Losing Fur over a period of a year and a half

[Kmanhare]

Help needed with fur loss

We have a four and half year old fox squirrel. She lives with us partly inside and partly outside in a very large habitat we built for her. Once we built the habitat she started losing fur on her belly. (See photos.).

At first the vet thought it could be mites. She was treated for mites and mange. This didn’t stop the hair loss. He treated her then for parasites. This didn’t stop the hair loss.

So the hair loss is still happening and growing into her mid section almost on her chest. After seeing posts here we thought maybe it’s her diet. She gets a diet consisting of wild berries, leaves, oranges and seeds from the trees around our property - red berries, olive seeds, ficus tree leaves. We also give her roasted, unsalted peanuts.

But with the hair loss we thought she might not be getting enough protein. So we’ve tried rodent blocks, Henry’s blocks, and recently Squirrel Complete from Exotic Nutrition, but she will not eat any of these. We’ve ground these up and mixed them with peanut butter to see if she eat it, but no. She’s an extremely picky eater. We’ve tried giving her controlled amounts of different nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios and pumpkin seeds - all roasted and unsalted. And now we’re looking at different recipes for Boo Balls. But again, we really don’t think she’ll eat them.

But we are also concerned about some of the trees we have in her habitat. She’s got a pine tree, a Mexican guava, an orange tree and a Yucca tree. None of the wild squirrels around our property are exhibiting this hair loss, and they also don’t have access to the orange tree, the Mexican guava or the Yucca. She spends sometimes hours sitting in the Yucca tree, and the guava tree. We’ve read that Yucca trees are toxic for animals. We don’t think she’s eating anything from the Yucca tree, just spending many hours resting on the flap top of a trunk of the tree which was cut off years ago.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be so much appreciated. We are very concerned.

(Not sure if the photos uploaded correctly.)

Thanks all for your time and expertise.

[Charley Chuckles]

I'm not familiar with your trees if you've always used those I don't see that would be the issue🤔
My boy was losing his tail fur awhile ago I was told it was a molting thing. I really didn't think so because in his 13 years that never happened, well sure enough his tail grew in and it's fluffy and beautiful now.
I'm sure someone in your neck of the woods can have better ideas, i just had to say she's adorable 🥰

[Kmanhare]

Thank you, Charley Chuckles. Yes we think she's pretty adorable too.

[CritterMom]

Well, she is adorable.

I don't know if the fur loss is related to diet, but I can tell you that her diet is dangerously deficient. I can see that you are trying to feed her the things outside in her environment, but that is problematic because full nutritional information is not available for them, since they are not considered "food." Certainly I wouldn't feed anything from the genus Ficus because of the milky sap, which is basically designed to protect the plant from being eaten...

The biggest deficiency is due to her not eating a good rodent block, so I bet her calcium levels are much lower than they should be. When that happens the body starts to rob from places like bone, causing MBD, muscles, causing inability to contract and thus what looks like paralysis. But everything has to start somewhere and if someone told me than a very early sign would be hair beginning to fall out and not regrow it would make perfect logical sense. Weird molting pattern, fungal infections, mange - all of those, once addressed, go away and the beautiful thick fur returns. Hers isn't.

If I were you I would order some of the Henry's hazelnut blocks. Those seem to be the most popular. I would go through her habitat on my knees and remove every single fragment of nut in there. From that point on she would get the Henry's blocks, some healthy greens like kale and romaine, and absolutely ZERO nuts. She won't try the Henry's if she has access to her "junk" food. If it is gone, she will try the, discover they (1) HAVE NUTS!! (the calcium to phosphorus ratio is balanced by the amounts of vitamins and minerals added to them) and (2) are actually good! But she will test you and you need to not cave!

I would also put her on the MBD treatment for a while: https://thesquirrelboard.com/forums/...-MBD-Treatment

The issue with the trees is also a possibility. The yucca is considered toxic, and the guava, while NOT, is being explored for being a possible natural antiseptic - the leaves have powerful properties that could be harnessed for this. The NIH has an interesting article about guava leaves. But powerful antiseptics may not be the thing you want against your stomach all the time!

But even if it IS the trees, that doesn't change the diet issues. I implore you to address this. Nuts and seeds are the two worst things you can be feeding them and it doesn't matter if they are raw, toasted, baked, organic, conventionally grown - none of that changes the calcium to phosphorus levels in them, and THAT is the problem. They are treats, to be given occasionally, not as a part of the diet. She is precious. I don't want to see her cute face here when she starts to actually show some of the symptoms of MBD. Stop it NOW before it becomes a life or death issue.

[Kmanhare]

Thank you Critter Mom,

Our little girl, Autumn, did go through serious MBD when she was a baby. (We learned about MBD from this board after finding her.) We took her through this treatment and thought she was through the MBD after the serious symptoms subsided. But with what you're saying, this may be a long term effect.

It's such a shame that the local exotic vets don't know enough to treat this condition because none have told us about MBD, since we brought her through this as a baby on our own.

But we're ordering the Henry's Hazelnut blocks and we'll get her back on calcium today.

Thank you so much for your help.

Autumn's Moms

[Kmanhare]

Hi Critter Mom and anyone else that would like to chime in.

Well we got rid of all her "stashes" and are waiting for the Hazelnut Henry's Blocks to arrive on Thursday. And we pulled all the stashes from her outdoor habitat.

Today was all about getting the calcium in her. We tried several times to get the calcium supplement in her as instructed in the MBD treatment webpage. We put some in peanut butter and also tried some in what used to be her favorite banana baby food. She refused both of these as we attempted the entire day. We may have to pick her up and force feed her like when she was a baby. We are trying not to do this because we know it would stress her out. And she's probably stressing already because we took away her stashes. But we will if we have to.

She also got some red berries that grow on a tree in her outdoor habitat. (All the other squirrels also eat these as we have several of these trees on our property.)

How long should it take for her to eventually eat the Henry's Blocks? We are determined to get her her to do this.

She isn't thin so we will stand our ground because we know if she loses a little weight she'll still be okay.

Autumn's Moms.

[CritterMom]

Have you ever tried the Tums? The tropical fruit flavored ones (get the generics - Tums are all gummies and nonsense now and you want the tablets) appear to be pretty tasty. I may make things easier for you.

The not eating blocks thing...hopefully not too long. They are really good at making you feel guilty. But if you can get her on them regularly, they are sort of an insurance policy against MBD - ONE thing you can control.

[Kmanhare]

Hi Critter Mom and all,

We got her some assorted berry flavored Tums today and she ate one!!! That could be the answer to getting her calcium. Thank you so much for that suggestion. We'll let you know what happens once the Henry's Blocks arrive.

Autumn's Moms