95Bravo
06-23-2015, 02:23 PM
Greetings. A bit of background before a question:
I live in an apartment complex, in northern Illinois, where I have been feeding peanuts to the resident chipmunk population. I've been doing so for about 4 years now. I grew up much of the time in a very lightly populated northern woodland environment, with a number of U.S. Park Service and Forestry Service relatives, so my normal policy towards wild animals is, "Don't touch. Don't feed Just let let 'em be.", but in this I had made an exception. The previous resident of the apartment already been feeding them, so they had already become acclimated to such contact, and where already begging anyway.
At this point, I now have a population ranging from less than a year old, to more than 4 years of age. Most have names, and I can recognize individuals by behavior and markings.
Yearly, females often herd their children to the feeding spot (The wall of our sunken patio), although I've never determined if this is active teaching on their part, or that the youngsters just happen to follow the mothers in when they come for the daily ration. Either way, the end result is a steady population from year to year.
This morning, I went out to the patio, has I do frequently. After a very short time, a very young little fella came out from underneath our grill, about foot away from where I was standing, and began to wobble it's way around the porch floor. I have not seen this particular one before, but it's main interest was a few empty peanut shells that I had not yet cleaned up.
I tossed down a few fresh and it quite enthusiastically grabbed those up, and proceeded to shell those. Unusual, has most of "my" chipmunks had to be taught that peanuts contain food. So now I have a tiny little stray youngster, who knows what peanuts are, and what to do with them. It isn't showing any signs of fear, though I've never seen it before, and it's happily having some breakfast.
The problem is, it kept swaying and falling over, the whole time this was going on. It also soon became apparent that it was not at all likely to get itself out of the patio area on it's own.
Figuring that, the next thing I did was to go get a cardboard box. Catching him/her was easy. Took about 30 seconds, and a slight nudge with a broom. Once in the box, it got very active, but once released to the surrounding ground level flower beds, it exited the box has if this was a normal every day thing, and proceeded to root around the mulch like nothing had happened. Still no signs of fear. No hint at all of even slight distress in fact. Never even bushed out it's tail. Handed out a few more nuts at that point, and it happily took those has well.
After about 10 minutes, it decided it was time to go elsewhere, and began to make it's way back along the wall of the building. A common route, often taken by one of my 4 year old females. That particular female is also the one most likely to bring children, so I suspected it to be one of hers after that. (I'm thinking she might have brought it by very early, it fell into the patio area, and now they're separated due to the inability of the little guy to get out. I haven't seen any adults around near-by at any rate, other than one of the males that sits out in the bushes in the mornings.)
Over the course of traveling about 20 feet, it fell over on it's side about 30 times. It then stopped, took time to wash itself, sat and wobbled a bit, and finally appeared to take a nap. It paid only slight attention when the local chipmunk warning net started alerting to a dog being walked, and that was a concern due to the high chance of an appearance by a local cat at this time of day. Everybody else went to the "safe spots", has is normal. The little fella looked around, but went back to sleep in short order.
Because of the high threat of cats, I stayed out for quite awhile watching over it it, (for the better part of the next hour), until the mowers came for the lawn. That woke it up, but no attempt was made to flee. The mowers passed within 4 feet, without incident.
After they left, the little guy did then get going again. It rooted around the mulch a bit, and the continued to stumble it's way back the rest of the way, towards where the previously mentioned adult female goes. It never made it more than a foot without falling on it's side however.
Other than the walking issue , the apparent obliviousness to potential danger, and the strange choice of nap locations, it appeared healthy. Glossy clean coat. No visible flies, parasites, wounds, or any other obvious symptoms that I could see. While it wasn't moving the fastest I've ever seen a chipmunk go in "normal" speed walking, i wouldn't exactly say lethargic either. It didn't seem pained in any way.
I would best describe the behavior has completely crocked, which was actually my first conclusion. Only problem now is that I'm not so sure. I've seen it still doing this stumble routine, hours later, and I'm no longer thinking fermented berries any more.
And so, this all leads me now to the question part:
I've spent a few hours now researching, and that has led me here. I really have no solid conclusion, and it's starting to drive be a bit batty.
Does anybody think I have come across anything that might fall under the umbrella of a known disease, defect, or otherwise? I mostly maintain a hands off approach, other than running off the earlier mentioned cat, and let nature take it's course, but in this case I am worried that this thing might effect the rest of the population. However, I'm far from being a chipmunk expert, and I am unable to identify for sure what I am actually seeing. I'm just trying to find some answers before I worry myself beyond need.
Thanks for reading this novel. Any opinions would be most helpful, if only to ease my mind that I'm not dealing with some kind of strange plague, lol.
