Bella's Mom
09-21-2018, 08:33 AM
Hello, everyone! This is kind of a long story.
On March 1st of this year, I rescued an adult squirrel from my backyard. I feed the squirrrels in my backyard every day. Five of my released squirrrels still come to see me everyday. A bunch of other ones come too. This one squirrel came every day who obviously had some neurological issues, but I don't know what happened to him. I suspect he may have fallen from a tree or something during a really bad storm we had because after that storm is when this squirrel started showing up just not right and not behaving like a normal, healthy squirrel. He has a head tilt to the right, he can't use his back legs like a normal squirrel, he sort of hops instead of walking normally. His back legs most of the time don't move independent of one another. He can't see very well. When I would toss a nut to him out in my backyard he couldn't see it, he had to kind of sniff it out. He also cannot crack open nuts. I have to crack the them out of the shell and give them to him that way. He couldn't climb up the wooden fence out in my backyard like the other squirrrels can. He could barely climb up a wooden telephone post in my backyard to get back to wherever he came from. He is very wobbly, unsteady on his feet, and can't sit up like normal squirrrels can without losing his balance and falling over. There is a very bad stray cat problem in my neighborhood, and they find their way to my backyard often. Whenever the cats would come around, all the other squirrrels would display normal behavior toward that. They sound the alarm and run. But not this squirrel. He would just kind of move away a little bit, but not sound the alarm. He would also do this thing where he sometimes all of a sudden just sits there not moving, still as a statue, just staring off into space, like he is just out in la la land. Just out of it. You couldn't get his attention no matter what or get him to move or snap out of that weird trance like state. He would do this outside in the middle of the wide open space, just seemingly oblivious to anything going on around him. Sitting out in the wide open doing that was not a good thing because there are also hawks in the area and he was a perfect target for them, as well as these cats that come around here. These episodes can last anywhere from a few seconds to maybe a minute or so. Then he just snaps back to reality. He's also really slow moving compared to the other squirrrels outside so he couldn't run fast or climb up anything to get away from predators. I watched this sweet guy come to my yard every day for about two months to get food. Sometimes the others squirrels would pick on him, and sometimes they would chase him away from the food. It seemed like it took all the strength and energy he had just to make his way to my backyard to get food. And if he got picked on or chased away, he wouldn't even try to get food, he would just leave and not get anything to eat that day. I have a feeling the only food he was getting was what I gave him in the backyard because he also cannot forage for food like the other squirrrels. He cannot bury anything or attenpt to dig up anything like a normal squirrel. I debated on rescuing him for quite awhile. He is an adult squirrel, already accustomed to the wild. I have experience with rescuing and raising 7 squirrrels since 2013, but they were all orphaned babies. I don't have experience with rescuing an adult squirrel and I also didn't know if captivity would be the best thing for him because he is an adult. What prompted me to go ahead and rescue him was he was sitting there in the middle of my backyard and a hawk swooped down and grabbed him! I ran toward them as fast as I could and the hawk got scared and lost its grip on the squirrel and flew off. Thank goodness! I was so terrified! I ran into my sunroom and grabbed a swimming pool net and ran after the squirrel. He tried running from me, but since he is so slow I was able to catch him. If he was a normal squirrel I never would have been able to catch him. He didn't even try to bite me when I picked him up. I honestly don't know how he survived as long as he did out there. I named the sweet little guy Jacob.
So fast forward six and a half months later. At first he didn't like being in captivity, obviously. But he has adapted very well, much better than I thought he would. He is such a very good little eater and he absolutely loves h hiis comfy nest and loves to snuggle with his blankets in his nest. I let him out of his cage every morning at 7am. His cage doors stay open and he has free run of the house. He doesn't get into anything and he doesn't climb up on stuff he shouldn't. He goes to his nest in his cage and takes naps throughout the day, and he puts himself to bed every night right before dark. I feed him a good diet. He eats various veggies, although I can't get him to eat any greens, darn it! He eats apples occasionally and papaya is his favorite. He was eating his Henry's Healthy Blocks just fine, but then he seemed to get bored with them or something and he stopped eating them. So for now, I am giving him Boo Balls that I made from a recipe I found on here. He loves them so far. He has the occasional nut treat of almonds and pecans, one every 3 or 4 days. Things were going really well and he seemed to improve a bit from how he was outside. He has adapted to being around my boyfriend and me quite nicely, although, of course that did take some time and patience. He lets us pet him and love on him and he seems to like the attention and care. He still does that staring off into space thing I talked about earlier. I suspected they were some form of seizures, but I wasn't positive. So on the 11th of this month, he just started turning round and round in circles to the right all day and he couldn't stop himself from doing that. I took him to the vet that night because I knew that was serious. I thought maybe he somehow had an internal parasite in his brain. The vet does not know if that is what it is, but he started Jacob on Panacur for seven days. Jacob's x-rays were normal and his bones look good. He