome snack and touch of home for Snuggs, Pattycake, Femme, and other critters at a wildlife rehabilitation in Bowdoin.

Or Gertrude, Mary Jane, Oliver and Oscar, all Nigerian dwarf goats, could also make quick work of stripping used fir trees of their tasty branches at the Richmond family’s farm they call home.

Across Maine, as the holiday season wraps up, people are getting ready to take their trees to the local transfer station, but there are other uses for a retired tree.

“We use them for our porcupines, to climb on and chew and make little perches inside their cages, because they love to climb,” said Kathi McCue, owner of the volunteer-based Wilderness Miracles Wildlife Rehab. “Any fir tree — poplar, willow, we use all that. We use them for enrichment, even for the outside animals. We try to use everything natural we can, put them in their enclosures.”

Allen, a rescued porcupine recovering from mange, rests on donated conifer boughs. Wilderness Miracles Wildlife Rehab in Bowdoin accepts donations to support its work raising and caring for wildlife until they can, if they are able, be returned to the wild. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

Snuggs, Pattycake and Femme are porcupines living at the rehab on Route 201 until they’re well enough to return to the wild.

Donated holiday trees provide branches that are put in the cages and enclosures for both porcupines, which eat them, and other animals such as racoons and squirrels to use as perches and playthings while also providing some familiarity and comfort and a touch of nature while they are otherwise out of their natural environment.

Rehab residents include a blind, roughly 6-month-old possum, Opey, who will live out his days at the rehab center. He will be getting a new enclosure that will have trees inside it to give Opey a touch of nature in his new home.

This year, the rehab center took in more than 1,000 animals, including racoons, squirrels, porcupines, skunks, chipmunks, a beaver, a muskrat and a bobcat. The animals are generally orphans found in the wild and brought to the rehab center to be raised or nursed back to health so when they are ready they can be released back into the wild.

Gertie, one of the goats kept by Chris and Laurie Tomascik at their Richmond hobby farm, will enjoy the donated Christmas trees that Chris Tomascik has been collecting around town. Photo courtesy of Laurie Tomascik

Not far away from Opey and his roommates, Gertrude, or Gertie for short, Mary Jane, Oliver, and Oscar are also looking forward to their year-end treat. They’re Nigerian dwarf goats, raised mostly as pets at the hobby farm of Chris and Laura Tomascik and their six children in Richmond.

On New Year’s Day, when many were putting away holiday decorations and taking down their trees, Chris drove around Richmond with a trailer, loading up trees put out beside the road for him by residents, many of whom responded to the Tomasciks’  post on a Richmond-area social media page.

Laurie Tomascik said they picked up 12 trees and two giant wreaths, which she said their goats will love.

“The goats will strip a tree in no time,” she said. “Hay is hard to get locally this time of year, so the trees are a huge blessing.”

If you plan to donate a tree to a farm, check first to see if they’re accepting trees; some farms have been inundated.

Area residents who want to give their holiday tree to the rehab center can drop it by the facility, which is in the basement level at 1675 Augusta Road, which is also Route 201.

The rehab is a volunteer operation that runs on donations, which can be made through its Facebook page.