drjanice
07-15-2011, 09:50 PM
Hi! You all are so helpful! I enjoy reading your answers to other's problems. Now I have a question. I have a little one (Mandy) who fell out of my Douglas fir 14 weeks ago. Her two brothers did not make it. I did everything the websites told me to including finding her some squirrel buddies to grow up with. Mandy was 2 weeks behind the three newcomers but they got along ok. She walked a bit funny, leaning to the right with her left eye pointed up. Release day came and went and all was fine until I found Mandy on the neighbor's driveway just sitting there. I scooped her up and put her back in the cage intending to try again in a week or two. Just 2 days later she decided to climb a tree while I had her out exercising in the yard. I expected her to come right back down when I called but she didn't. She didn't come home for 2 days. When she did she was covered with sap and had a bad scratch on her chest. She was exhausted and fell asleep on my daughter's lap after eating a bit. Now I think she is just not "squirrelly" enough to be released. She is not quick enough to avoid a predator and she may be blind in her right eye. My question is, does she need a buddy to be happy in a cage? I take her out to play several times a day. She has an inside cage and an outside cage. Plenty of natural materials to play in. When she is outside in her cage and her buddies come around to feed she seems nervous but curious about them. Ideally she would make it in the wild but I don't think she will because of this blindness. Maybe from a head injury when she fell? Do I need to find another semi-disabled squirrel to live with her? Thank you in advance! PS I'm in Oregon so can't help the nice person with the disabled one inFlorida