PDA

View Full Version : Sideways Squirrel



pepperrj
07-06-2014, 05:35 PM
Hi:

I have a small female squirrel with a problem of turning her head sideways 45 degrees when she is stressed (afraid, playing hard, agitated). We received her six weeks ago. She was following a lady around her yard for several days. She appeared to be from this year's first litter but she was definetely lost or ejected by the mother. She was a runt compared to the other squirrels in the area. We received her after she was caught by a cat. The cat had her by the tail. Other than the tail injury, which was infected, we could not find any other wounds. We did save the tail. Also, when we received her, she was starving and dehydrated to the point that she could not sit up and eat. We have taken care of all these problems. She is overprotective of her food (being the runt), so we named her Tazilla. She is now the same size as other local juviniles. We were hoping to release her except for the above problem.

To restate the problem, Tazilla turns her head to the left and she has problems moving the right front leg when the seizure occurs. Usually, it disappears within 30 seconds to a minute, except for last week, when she was ill for two days. During the two days, she continually had the head turned to the left (similar to a squirrel that is blind in one eye). Today, everything including her appetite and poop is normal and she has only displayed the head turn twice. Our problem is that we do not feel we can release her without solving this problem as she would be a sitting duck for any predator. She can not move well at all during the 30+ second seizure. I don't think it is an ear infection since she can run, jump and play 99% of the time. I am sure it is nothing here because she had the problem before we got her.

Hopefully, someone has an idea about getting this one into the trees.

Thanks,
pepperrj

Duckman
07-06-2014, 06:04 PM
First, thank you for taking care of this little one, and :Welcome to The Squirrel Board.

I think your assessment is correct. With these problems, she is not a candidate for release, and I am not sure she will ever be. I suspect that there is a genetic defect that is putting pressure on her spinal cord when she turns her head too far that way (for whatever reason). This can be causing shock to the neurological system, that starts shutting down everything, to save the brain. After a few seconds to minutes, the muscles around the nerve roots relax and she comes out of her "seizure". This isn't common in any animal, but it does happen from time to time. There is a chance she will outgrow this, but it isn't likely. :Love_Icon

farrelli
07-06-2014, 09:33 PM
Can you tell us what her diet is? Got any video of the behavior?