SFS not holding body heat.

[Lady Squirrelly]

When I got Baby Girl she had been kept in a garage in a box with little nesting material with the nights in the 30's. She was cold to the touch. I knew this was a BAD thing.

Since then I have tried to make sure she is warm so she has been on a heating pad or in a bonding pouch under my shirt.

The last couple of nights as she played in the box, she was bumping her head so I knew she needed more room.

Last evening I set her up a small cage. For a bed I got her a hamster hanging cube like thing and filled it with small fleese squares. I popped her in it about 2AM this morning and went to sleep.
About 7AM this morning I got her out to feed and she was ice cold. The temp in the house did drop a little because the heater was on when I got up.

I was in a panic. It took me a long time to warm her up so she could have breakfast.

A baby gray this furred would be holding its own body heat by now.

Are sfs different?

Is she too young to hold her own heat?

Is she sick and I don't know it?

PLEASE tell me what to do.

New SFS mom in panic mode.

[Jackie in Tampa]

My babies chill very easily also...I was wondering the same thing.
My littlist two are I'm guessing a little older than a month.
I too am putting them in a hamster cage today...kleenex box full of cotton balls, cage on heating pad...maybe she needs a roommate!
Meet cha halfway!

[island rehabber]

Even some grey babies don't thermoregulate well until they are much older. I took one off heat at 7 weeks old and put her in a cage with her siblings, and she promptly got pneumonia -- but recovered. I'd keep Baby Girl on the heating pad. So glad you warmed her up thoroughly before feeding her.

[atlantasquirrelgirl]

I agree with IR, keep provide her heat until she is old enough to maintain on her own. I had one that got chilled half way through feeding, and would put a heating pad under my feeding placemat to make sure it stayed warm from the time it left the basket until it got back to it.

[Lady Squirrelly]

Thanks for answers. I feel better now. She can have heat till she's 20 (years) if she wants/needs it.

[muffinsquirrel]

I tend to keep my babies on heat a lot longer than most people, just because I personally HATE to be cold! (Sort of like a mother that tells a kid "I'm cold, so you should go put on a sweater"!) But I will leave the heating pad under the cage until I see that the babies are sleeping up in their pouch instead of in their box that is heated.

muffinsquirrel