jessed
01-21-2013, 03:46 PM
Hey all,
Last April my husband and I rescued a squirrel baby who was about 5 weeks old after his mom + siblings were killed when they were found in a co-worker's attic. We fed him, cared for him, etc. and were debating on releasing him and after seeing so many dead squirrels on the side of the road and reading how many of them starve in the wild we decided to keep him. We have a large cage for him, get him out frequently and have a special bedroom (it's about the size of a large bathroom) for him in our basement that is filled with things for him to climb and whatnot. However now that he's getting close to a year old we're learning he's a lot to handle ha. He's become a lot more aggressive over the past few months, not like he's trying to hurt us intentionally but he has started biting a little (not hard, but he never did it before at all). He is anxious in his cage, when he's out he seems fine for the most part-- other than the mild aggression. He also has started taking his nuts and running around our house with them in his mouth and I realized he's trying to find a place to hide them. Through his cage he has seen cats, dogs and a mini pig and doesn't seem to be afraid of them. He is very comfortable with humans and so I feel like releasing him in the spring wouldn't work. What can we do to make his life more comfortable and "natural" to what it would have been had we released him? I'm a huge animal rights activist and always want to do what is in their best interest and I genuinely thought we would be helping him out in the beginning-- now I'm not so sure. Any advice would be wonderful!!
Last April my husband and I rescued a squirrel baby who was about 5 weeks old after his mom + siblings were killed when they were found in a co-worker's attic. We fed him, cared for him, etc. and were debating on releasing him and after seeing so many dead squirrels on the side of the road and reading how many of them starve in the wild we decided to keep him. We have a large cage for him, get him out frequently and have a special bedroom (it's about the size of a large bathroom) for him in our basement that is filled with things for him to climb and whatnot. However now that he's getting close to a year old we're learning he's a lot to handle ha. He's become a lot more aggressive over the past few months, not like he's trying to hurt us intentionally but he has started biting a little (not hard, but he never did it before at all). He is anxious in his cage, when he's out he seems fine for the most part-- other than the mild aggression. He also has started taking his nuts and running around our house with them in his mouth and I realized he's trying to find a place to hide them. Through his cage he has seen cats, dogs and a mini pig and doesn't seem to be afraid of them. He is very comfortable with humans and so I feel like releasing him in the spring wouldn't work. What can we do to make his life more comfortable and "natural" to what it would have been had we released him? I'm a huge animal rights activist and always want to do what is in their best interest and I genuinely thought we would be helping him out in the beginning-- now I'm not so sure. Any advice would be wonderful!!