Bestest Comments: American Red Squirrel

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.!

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!

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

I found a baby squirrel this last summer. I believe that she had fallen out of her nest. To the person that said that one of the squirrels had sezuires, that is due to not giving it the correct diet. If that happens again, give the baby some sugar water to stop the seizures but that is just a quick fix. Their diet has to be bland, no salt what so ever, should actually go back to hand feeding with puppy milk that you can get at a pet store. I gave "Grace" pecans, almonds, dried fruit, cantalope and sunflower seed, acorns if available are good. I had no intentions of keeping her as a pet, I truly think that they belong in the wild. After a month or so I would put her kennel outside by a tree and let her venture on her own. One day she made a nest out of an abandoned bird's nest. She will still come by to see me from time to time. I think mainly to see what goodies I may have for her. I truly enjoyed raising her and learned a good deal from the experience. I would do it again in a heart beat, even though it's illegal to do so in the state of IL... but phooey on that! Jan Aurora, IL

Hello, I too have fallen in love with a red squirrel. We named her Gabbie. Her eyes were not opened when we found her. We feed her Esbilac until she weened herself off. We fed her through an eye dropper and she would just grab it and shove it in her mouth. I think she was about 3 months old and still taking her milk about twice a day. We then added mixed grain cereal for babies (Gerber). No plain rice. I was told it should not be given to them. Anyway, she lived inside with us for 2 months and knowing I would release her, I built an outside cage for her to stay in in the day. It was a 6x6 heavy gage wire cage with a door. We then would bring her in at night. We filled it with limbs for her to learn to eat on and climb. We let her stay in this cage for about 1 month and then inside at night. I noticed her natural instincts starting to kick in. I just felt that she was really wanting to climb trees and it just broke my heart to see her in a "zoo". I wanted so badly to keep her. My children and I cried for days. However, I put my selfish human tendencies aside and I let her run up a tree. She now lives in our woods with the other red squirrels. It was very very hard on us at first because we missed her so much. We missed her constant contact with us. However, I know she is so happy being free. I loved her enough to give her what she longed for, freedom. We now go to see her twice a day, call her name, and give her treats. She is soo beautiful jumping on limbs and being just what god intended for her to be, a squirrel.

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