Eileen44
09-13-2011, 10:27 AM
Hello, I want to say thanks to you all as I've learnt loads from reading posts. I'm a Londoner in the UK and - as of last week - knew 0 about squirrels. But found a little disorientated, lost baby on my road who fell asleep in my hands straight away. He nearly died our first night but partly with the help on your site we nursed him back to health, which is great for our two children who are learning so much:he's now bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. and I have questions which I'll number for your ease of reference.
I live near a garden square, surrounded by road. There have been major roadworks on one of the roads and if my detective skills are correct then perhaps the mother tried moving her nest to somewhere quieter and in the process one of her babies fell out... because he has one normal and one stumpy bottom incisor. When I found him he had a crusty lip which must have been dried blood as now that the crust is fallen off the lip looks healthy but a bit slit. 1) Will the incisor stump grow back do you think? Currently it looks shorn to just below his bottom lip line. If it doesn't grow back does it mean he can't go back in the wild?
Our guess is that he's 7 weeks old. His top incisors are well through, he has cheek teeth.
Being in the UK it's hard to get the squirrel formula and squirrel-specific rodent blocks recommended on your site. We used a cow/goat & yoghurt & vitamin drops formula recommended by some UK rehabbers (as better than Esbilac) and he's been so very well on it so we decided to stick with it. However, I think we introduced nuts (cashew) too soon, two days ago.
He is now turning his nose up at our formula that he once adored and we've been told he'll DIE if we don't force-feed it to him, start getting seizures from lack of calcium. 2) What do you think? Am I right to withhold nuts so he'll hopefully go back to our formula?
3) He only sniffs at our rodent block. I could only get general rodent block from our pet shop - it's not the rat one, but has pics of bunnies/hamsters on it. Any tips on how I could quickly get something (remember I live in the UK!) that he might prefer? 4) Meanwhile, any thoughts on how to encourage him to eat the block I've already got? - like could I crush it into his milk or is that mad? How urgent is this block thing, given that up to about 6 weeks old he was with his squirrel mother and presumably has a few calcium stores built up?
5) Does he need to get actual daylight or is sunlight through a window ok for Vit D absorption? Currently he's in a huge cage we've made in our kitchen.
6) We are trying to figure out how to rehab him locally from our flat. Is it better for him to be released close to us and to his original nest - we are trying to figure out if we could throw out a semi-permanent rope to our nearest tree from our window with some kind of squirrel-flap so he can come and go - or is it better to take him to a rehabber though this will be unfamiliar territory to him?
That's all for now. Many thanks!
I live near a garden square, surrounded by road. There have been major roadworks on one of the roads and if my detective skills are correct then perhaps the mother tried moving her nest to somewhere quieter and in the process one of her babies fell out... because he has one normal and one stumpy bottom incisor. When I found him he had a crusty lip which must have been dried blood as now that the crust is fallen off the lip looks healthy but a bit slit. 1) Will the incisor stump grow back do you think? Currently it looks shorn to just below his bottom lip line. If it doesn't grow back does it mean he can't go back in the wild?
Our guess is that he's 7 weeks old. His top incisors are well through, he has cheek teeth.
Being in the UK it's hard to get the squirrel formula and squirrel-specific rodent blocks recommended on your site. We used a cow/goat & yoghurt & vitamin drops formula recommended by some UK rehabbers (as better than Esbilac) and he's been so very well on it so we decided to stick with it. However, I think we introduced nuts (cashew) too soon, two days ago.
He is now turning his nose up at our formula that he once adored and we've been told he'll DIE if we don't force-feed it to him, start getting seizures from lack of calcium. 2) What do you think? Am I right to withhold nuts so he'll hopefully go back to our formula?
3) He only sniffs at our rodent block. I could only get general rodent block from our pet shop - it's not the rat one, but has pics of bunnies/hamsters on it. Any tips on how I could quickly get something (remember I live in the UK!) that he might prefer? 4) Meanwhile, any thoughts on how to encourage him to eat the block I've already got? - like could I crush it into his milk or is that mad? How urgent is this block thing, given that up to about 6 weeks old he was with his squirrel mother and presumably has a few calcium stores built up?
5) Does he need to get actual daylight or is sunlight through a window ok for Vit D absorption? Currently he's in a huge cage we've made in our kitchen.
6) We are trying to figure out how to rehab him locally from our flat. Is it better for him to be released close to us and to his original nest - we are trying to figure out if we could throw out a semi-permanent rope to our nearest tree from our window with some kind of squirrel-flap so he can come and go - or is it better to take him to a rehabber though this will be unfamiliar territory to him?
That's all for now. Many thanks!