Baby Chipmunks

[xoxkayxox]

Hi all,
As many of you no i have 3chipmunks as pets. My agouti(brown) female gave birth to two boys on april 1st this year, those babies are now grown up and very healthy. She also gave birth to three more in july, one died when born and the other two died two and half days later. I dont no why this happened it could be a number of reasons and Max(mum) was leaving them on their own alot. I also have a new female who is Dilute and her mother died while she young, also her father died. I think that she is an in bred and also that her parents were and this is why they died so young(1yr). It is breeding season for them at the moment but the dilute(ellie) is only 4months so she cant get pregnant until the feb/march breeding season. My question is has anyone ever hand reared baby chipmunks and if so how young were they? I want to be prepared if i can to take over if any of them get pregnant and something goes wrong as im really worried from the last loss and also from Ellies parens history. So i also want to no if its possible to have a very young chipmunk survive from hand rearing.
Kay

[xoxkayxox]

Here a photo of the two babies who died, alive at the time of the pic.

[xoxkayxox]

If no one has, what do you all think the chances are??

[Squerly]

Well xoxkayxox, looks like we have a problem. I appears that YOU are our chipmunk specialist! :) That's a good thing until you need some help and then your stuck talking to yourself.

So until we can get some more chipmunk members, looks like your on your own! Sorry. :grouphug

[Secret Squirrel]

Naturegirl has chipmunks...send her a PM and see what she says?
It's worth a shot:thumbsup

[xoxkayxox]

lol yes i do seem to be talking to myself i just hope it doesnt happen and then i wont have the problem. Ive read about hand rearing and stuff but i just thought id ask and see if anyones done it before. It seems that its 50/50 with really young squirrels and so a really young chipmunk must be very hard because they are sooo tiny as you can see on my pic and my hands are tiny also. If any of my chipmunks get pregnant ill be in a panic for a while and will be posting on here definatly lol. Thanks anyway, Kay

[Squerly]

Sure Kay, I understand. And we will all be doing everything that we can to help when that time comes. Hopefully we can find some more Chippy members, that would certainly be a big help.

[GhosTS]

Hey Kay..I dont have chipmunks..But the palm squirrels are pretty much same ( Size,shape..even color ) as chipmunks.

I had three orphaned babies ( Less than one week old )..Two of them died before I recieve Esbillac..One survived.He is 10 weeks old now and doing good..

Its hard to raise them because they are so small..But its possible.

Dont worry..The members of TSB helped me when Im in need..And they will have great info if you need any..( Hey you are the chipmunk expert )

PS : Oh and after that I got two babies..both 4 weeks old when I got them..They too are doing fine..

The things you got to be concerned is....Diarrhea and Constipation.They get a plenty of them.Because they are small they have a hard time adjusting to things.But they do it eventually.

[xoxkayxox]

Thanks for that. Im in the uk and i dont think we have Esbilac over here. I have a page about hand rearing on my website i got the info from my chipmunk book but the writer probably never hand reared and i dont no if its true it says For the first week feed babies on 1 part evapourated milk and two parts water with a pinch of glucose. From day 8-30 you can feed them on a mix of 3 tsp of baby cereal or baby rice, 1 tsp of evapourated milk and 1/2 tsp of honey and mix with water until you can pour it. what do you think?

[muffinsquirrel]

Kay, you can order the Esbilac powder from Chris' Squirrels 'n More. You can pay for it through PayPal, and they do the currency change so you don't have to worry about it. If you don't have a PayPal account, you should open one - it makes buying stuff off the internet much easier, and it doesn't cost anything to open an account.

You can keep the Esbilac powder in the freezer indefinitely, until you need it - that way you don't have to worry about what to feed if you ever DO need it. I would not use the evaporated milk formula at all - it is not good for them, and can even kill them.

Go look around in Chris' store - she has lots of great things, and she also knows EVERYTHING! A fantastic source of information and supplies, and she is a very very nice person to do business with.

muffinsquirrel

[xoxkayxox]

Wheres that site? and i have paypal :crazy

[Secret Squirrel]

www.squirrelsandmore.com (http://www.squirrelsandmore.com)

[GhosTS]

I dont think you should give evaporated milk to any animal.They dont eat junk like humans do. ( Cats and dogs too are learning bad habits from humans ).

Get Esbillac from Chris.She is a great person.Also get some Bene-Bac just in case.These little buddies get diarrhea very quickly.

After they open their eyes you can give them rodent block.Im not sure about giving them the chipmunk mix at this early age.

Then start giving solids.More nuts and less fruits.( An advice I got from Squirlgirl )