They wean like this?

[Linda and Cooper]

Sadie Mae is just refusing the milk. It's plenty warm and all. She took like 1 cc this morning and would rather run up and down my back and from shoulder to shoulder to down one arm, hop across the counter to back up and around again. The squirrel nuggets are suppose to arrive today. I hope hope hope they do. Yesterday she skipped lunch too. At night she only took like 2 ccs.

She's eating cereal and acorns and some peanut and throwing some broccolli around. Her stool is nearly black. For lunch, she just ran around the room and came over to see the syringe and RUN. So, she doesn't want it. Even when Leroy was attached to it, she just wanted to come pounce in his head and jump up and down on his back while he was trying to nurse.

Meanwhile Leroy is still a momma's boy and eating fine. I have to cut him off! He's going to bloat himself, the little piggie. His stool is caramel still. He makes the cutest little buzzy sound. I can't imitate it.

Squirrel Smitten Linda/FL

[rippie-n-lilgirlsmom]

How old is Sadie? Yes thats sounds like a normal weaning take a sip then play a while.:D
You might want to feed them in the cage through the cage bars where there is less distraction. Keep offering the formula as long as they will take it. They are all different.

[Lady Squirrelly]

They all do it differently, but that is common.


The one that gets me is:

One meal they can't get enough, and the next time they refuse it all together and look at you like, "How dare you give me that! Are you crazy?":D

[Jules_]

What age are these squirrels?

I'm having the same problem with my two 7-8 week old grey tree squirrels. They are our first foster babies and we've only had what little our licensed rehabber and the internet have taught us - most of it has been guesswork and intuition based on having raised other rodents like rats (which squirrels beat hands down in the intelligence and sensitivity dept haha).

I don't know what normal weaning should be like other than the fact I know the roundabout age (now) they should be doing it but I'm not sure who is doing the weaning, me or them!

I worry they aren't getting enough fluid since they've started refusing the syringe more and more. They don't seem to be drinking the tiny bowl of water I have put in their cage - they just throw things in it!

We just moved them to a cage this weekend - they have started jumping out of the box/nest we had them in since they were found at 3weeks so we had to get something to confine them as they fall behind things, get squished, lost, upset, etc etc. HOW TO MAMA SQUIRRELS DO IT?! :P

First morning feedings used to be their favorite and most demanding - typically when they ate record amounts of syringes, carefully counted and recorded in our log. But last few days, they are all wound up, very fidgety and only want to sip and run away like the others say. I got fed up with it and put them back and they both freaked out like I had just abandoned them for life and hung on the cage rattling the bars and looking put out at me!

I broke down and fed them more an hour or so later... they ended doing as said, eating half of it through the bars of the cage. hehe.

This toddler stage is definitely difficult but they are so cute and lively now... like tiny shrunk down versions of the adults in the trees.

How long before this stage ends and they give it up altogether? How do I know its ok to start dropping feedings and not worrying they're dehydrated?

I'm already down to only two main feedings and one snack like feeding mid-day. I'm worried that morning and bedtime isn't enough fluid, or is it? Compared with the huge amount they drank before. I know they are eating lots and their poop is more brown than yellow now so they must be full.

thanks.