Animal-World > Small Animal Pets > Pet Squirrels > American Red Squirrel

American Red Squirrel

Family: Sciuridae
Submit Your Picture "Handsel" Tamiasciurus hudsonicus Photo © Animal-World: Courtesy Lisa

   The American Red Squirrel has also been known as the Chickaree or the Hudson's Bay Squirrel. The name Chickaree came from its noisy chattering, and like most squirrels, it is very fond of repeating its cries frequently!

   This is a graceful lively little animal. In its natural environment the American Red Squirrel has a tendency to be a bit fearless of humans and often tends to be heedless of human presence.

For more information about the care of American Red Squirrels see:
Guide to a Happy, Healthy Squirrel

Background:
   American Red squirrels are found mostly in Alaska and Canada, the Northeast of the US, and also reach down into the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains south of Georgia. They are the most numerous species of the genus Sciurus around New York and the Eastern states.
   Regular little talkers, they have a routine call they repeat every minute or so. They also have a chattering alarm, that when sounded will be prolonged for five or six seconds and can be heard up to a quarter of a mile away.
  Their homes are in tree cavities or in water-proof leaf nests high up in the trees, sometimes as high as 60 feet. They also dig burrows in the ground, but these are for food storage.
   Unlike their larger cousin the Gray Squirrel, which can subsist on a rather small quantity of buds and nuts through the winter months, the American Red Squirrel is extremely active in the snowy seasons and requires large amounts of seeds and nuts. They have a habit of hoarding large quantities of food in burrows, neighboring trees, and in their nests.

Description:
   American Red squirrels are covered with short hair and appear mostly reddish, having brown, black, and yellow specks throughout, with a white underbelly.

Interesting Facts:
   - American Red Squirrels are hunted in Canada for their fur seasonally.
   - They eat a certain type of mushroom called 'Amanita' that is poisonous to
      humans.
   - Their preferred food is pine seeds, and their winter stores sometimes
      contain more than 150 pinecones!
   - They are active mostly during the day - particularly at dawn and in late
      afternoon - and sleep at night.
   - They are capable of both swimming and diving.

