Choloepus
12-01-2011, 04:30 AM
Alright, so last week was my birthday, and somehow a friend of mine decided it was a great idea to gift me a squirrel. I told her in the past, that I had a chipmunk a few years back and that it was a great animal and that I would want to have a similar pet at some point in the future.. she obviously read too much into this conversation and, well, "found the perfect gift"
I normally would be against keeping a squirrel as a pet, as I think these are wild animals - not domesticated, and therefor a little bit unpredictable. In addition tot that I do have two cats, which is the main reason I dont have my chipmunk anymore. Thing is though, I live in Beijing, China. Its coldest winter here right now, and there is nobody responsible I could give the squirrel to; I also cant just let it go outside, as I said its freezing outside, also it is a very tame squirrel which lets me believe that it grew up in captivity.
So I decided to keep it. First item of order was to get a new cage. It came with a 80cm*60cm*40cm cage - which was definitely too small for her (her name is Ninja btw) so I build a new cage which is 180cm*80cm*60cm. This is way bigger than all the size recommendations I found on American sites but way smaller than all the size recommendations I found on German sites (I am German). It is however the biggest size I can squeeze into my room.
Now I have had it for almost a week, and the fact that its still alive shows me that I am probably not doing everything wrong. Plus I got some (limited) experience from my chipmunk. But there are still some differences between a squirrel and a chipmunk, so I would really like to ask some questions and get some first hand answers from experienced keepers:
1) She is quite tame; from the first day on I could feed her with my hand, and she typically doesnt run away right away when I get close. However, a few days back I had to put her from the small cage to the big one, and it seems that she really didnt like that. She got nervous when I tried to pick her up and eventually bit me - and escaped my grasp. Me and my friend had no choice but to hunt her through the room, grab her and put her into the bigger cage. The first two days after that she was very frightened, and didnt eat from my hand. She does now eat from my hand again, but more cautious then before and she typically goes to the top of her cage when I approach.
Do you have any tips on taming her further and gaining her trust?
2) Chipmunks typically need something like a closed nest - a box with just one hole in which they can make themselves comfortable and where they can feel save. I provided the same thing to Ninja; however I recently read somewhere, that this is actually not a good idea during the taming process. The thing is, that Ninja can now always just run into her nest when she feels threatened, which somebody argued, would more and more estrange her to me. I got the suggestion to take the closed nest out and replace it with an open nest which I can always look inside. What do fellow squirrel keepers think about that?
3) I read that squirrels use their tails to communicate - my chipmunk never used to do that. However, Ninja is doing it with me sometimes. When I hold food which she really likes in my hand, and I hold it a little bit further away so that she has to come up, she starts wagging her tail quite heavily from one side to the other and looks undecided, looking around for safe routes which she could take to get closer to the food. Now I just read, that this tail-wagging could be interpreted as a "stay away from me!" Is that correct?
4) Unfortunately, with her still being in the cage and not really wanting to get too close to me, it is quite hard to make a photo of her. I tried a few times but up til now you can really see anything on the pictures. I would really like to identify, exactly what species of squirrel she is, but I looked on many pages online and they couldnt help me. Does anyone know about a page, which lists all squirrel species with pictures?
Just a small description:
She is about 20 cm tall when sitting, and can stretch her body to about 30cm standing (without tail). Her fur is very dark brown, almost black, over the whole body, except for her belly, which is white. She has very long ears with even longer hair-bundles shooting up from them. She has a very wushy tail. I believe she would be in her adolescence, as it is my understanding that squirrels only get born in winter.
5) Right now she gets a diet of hamster-mix (which is mainly sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, corn, some peanuts (unsalted of course) and some dried fruit like bananas an raisins. In addition I feed her some fresh fruit everyday. She loves dragon fruit and apple and she hates bananas. Today I tried some pear and she didnt like it, but maybe she was just full cause the pear tasted awesome :D
I know that almonds are poisonous to chipmunks and I would guess its the same for squirrels, and I know to stay away from salted or spiced up nuts. Is there anything else which I should definitely not feed? Anything which I should definitely add to the diet?
