PDA

View Full Version : preparing for the future



fsalter53
12-20-2008, 10:21 PM
My babies, girl and boy, dont have names yet they are sister and brother, when its time to be moved to a cage, should i separate them because they are close to each other now. what happens if they have babies, i have a while but i was wondering.

4skwerlz
12-21-2008, 06:53 AM
My babies, girl and boy, dont have names yet they are sister and brother, when its time to be moved to a cage, should i separate them because they are close to each other now. what happens if they have babies, i have a while but i was wondering.

Siblings won't breed. I had a brother and sister together (Henry and Hazel) and they remained best friends and shared a nestbox until Hazel died, probably of a sudden pneumonia at around 10 months old. If you're keeping them, they will keep each other entertained. If you're planning to release, they can learn squirrelly behavior from one another.

So I say definitely keep them together.

muffinsquirrel
12-21-2008, 12:40 PM
I believe that siblings WILL breed, and, although it isn't the best idea in the world, one generation of inbreeding shouldn't cause any problems. It is done with domesticated animals quite frequently. The problems come when the inbreeding is continued. Unless the conditiond are 'just right', your flyers may not breed anyhow - many squirrels have lived together for years, and never had pups. At any rate, I wouldn't worry about it. If you want to separate them, then that's fine, but if you don't want to then just continue as they are. It would be very unusual for one generation of inbreeding to have any effect on the pups.

muffinsquirrel

4skwerlz
12-21-2008, 12:54 PM
I didn't realize these were flyers. With greys, I had read that they will only breed with a squirrel they don't know. Although a brother and sister not brought up together might possibly breed.