Hi all,
I used to be on here until my brain-damaged girl died about three years ago. But.. someone found out that I used to deal with squirrels and called me on the afternoon of the 15th saying "there's an injured baby squirrel in front of my apartment."
He's a young fox squirrel (they were introduced into this town, strangely) - old enough to be on his own and everything but he was apparently running, rather uncoordinated-ly, around a parking lot, trying to hide under cars (but he wasn't very good at hiding). He made a valiant effort to get away from me but I eventually got him in a shirt and in a box. Upon inspection, his nose was bleeding, but that stopped within a few hours.
Since then, he's been very inactive, and he won't take solid foods or drink out of a dish so I've smashed lots of good foods and liquefied them and have been feeding him through a syringe, which he is getting better at taking. Mostly he will sit in his box tilted to one side a bit like this:
Mostly the problem seems to be he can't coordinate all his limbs at the same time. He's not good at holding his head up, but he can. He also has trouble moving his front legs and most of the time they are clutched under his chin or dragging underneath him, but he can also definitely move them because last night he had a bout of energy and walked, quite normally, around the room. Also when I hold him up to feed, he won't plant both back feet on the ground, one always turns inwards and I have to hold onto that foot too.. but then again he is fully capable of moving them normally when he wants to! So I don't know what's going on, and if he's in real danger or just needs time and rest and nutrients to figure it out? Any help would be greatly appreciated because he's got me stumped!