6) I read that squirrels are typically day active - that is they start to get active with sunrise and are active typically a few hours after sunset.
Ninja however seems to be sleeping quite alot. She typically gets up at around 8 am, than I feed her for about an hour (to bond with her I only let her have food from my hand right now), after which she decides to go back to her nest and sleep for an other few hours. How long exactly I am not sure of as I have to go to work. When I typically come back home at about 6 I can see evidence that she moved around the cage (small amounts of food which I hide in different corners of the cage for her so she wont starve / has something to do are gone, water has been drunken, poop lying around) but then she is already in her nest and wont come out for the rest of the day.
Yesterday I came back home at 4 pm and she was already in her nest.
Is this, because its winter and she typically moves less in winter? She doesnt hibernate, and I read somewhere that squirrels typically dont hibernate, but I know that my chipmunk did in the past. Does this have anything to do with it?
Or is it that she is in actuality very scared when people are around so that she chooses to spend most of her time in the safety of her nest? As asked before, would that mean I'd better take the nest out?
7) As mentioned before, I have two cats. When I had the chipmunk years back, they would have loved to get a piece of him. Sitting infront of the cage sometimes for hours, they would wait until the chipmunk came out of his nest and feed - and then just suddenly jump and cling to the wires of the cage, scaring the small guy ****less.
Luckily nowadays I have a bigger apartment, and until now I could make sure that my cats didnt even see the squirrel yet. Then again, the squirrel is obviously bigger than the chipmunk, and I saw some pictures online from several sources, where squirrel and cat seemed to be playing together. Would it be possible to actually hold the squirrel and the cat in the same room, maybe even for them to become friends?
8) As I said earlier Ninja is already fairly tame - I believe that she grew up in captivity for at least the bigger part of this year. Would there be any possibility of releasing her to the wild in coming spring? Or would she fail to survive outside because of certain skills she never learned during her childhood in captivity?
Sorry, I know its very long. Thank you to anybody who read the whole thing and thank you even more if you can answer any of my inquiries above.
I normally would be against keeping a squirrel as a pet, as I think these are wild animals - not domesticated, and therefor a little bit unpredictable. In addition tot that I do have two cats, which is the main reason I dont have my chipmunk anymore. Thing is though, I live in Beijing, China. Its coldest winter here right now, and there is nobody responsible I could give the squirrel to; I also cant just let it go outside, as I said its freezing outside, also it is a very tame squirrel which lets me believe that it grew up in captivity.
So I decided to keep it. First item of order was to get a new cage. It came with a 80cm*60cm*40cm cage - which was definitely too small for her (her name is Ninja btw) so I build a new cage which is 180cm*80cm*60cm. This is way bigger than all the size recommendations I found on American sites but way smaller than all the size recommendations I found on German sites (I am German). It is however the biggest size I can squeeze into my room.
Now I have had it for almost a week, and the fact that its still alive shows me that I am probably not doing everything wrong. Plus I got some (limited) experience from my chipmunk. But there are still some differences between a squirrel and a chipmunk, so I would really like to ask some questions and get some first hand answers from experienced keepers:
1) She is quite tame; from the first day on I could feed her with my hand, and she typically doesnt run away right away when I get close. However, a few days back I had to put her from the small cage to the big one, and it seems that she really didnt like that. She got nervous when I tried to pick her up and eventually bit me - and escaped my grasp. Me and my friend had no choice but to hunt her through the room, grab her and put her into the bigger cage. The first two days after that she was very frightened, and didnt eat from my hand. She does now eat from my hand again, but more cautious then before and she typically goes to the top of her cage when I approach.
Do you have any tips on taming her further and gaining her trust?
