What a good feeling to have stumbled upon the SquirrelBoard

[emlyne]

My relationship with the "group" came about last year . My husband suffer,s with Alzheimer,s and I found a quiet spot in one of our city parks where I go to regroup and destress. I visit 5-7 times a week and I started feeding a group of anywhere from 6 to 10 squirrels. We have all come to know each other quite well as we all have our own unique personalities and individual physical differences. I sit in my car and use my time out to write journals on my husbands illness during the breaks from dispensing goodies to my black and grey friends out my car window. I,ve been a bit distressed noting a growing increase in the numbers with either half or all of their tails missing.The first tailess squirrel came to my husbands attention last summer in the park and he asked me what kind of animal it was. Not seeing it I couldn,t guess. He said it was bigger than a chipmunk but smaller than a rabbit. I never gave it further thought till it timidly joined our group in Sept.. Ithen recalled the animal my husband had seen and realized it was this unfortunate tailless squirrel. There are now 2 with tails missing altogether and 4 with partial tails of various lengths. The first of November the park became busy with the building of the displays for our loccal Christmas fantasy of lights every tree having it,s own string of coloured lights. The festival opened in December with a parade of cars driving through daily and much heavier after the lights were turned on at five in the evening till early morning. It would probably be stressful enough to have them tearing their hair out from the constant lights and traffic. The weather turned very cold a month sooner than normal and we received two feet of snow. It all coincided with the tails falling off and I wonder if anyone thought there may be a conection. I watch them even closer now, snapping their photos and always leaving enough food for an extra day in case I,m prevented from showing up. Has anyone else experienced a group of formerly normal squirrels losing their beautiful tales? I,ll try to work out how to upload their photos. Thanks for listening Emlyne:osnap

[Scooterzmom]

Hi emlyne and welcome aboard

I have not had a group of them losing their tails but I have had it happen to two different ones (in the wild). Sometimes they fight with each other, can injure it and with bad weather conditions and lack of proper nutrition, along with difficulty keeping their nests in proper shape - clean and dry I mean all - I presume it may be harder to heal. IDK.

I had one little feamle who had her tail chopped off somehow - no idea how - down to only one or 2 inches long. We called her Wabbit because her tail looked like a pompom, like a rabbit's tail and she even hopped like one. She hung around for 1 to 2 years then disappeared.

For the other, we named her Hershey, it began with an injury. I saw her tail bleeding slightly one day. I"m guessing it was an injury because she was quite the dominant girl, always getting into fights with others to put them back in their place and assert her authority - she figured all the nuts should be hers (no matter if there was MORE than enough for everyone of them). The injury got worse, and I saw her picking at the scab over and over, the air gradually fallinlg off... it became so bad she lost all the hair on her tail. Her aggressive side subsided and it took about a year for her tail to grow back; even then, it was shorter and it looked more like a groundhog's tail than a squirrel's. She even waddled like a groundhog when she walked. :) She looked like she had got very old in that one year.

Then, last month, with the rain and snow and bad weather, her tail got bad again... I could see a big boo-boo on it and scabs forming. I could tell she wasn't feeling good but she never would stick around long enough for me to see if she was picking at it but I'm sure she did. I couldn't tell if it was mange - seemed unlikely since the rest of her body looked fine but I know that for many their nests got very damp and there's not much left around to fix them up. The last day I saw her that tail of hers was at the point where the tip was bleeding again and no hair at all on it. :(

I was going to ask TSB what to do, was contemplating trying to trap her and giving her meds, but she has disappeared - since December 27th. I pray that she is ok, poor thing :sad

Sorry for the long post... got taken away with the story of Hershey - I miss my big "groundhog" girl.

[astra]

:Welcome Welcome Emlyne,

I've seen squirrels with tails of various length, as well as tailless... guessing, they lose their tails while escaping predators, or some very rough fights... although, tend to think more - predators...:thinking

Looking forward to hearing more about and seeing pictures of your :) "group".:wave123 :)