Green acorns

[joyceb11]

I know, I know, I should already know the answer to this question but can you feed green acorns to squirrels?

[IrishHarps]

Yes :)

It may make their pee darker, but that's normal

[joyceb11]

I did notice his pee was darker.

[CritterMom]

I did notice his pee was darker.

Tannins in the acorns. It can make it look JUST like blood in the urine.

[cnmnnaturalist]

I've been 'scolding' my Sweet Pea and Calvin as they are up in the Bur Oaks, eating green acorns constantly. I say, "You gotta leave some for later! They aren't even near being ripe!" But they are okay, even when they have barely started. Tannins are the same chemicals responsible for darker wines and brown-stained water in fall.

I've tasted raw Acorn, and it's horrid with tannins. You gotta soak ripe Acorns in cold water for a while to get rid of them so you can make acorn flour.

[Curliesmom]

My two love them!

[mimipapa]

We had pygmy goats that ate acorns and the leaves with the heavy tannin's, they are bad for goats and caused painful infections with blood in the urine. Jase one of our grey squirrels developed dark urine from eating acorns. We immediately stopped feeding them to our little guys and within a week his urine returned to normal. Blood or just dark? you decide. It looked like blood to us.
Just because they like to eat something it doesn't mean its good for them. Maybe that's why they live longer in captivity.
As for us we will play it safe and feed them other nuts such as hickorys.

[mimipapa]

I forgot to add that he was crying when he urinated just as our goats did.

[farrelli]

What is his diet daily?

[mimipapa]

They receive in the morning squirrel blocks then a bowl of romaine, arugula, or red cabbage, broccoli, some type of squash, a few sugar snap peas. Mid afternoon they get some dandelion greens and some maple tree helicopters and a hickory nut. in the evening they get a little mixed fruit of some sort, papaya, orange, pear, apple, grapes with a little Henry's vitamins every other day.

[mimipapa]

oh... They also have deer antler they chew on.
Does it sound like a nutritious diet?

[sid'smommy]

sounds good... but, for some reason red cabbage is waving a red flag at me...maybe Im mistaken tho...

My babies also loved raw green beans, avacado, frozen yogurt chunks, blackberries, acorn squash (imagine that!) butternut & yellow squash, pumpkin (especially the seeds)