2) Chipmunks typically need something like a closed nest - a box with just one hole in which they can make themselves comfortable and where they can feel save. I provided the same thing to Ninja; however I recently read somewhere, that this is actually not a good idea during the taming process. The thing is, that Ninja can now always just run into her nest when she feels threatened, which somebody argued, would more and more estrange her to me. I got the suggestion to take the closed nest out and replace it with an open nest which I can always look inside. What do fellow squirrel keepers think about that?
3) I read that squirrels use their tails to communicate - my chipmunk never used to do that. However, Ninja is doing it with me sometimes. When I hold food which she really likes in my hand, and I hold it a little bit further away so that she has to come up, she starts wagging her tail quite heavily from one side to the other and looks undecided, looking around for safe routes which she could take to get closer to the food. Now I just read, that this tail-wagging could be interpreted as a "stay away from me!" Is that correct?
4) Unfortunately, with her still being in the cage and not really wanting to get too close to me, it is quite hard to make a photo of her. I tried a few times but up til now you can really see anything on the pictures. I would really like to identify, exactly what species of squirrel she is, but I looked on many pages online and they couldnt help me. Does anyone know about a page, which lists all squirrel species with pictures?
Just a small description:
She is about 20 cm tall when sitting, and can stretch her body to about 30cm standing (without tail). Her fur is very dark brown, almost black, over the whole body, except for her belly, which is white. She has very long ears with even longer hair-bundles shooting up from them. She has a very wushy tail. I believe she would be in her adolescence, as it is my understanding that squirrels only get born in winter.
5) Right now she gets a diet of hamster-mix (which is mainly sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, corn, some peanuts (unsalted of course) and some dried fruit like bananas an raisins. In addition I feed her some fresh fruit everyday. She loves dragon fruit and apple and she hates bananas. Today I tried some pear and she didnt like it, but maybe she was just full cause the pear tasted awesome :D
I know that almonds are poisonous to chipmunks and I would guess its the same for squirrels, and I know to stay away from salted or spiced up nuts. Is there anything else which I should definitely not feed? Anything which I should definitely add to the diet?
6) I read that squirrels are typically day active - that is they start to get active with sunrise and are active typically a few hours after sunset.
Ninja however seems to be sleeping quite alot. She typically gets up at around 8 am, than I feed her for about an hour (to bond with her I only let her have food from my hand right now), after which she decides to go back to her nest and sleep for an other few hours. How long exactly I am not sure of as I have to go to work. When I typically come back home at about 6 I can see evidence that she moved around the cage (small amounts of food which I hide in different corners of the cage for her so she wont starve / has something to do are gone, water has been drunken, poop lying around) but then she is already in her nest and wont come out for the rest of the day.
Yesterday I came back home at 4 pm and she was already in her nest.
Is this, because its winter and she typically moves less in winter? She doesnt hibernate, and I read somewhere that squirrels typically dont hibernate, but I know that my chipmunk did in the past. Does this have anything to do with it?
Or is it that she is in actuality very scared when people are around so that she chooses to spend most of her time in the safety of her nest? As asked before, would that mean I'd better take the nest out?
7) As mentioned before, I have two cats. When I had the chipmunk years back, they would have loved to get a piece of him. Sitting infront of the cage sometimes for hours, they would wait until the chipmunk came out of his nest and feed - and then just suddenly jump and cling to the wires of the cage, scaring the small guy ****less.
Luckily nowadays I have a bigger apartment, and until now I could make sure that my cats didnt even see the squirrel yet. Then again, the squirrel is obviously bigger than the chipmunk, and I saw some pictures online from several sources, where squirrel and cat seemed to be playing together. Would it be possible to actually hold the squirrel and the cat in the same room, maybe even for them to become friends?
8) As I said earlier Ninja is already fairly tame - I believe that she grew up in captivity for at least the bigger part of this year. Would there be any possibility of releasing her to the wild in coming spring? Or would she fail to survive outside because of certain skills she never learned during her childhood in captivity?
Sorry, I know its very long. Thank you to anybody who read the whole thing and thank you even more if you can answer any of my inquiries above.