back-flips ???

[justAddNuts]

I have 2 little fuzz butts around 5 months of age being overwintered - they're in a Henry's Cage equipped with sticks and ball-on-a-rope swingy thingies and a balcony.

Alice - my little genius squirrel - does back-flips for hours at a time. She stands on the balcony and just jumps into the air and flips backwards and lands. Over and over and over for HOURS.:crazy It's actually kind of cool.

Rocky runs a pattern inside the cage - back and forth across the bottom then up the side jumping onto the balcony (or running up the stick in the front) - paces the balcony and trampolines off the hammock onto the ball-on-a-rope thing which he climbs down then thru the tunnel up the stick thru the cube back to the front. Repeat. :wahoo

Alice does not do flips when I let them out of the cage to run around and play - only when they're in the cage. I think Alice uses the back-flips to get Rocky to leave her the hell alone. Anytime he messes with her and she's not in the mood for fighting or whatever she starts flipping and he goes away.

No i'm not going to try that with my wife. :rotfl

I wouldn't call this a "need help" thread exactly. I'm just curious what all kinds of crazy and cool things everyone has had their squirrels do. They are NOT boring animals! :jump

[rocky63]

Justaddnuts,
There is nothing wrong with them. They are showing signs that they are older and would like to be out in the wild. But now is not the time. you need to wait until the spring.
:jump :jump :jump

[UDoWhat]

I have 8 squirrels in my overwintering room and ALL of them are doing back-flips. You can do some enrichment activities for them but basically they are bored and wanting to go. I see you are in VA... way too cold there to let them go until 2/3 of the leaves are back on the trees. Sometime late April I would say. They will settle down some. You can get some new toys or some branches for them to chew. Put a medium size box in the cage. They will explore it, chew it, and then destroy it. They will have fun doing that. Everyday day you can try some different things or toys. Some days I just put a few of those little bathroom paper cups in their cage. They love them. Carry them around, etc. Sometimes I put a nut in the cup and then fold the rim of the cup down and they work and work to open the cup to get the "prize" out. ( OR you could just make more videos with them.:rotfl ) They really are wonderful animals . I love to watch them too.

Marty

[pappy1264]

Max was doing that, until I moved him into a much bigger cage (it is a walk in aviary, so he has alot more room and we can go right in with him). Yup, he is just trying to entertain himself.

[SammysMom]

Sammy gets up every morning and hangs out inside until he decides he is ready to go to his outdoor cage. He tells me it's time by doing his "upside down hippity hop" (aka back flip). It is quite an expressive activity!

[justplainnutz]

I don't think the backflip itself is anything to be concerned about, but the constant repetitive actions indicates extreme boredom and I have read numerous sources that say that can lead to neurosis. Low calcium absorption can really magnify this problem (see the nutrition formum) but even with a healthy diet, they can become bored and neurotic. They are very curious animals and clever and need a lot of stimulation.

I would suggest leaving their "nest" alone, but varying other things in their "habitat" as much as possible. I found a flexible ferret tube for $20 that can be stretched to about 8 ft long and can be twisted and hung in all sorts of ways. (then I found something in the plumbing department at LOWES for a fraction of that price.) My squirrels LOVE running through it and I move it around frequently so they never know where they're gonna come out at the other end. I also found a wooden ladder with bells on it that they chase each other through in a slolum like pattern. They also do battle with the bells and seem to have a royal time trying to sneak up on the thing. I'll try to post pics. Also, from the $1 store, I got one of those folding laundry mesh hamper things. I wired it to their cage and they use the inside for a hideaway and the top for a trampoline. Also, something as simple as a new stick gives them hours of entertainment as they will strip the bark, jump on it till it breaks, and then wrestle with the pieces.

Also, if you're gonna be keeping them till April, I'd really suggest a bigger cage. When mine started getting antsy in their first cage, I made a 3' x 2' x 6' high with just some 1x2's, hardware cloth, & a staple gun. Cost me less than $50 & took about 3 hrs. You could easily build something like that & then link it to your existing cage and that would triple their running space.

[justplainnutz]

157321
Here's what's left of their ladder (they chewed off several of the balls & one of the rungs)...I'd have to say this was their favorite toy of all time. I think I got it at PetSmart for $18 in the parrot section. But as you can see, you could easily make your own out of a coat hanger, some sticks, and a couple of christmas bells from the $1 store.

157322
I got this tube in the ferret section of the pet store for $20. It stretches to about 6 or 8' and has the advantage of being translucent. They chewed the end connectors off within an hour, but the tube has remained in tact and a favorite pastime of theirs. They were a little scared to go in at first, but all it took was putting some nuts far enough inside for them to get over their fear and voila! they had a mystery tunnel. They find it especially fascinating when they come out facing a different direction than when they went in and they love it when I hang the ends so that the middle sorta dips and swings as they crawl through it.

157323
Found this in the plumbing section of Lowes. It's twice as long, twice as mysterious, has air perforations throughout, and was a fraction of the price of the ferret tube. (I'm thinking it was like $7-8). I'm saving it for the new 12' outdoor cage I'm building, but I know they're gonna love it!

157320
Here's the cage I built out of 1x2s (which were $.75 cents each at Lowes) and a couple 10' rolls of hardware cloth. (If your cage is gonna stay indoors and you don't have any cats with claws to worry about, the 1x1" mesh is cheaper, sturdier, and much easier to work with and allows finger/treat access without opening the door.) I made the top 1/3 hinged so it can be folded back to allow me to easily change the arrangement of their toys & obstacles & I built a simple drawer for the bottom of the cage that makes for easy cleaning. You can see Daisy hanging from her toes trying to surprise the toy ladder by attacking it from above.

....and if all that fails to alleviate their boredom....take them out for a walk!
157324

[RatLadyofHanover]

LOL... I have three 5 month old girls that are doing the back flip thing too. Mine are in a ferret nation cage and do flips off the shelves. One is particularly agile and likes to do hers through the space in the hanging hammock thingy... usually about 7-10 reps before moving on to the next activity. :crazy

Wrestling seems to be another favorite activity. Mine are usually out about 2 hours a day and never stop moving when they are out.