I live in an apartment complex, in northern Illinois, where I have been feeding peanuts to the resident chipmunk population. I've been doing so for about 4 years now. I grew up much of the time in a very lightly populated northern woodland environment, with a number of U.S. Park Service and Forestry Service relatives, so my normal policy towards wild animals is, "Don't touch. Don't feed Just let let 'em be.", but in this I had made an exception. The previous resident of the apartment already been feeding them, so they had already become acclimated to such contact, and where already begging anyway.
At this point, I now have a population ranging from less than a year old, to more than 4 years of age. Most have names, and I can recognize individuals by behavior and markings.
Yearly, females often herd their children to the feeding spot (The wall of our sunken patio), although I've never determined if this is active teaching on their part, or that the youngsters just happen to follow the mothers in when they come for the daily ration. Either way, the end result is a steady population from year to year.
This morning, I went out to the patio, has I do frequently. After a very short time, a very young little fella came out from underneath our grill, about foot away from where I was standing, and began to wobble it's way around the porch floor. I have not seen this particular one before, but it's main interest was a few empty peanut shells that I had not yet cleaned up.
I tossed down a few fresh and it quite enthusiastically grabbed those up, and proceeded to shell those. Unusual, has most of "my" chipmunks had to be taught that peanuts contain food. So now I have a tiny little stray youngster, who knows what peanuts are, and what to do with them. It isn't showing any signs of fear, though I've never seen it before, and it's happily having some breakfast.
The problem is, it kept swaying and falling over, the whole time this was going on. It also soon became apparent that it was not at all likely to get itself out of the patio area on it's own.
Figuring that, the next thing I did was to go get a cardboard box. Catching him/her was easy. Took about 30 seconds, and a slight nudge with a broom. Once in the box, it got very active, but once released to the surrounding ground level flower beds, it exited the box has if this was a normal every day thing, and proceeded to root around the mulch like nothing had happened. Still no signs of fear. No hint at all of even slight distress in fact. Never even bushed out it's tail. Handed out a few more nuts at that point, and it happily took those has well.
After about 10 minutes, it decided it was time to go elsewhere, and began to make it's way back along the wall of the building. A common route, often taken by one of my 4 year old females. That particular female is also the one most likely to bring children, so I suspected it to be one of hers after that. (I'm thinking she might have brought it by very early, it fell into the patio area, and now they're separated due to the inability of the little guy to get out. I haven't seen any adults around near-by at any rate, other than one of the males that sits out in the bushes in the mornings.)
Over the course of traveling about 20 feet, it fell over on it's side about 30 times. It then stopped, took time to wash itself, sat and wobbled a bit, and finally appeared to take a nap. It paid only slight attention when the local chipmunk warning net started alerting to a dog being walked, and that was a concern due to the high chance of an appearance by a local cat at this time of day. Everybody else went to the "safe spots", has is normal. The little fella looked around, but went back to sleep in short order.
Because of the high threat of cats, I stayed out for quite awhile watching over it it, (for the better part of the next hour), until the mowers came for the lawn. That woke it up, but no attempt was made to flee. The mowers passed within 4 feet, without incident.
After they left, the little guy did then get going again. It rooted around the mulch a bit, and the continued to stumble it's way back the rest of the way, towards where the previously mentioned adult female goes. It never made it more than a foot without falling on it's side however.
Other than the walking issue , the apparent obliviousness to potential danger, and the strange choice of nap locations, it appeared healthy. Glossy clean coat. No visible flies, parasites, wounds, or any other obvious symptoms that I could see. While it wasn't moving the fastest I've ever seen a chipmunk go in "normal" speed walking, i wouldn't exactly say lethargic either. It didn't seem pained in any way.
I would best describe the behavior has completely crocked, which was actually my first conclusion. Only problem now is that I'm not so sure. I've seen it still doing this stumble routine, hours later, and I'm no longer thinking fermented berries any more.
And so, this all leads me now to the question part:
I've spent a few hours now researching, and that has led me here. I really have no solid conclusion, and it's starting to drive be a bit batty.
Does anybody think I have come across anything that might fall under the umbrella of a known disease, defect, or otherwise? I mostly maintain a hands off approach, other than running off the earlier mentioned cat, and let nature take it's course, but in this case I am worried that this thing might effect the rest of the population. However, I'm far from being a chipmunk expert, and I am unable to identify for sure what I am actually seeing. I'm just trying to find some answers before I worry myself beyond need.
Thanks for reading this novel. Any opinions would be most helpful, if only to ease my mind that I'm not dealing with some kind of strange plague, lol.