Squirrel Health/Squirrel Urine PH and Nutrition

[Busysqrl]

I understand this thread may not be popular and my intent is not to cause friction, only to report my own personal findings and some information I've found helpful.

I never realized how important the balance between acidity and alkalinity is. My particular situation was that my squirrels were too alkaline. Too much calcium and not enough acidic food items. I know that sounds strange, but I'm a very strict mommy. I make homemade squirrel blocks, so my squirrels were getting a homemade block with added calcium and other vit/min, less than 1 nut per day (in the blocks), mostly veggies with 1 small piece of fruit per day. The issue was IMBALANCE!

On a routine urine test, my squirrel's urine tested 9 for ph. That is WAY too high. So at that time, I guessed they were getting too much calcium compared to phos as calcium is VERY alkaline. Optimum squirrel ph should be about that of a human, just above 7.0 or so. Wild squirrels are about 6.4. So I reduced the calcium/magnesium/d and it came down to a ph of 8, but I couldn't get it much lower than that. Still too high. Struvite stones and crystals thrive in a high ph (alkaline) environment. So I took a look at the items they were eating and they were almost all alkaline. Some fruits and veggies are more alkaline than others.

When you look at commercial rodent block most of them are made with corn and wheat products. Corn and wheat products are acid forming. So I decided to add some acid forming items and it worked! I added some fresh corn (5 grams per day) and also 2 organic bite size shredded wheats per day. It brought the ph down to a good 7.25. BALANCE is what it's all about. They still get their healthy veggies, but with the addition of some acid producing items, their diet is much more balanced with a great calcium to phosphorous ratio of 1.6:1 for the entire diet including foods and supplements. I highly recommend testing your squirrel's ph. Here's a site where you can get the test strips.

http://www.phionbalance.com/ph-balancing-products/ph-test-strips/phion-diagnostic-ph-test-strips/?utm_source=lsgoogle&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=ph%2btest%2bstrips%2bmain&utm_campaign=urine%2bph

This site also has some good information about acidity and alkalinity and the dangers of being too acidic or too alkaline. Crystals and stones can form if you are at either end of the spectrum and that applies to humans and squirrels. In addition, being too far at either end will (over time) cause serious kidney issues and potential for MBD.

I also recommend that everyone examine your squirrel's particular diet and compare the calcium to phosphorous ratio in the entire diet. VERY important. I posted yesterday that I have a spreadsheet designed to do just that, it will automatically calculate the calcium/phosphorous/magnesium/potassium/sodium. It's designed to calulate a month's worth of food. If anyone is interested, just PM me and I'll send you the spreadsheet.

[stosh2010]

I just PM'd you--would like to see it.

[Allymichelle01]

Send me the spreadsheet please

[Diggie's Friend]

Urine pH can be easily determined by using Mission pH testing strips available on Amazon.com. When adding a new food, or increasing or decreasing the amount of a food fed, test the urine pH to see what the food does. For some foods noted to be acidic, like citrus turn the urine pH alkaline. Most often in working to develop a whole food diet, I had found that it is much harder to keep the urine PH from not being overly alkalized than acidic.

Foods I have found that alkalize the pH of the diet, that is turn the pH up, include North American Tree fruits, melons raw greens and vegetables, coconut water.

Why this is can be for two reasons, one greens high in calcium and two fruits high in potassium that both turn the urine pH up.

Those that I have found acidify the diet, that is move the pH, include mealworms, some ripe berries, nuts, grains, egg yolk, grain or nut oils, ACV.

Those neutral include plain low fat unsweetened yogurt, some berries.

If the diet is off in pH either lower the amounts of alkaline or acidic food source fed, or in the case of green vegetation sources, blanch/boil them to lower the pH. This only results in a small lowering of calcium. In the case of green vegetation sources many are so high in the calcium lowering anti nutrient known as Oxalic acid, which has a high propensity to bond with the Calcium carbonate form of calcium, resulting in a significant reduction in calcium, as to not provide any bioavailable calcium to the body. In this the better choice to support calcium in the diet is clearly to boil the source. For leafy greens that can be from 3 to 10 minutes depending upon the density of the leaves. For stalked vegetables this would be up to 20 minutes to effectually lower the oxalates and the pH of the source. For a few sources that included leafy greens that are low in oxalic acid, these may only require lowering of pH by blanching 1 to 2 minutes. Do not reduce leafy greens to green glop, for then they will not offer much by way of support of calcium or other nutrients that they contained raw.

To test for the mean urine pH in the diet, take 3 consecutive readings taken an hour after the meal and at least an hour before the next meal.

Then take the four the next day before the first meal. Add up the four values and divide by the number of values that in this case is four, to get the mean urine pH.


This value should reflect the nominal (healthy range) for the mean urine pH to be slightly acidic, which lies in the mid range of 6 (6.4 to 6.6), yet up to (6.8) is also acceptable), which is based upon both laboratory studies, and veterinary science, has found that in tree squirrels and small mammals.