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Latest Comments
I found a baby red squirrel. The websites I found were extremely helpful! "Simon" is doing great and in 4-5 weeks will hopefully be ready to be released. Cheryl 2009-05-14
My name is Jordan. I found a badly wounded baby squirrel. It's better now but I go to destin in 6 days. What do I do? Jordan 2008-09-14
Hi, my name is Jesse. I found a squirrel baby that is hurt. I think it's mildly retarded cuz he only runs in circles. I named him spiral. I have no Knowledge of how to care for it but I fear if I let it back in to the wild it will die. I need help, thank you. jesse g 2008-05-26
About 2 months ago my step dad was at a work-site cutting a tree behind a house. After the tree had fallen, he noticed that there were four baby squirrels lying near it. He took lunch and worked for a little while longer, about four hours. He then went back to see if the mother had gotten them, she hadn't. He brought them home, feeling bad. I loked up on the web what they eat and everything i could about them. One died 2 days after we had found it for no apparent reason, We believe it was injured internally from the fall. The second kept having feeding seizures and died a week after we had it. About this time we realized the only female left had a cut under her arm. We paid special attention to her and it was about this time we built a small cage. The boy was doing excellent and so was the female. We had not named them for fear they would die. They opened their eyes and we got hope, they climbed everywhere! One day at a feeding the little boy started choking, my step-dad loved them so much he even tried CPR! We all ended up crying because we later found out he had been chewing on his nest-box in his cage, and it could have been prevented. It ended up being only female that lived, the one with the cut, the one worse off than them all. She lived and we now call her Daisy. She has run of the house during the day and is getting large! She is friendly except for people she has never seen before. She is almost just like a dog! One day while free running the house she found a mini-oreo my little sister had dropped and started eating it! We tried to get it away from her, but couldn't! Squirrels are VERY FAST when they want to be! We know they will eat nearly anything, especially if it is sweet. We stick to a diet of fruit and nuts and still the Ebsilac milk that she originally ate. She now lives in a 'condo' that takes up a large part of our house and loves it. One person found a squirrel down the street that is male and we want to breed her, unless we let her go by then. She has given us much love and laughs and i hope i never have to see her go! We dont regret orphaning them one bit, and hope we can orphan more! We actually thought she was a gray squirrel at first, but after looking at the pictures, gray squirrels are more black and we realised she was a red squirrel! She answers to her name, and stops doing anything when we say 'no!'. Squirrels are genius! Arya 2006-10-21
I found my gray squirrel a year and 2 months ago. i was on my way home from school and i saw i dead squirrel laying in the road. well, me being Buddhist, I went over to the deceased squirrel to take it off of the road and bury it. But as i approached it, I saw that there was a little brown ball of fur next to it. When i picked it up, i saw that it was a baby squirrel. It was huddling up near its deceased mother in order to keep warm. So, i took the mother and the baby off of the road and buried the mother and took the little baby home with me. When i got home i called the nearest vet and told them what has happened and i asked them how to take care of it, and you will never guess what they told me to do, they told me to bring it in so that they could youthanize it. I was appauled by what the woman said, so i said, "Just because it is orphaned, and is a baby, you want to kill it?! I thought that you were supposed to help animals!" That was the end of that vet...anyway,i bought baby formula and fed it through a baby bunny bottle, and now ive had her ever since. She has never bittten me or anyone else. In fact, shes sleeping in my one arm right now, so im holding a squirrel in one arm and typing with the other!:)The funny thing is that when she was a baby i could have swore that it was a boy, so i named her Rodney, well, a year later it turns out that its a girl...by then she knew her name as Rodney, so it was too late for a new name.Shes a great pet, whoever said that squirrels are wild and will turn against you are NUTS.I love my squirrel more than anything in the world, and makes me happy to see that other people think so too. keep up the good work. by the way, i think im the only one that has a harness for little Rodney, and she is the luckiest squirrel around because she has the run of the house, thank goodness that she scratches at the door when she has to go outside! -Bianca,age 16 NY Bianca 2005-11-26
Some of the coolest comments:
Raising "Baby Piglet" a squirrels' tale........... I found Baby under our oak tree 8/11/09. She was pink,hairless, and her umbilical was still wet. Poor baby had fallen 50ft from a leaf nest and was bruised but active and wiggling around. She wouldnt have lasted long with the cats nearby so I had to take her. Like most people I had no clue as what to do. I contacted local rehabbers and none would take her. They told me she would die or they didnt have the time and resources to care for a "pinkie". I finally found someone to give me care instructions. For weeks I did feedings every 2 hours round the clock....no sleep.....but worth it. It is amazing to watch your baby grow and develop from a pinkie to getting fur and then: they open those sweet eyes. She's is fat and healthy and looks like a proper squirrel now and just begining to eat some solids. I found lots of advice online....some good....some bad....and some scary. If you decide to care for an orphan baby here is a list of things you should know. First found...... check your baby for injuries ( broken bones, lacerations, bruising, animal bites) the baby may appear fine but could have internal damage. if hurt call your local vet or rehabber. your baby will be cold......warm them gently in your hands. a warm baby is actively wiggling when awake (never feed a cold baby you will kill it) Dehydration.....your baby may be dehydrated. gently pull skin and if it doesnt spring back your baby needs fluids. Pedialyte works great (never gatorade) you can make your own pedialyte. mix 1 quart water 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp salt. feed with eye dropper at room temp. the baby bed........ I had to get creative because I have a dog,cat,birds, and kids running around. I cleaned out a drawer in my night stand. placed a heating pad on the bottom and covered that with a towel. The heating pad should be on its lowest setting. this way i could keep her in a safe dark warm place. I used white towels so they could be bleached and kept sanitary for baby. formulas...... Never feed baby cows milk! youll kill it. the fat in cows milk is too big for your baby to digest. Most reccomend puppy milk that you can get at your local pet store. But I found a cheaper formula. Meyenburgs goats milk ! you can find it at any grocer at the milk case or evaporated even dry powder. I used the dry powder and mixed it with plain unflavored yogurt. 2 parts milk to 1 part yogurt mix well. ( use blender) I would mix up a weeks worth at a time so i always had fresh milk available. Fill up several eye droppers so they get to room temp before feeding......rinse and fill again after feedings and milk will be at room temp by next feeding. I let her fed until she was full and fall asleep. They do like to wiggle around when feeding and you must feed them slowly or they will aspirate (inhale) the formula. pat milk away from face when they start bubbling milk from nose and wait a minute before finishing feeding. Going potty.......after each feeding your baby needs help to go potty. I placed my baby on clean washcloth and with a dry Q-tip...gently stroke genitals until baby goes. You can shake the lil poops in the trash and wash the towel. (Baby will needs lots of towels and I found its cheaper to buy a large pack of wash clothes for feedings and potty rather than paper towels) say go potty every time you do this so you can housebreak baby later. Introduce solids.....once your babys eyes are open and starts to get a bushy tail you can start introducing solids. If your baby sees you eat it they will want to try it. Bananas work great, split grapes,apple slices. let them eat their fill and still give their regular milk feeding. I hope some of this will help someone.! Jennifer Ashley 2009-10-26
Last August (about 5 months ago) I found a baby red squirrel on the ground in the grass next to it's (sadly) smushed sibling. They were so tiny, at first I thought there was a frog or toad on the ground and when I looked closer I saw what I thought was a baby chipmunk because it was slightly brownish with two black stripes. At this time, the baby was about 1 week old with closed eyes and ears. Later when he started to get a fuzzy tail, we realized he was a squirrel. In the meantime, we kept him warm at first by cutting the toe off of a "fuzzy sock" like slipper-socks and put it around a small tupperware bowl. He stayed curled up inside of it all day long. Before long, we got a small heating pad to keep him warm as well. We bought puppy milk and fed him with an eye dropper every 3 hours, yes that means waking up in the middle of the night. At first he only ate about 2 ML, but that increased quickly and sometimes he would even eat 3-4 eye droppers. We always fed him until he wouldn't accept any more. By the 4th week his eyes opened and shortly thereafter his ears opened. At this time we started to leave sunflower seeds in his cage just in case he got curious. He began to teeter on his back legs, trying to stand up and eat. This was probably the cutest part of all, when they are learning to stand up. We still continued milk feedings, and as he started to eat more solid foods we spaced the milk feedings out more and more until at about 12 weeks he was completely off the milk. He now eats a variety of nuts including walnuts and shaved almonds (his favorites), pine seeds, sunflower seeds, in-the-shell-unsalted-peanuts, outdoor squirrel feed (which has the likes of dried corn, in-shell-sunflower seeds, etc). He loves banana chips, apple, peapods, cherries (real, not maraschino), dried fruits, and pretty much any fruits. He will not eat mushrooms or celery, though. He lives in a big bird cage which we regularly fill with branches from pine trees (and in the summer he gets leafy-trees too). He makes a mess throwing pine needles out of his cage, but he loves it, it makes it more wilderness-y or him. We keep him in an un-carpeted area so we can sweep up his messes :) He also gets to run free in the house for a while every day. He is very nice, will jump right on you while you are walking by. However, his nails are sharp so it is probably not a good idea to let kids play with them. They also try to eat your drywall and can tear up your curtains, so you have to keep a constant eye on them while they are loose. We bought a bunch of edible wooden logs/tikihouses/etc the pet stores sell for rabbits and hamsters or other small animals. He chews on those, which is very important to keep his teeth trimmed. A red squirrel is a lot of work from babyhood to adulthood, but also such a joy. We will not be "acclimating him to the wild" He is our pet, he loves people and we feel it would be cruel to take him from his home and shove him out into a cold, harsh world. After all, they live only an average of 3 years in the wild due to all the dangers of other animals and cars, and can live up to 10 yrs in captivity. If anyone ever needs any tips on how to care for a baby squirrel, feel free to email me at redsquirrelinfo@yahoo.com ashley 2009-01-21
Comments Dr Jungle REALLY Likes to Hear!
Hi, we found a three baby squirrels on the ground, all were dead but one. We took her home and feed it baby milk (dog). She's real small her ears are not even opened yet, but her eyes are. I don't know how to care for her but with all the advice here I'll manage. But she didn't go to the restroom so I took a warm cloth and wiped her so she could pee and poop, but don't know if that's right. I just don't want her to die and I feel sad cuz that happened to her and her brothers so I want her to make it. So if there is any more info please keep me posted. Thanks for what info I read, glad you are here to help me! Valentina 2009-03-14
You guys are the best! Like you tell me about everything I need to know about having a squirrel. Because I just got one and no other website could tell me what you did I didnt know that squirrels can swim or more interesting... And you guys tell use about even more then just how to take care of youre pet... you tell us all about them! And not just house animals... 1000 different animals. really you guys are a miracle. Everybody VISIT THIS WEBSITE. IT IS THE BEST AND IT TELLS YOU EVERY THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ANIMALS! If you dont like animals well then they will show you how to like them. And you will like them... actually you will like them so much you will buy one and guess what, they tell you how to take care of the animal. as I said before... they are a MIRACLE. The best ever! Thank-you, you were a really great help! Monika 2006-02-12

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