was diagnosed with Nystagmus. I have researched this thoroughly so I know now what it is. Jacob also has a bit of lung congestion due to him aspirating his food. I have no idea how or why he's aspirating his food because I watch him eat all the time and he never appeared to me to be aspirating his food. I asked the vet how I can help him to stop aspirating his food, and he said let's focus on these other things that are going wrong first. So Jacob was also started on Baytril for 14 days. He was also started on Metacam for 5 days. The 5 days are over for the Metacam doses. Jacob has shown tremendous improvemet. His head tilt has improved, the use of his back legs has improved, his balance was improved, and there is now no more circling around. Oh, and the vet also gave him a shot of Ivermectin on the 11th. Jacob had a follow up appointment on the 18th and then he has another one on the 24th. On the vet visit on the 18th I discussed that whole "spaced out" thing Jacob has always done and the vet agrees with me that they are seizures. I really, really wish I would have taken him to the vet when I rescued him, but I didn't. Things were going so well with him so I didn't think I needed to take him to the vet at the time. I really regret now not taking him. Because whatever is wrong with him may have gotten worse over the last 6 months. But I can't change the past. I can only do my best to take care of whatever is wrong with him now. And the vet did say on Jacob's last visit that he was surprised that Jacob had already improved as much as he has so far. So for the seizures and for pain the vet also started Jacob on Gabapentin for 7 days. On one hand Jacob's functioning has greatly improved due to the addition of the Gabapentin. On the other hand, it really knocks him for a loop. He gets kind of dazed ( different from the "spaced out" thing, though) and very sleepy. He goes back to bed and sleeps for about 4 hours. I also take Gabapentin for Fibromyalgia. When I first started taking it, the Gabapentin had the same effect on me. But after awhile I adjusted and it no longer effects me that way. Sorry this was such a long story. I just wanted everyone to have a full understanding of the whole story before I got to my questions. Will Jacob adjust to the Gabapentin like I did or will it always effect him the way it does? I haven't had a chance to ask the vet this yet, but I am wondering why the Gabapentin was only prescribed for 7 days. It is also my understanding that there is nothing that can be done to treat Nystagmus. Is that correct? Also, I am really, super worried about his food aspiration. How can I get him to stop doing that? Especially when I didn't even know he was doing it in the first place. If he keeps doing that his lungs are always going to be congested and he could get pneumonia. Also, since I have no idea what actually happened to Jacob out in the wild, the vet also suggested that, in addition to a possible fall, it could be that Jacob has some kind of brain disease that he was born with. Could that possibly be true? And, sadly, I know that nero squirrrels do not live as long as normal, healthy squirrrels. Does anyone know what the average lifespan is of neuro squirrrels is? I love him so much and I'm trying to do anything and everything I can for him. He needs help with eating too sometimes because sometimes he can't hold onto his food. He is a LOT of work, but so, so worth it and I cherish every moment he is alive and every moment I get to spend with him is such a blessing! Thank you so much for reading Jacob's story. Any help with my questions would be greatly appreciated!
On March 1st of this year, I rescued an adult squirrel from my backyard. I feed the squirrrels in my backyard every day. Five of my released squirrrels still come to see me everyday. A bunch of other ones come too. This one squirrel came every day who obviously had some neurological issues, but I don't know what happened to him. I suspect he may have fallen from a tree or something during a really bad storm we had because after that storm is when this squirrel started showing up just not right and not behaving like a normal, healthy squirrel. He has a head tilt to the right, he can't use his back legs like a normal squirrel, he sort of hops instead of walking normally. His back legs most of the time don't move independent of one another. He can't see very well. When I would toss a nut to him out in my backyard he couldn't see it, he had to kind of sniff it out. He also cannot crack open nuts. I have to crack the them out of the shell and give them to him that way. He couldn't climb up the wooden fence out in my backyard like the other squirrrels can. He could barely climb up a wooden telephone post in my backyard to get back to wherever he came from. He is very wobbly, unsteady on his feet, and can't sit up like normal squirrrels can without losing his balance and falling over. There is a very bad stray cat problem in my neighborhood, and they find their way to my backyard often. Whenever the cats would come around, all the other squirrrels would display normal behavior toward that. They sound the alarm and run. But not this squirrel. He would just kind of move away a little bit, but not sound the alarm. He would also do this thing where he sometimes all of a sudden just sits there not moving, still as a statue, just staring off into space, like he is just out in la la land. Just out of it. You couldn't get his attention no matter what or get him to move or snap out of that weird trance like state. He would do this outside in the middle of the wide open space, just seemingly oblivious to anything going on around him. Sitting out in the wide open doing that was not a good thing because there are also hawks in the area and he was a perfect target for them, as well as these cats that come around here. These episodes can last anywhere from a few seconds to maybe a minute or so. Then he just snaps back to reality. He's also really slow moving compared to the other squirrrels outside so he couldn't run fast or climb up anything to get away from predators. I watched this sweet guy come to my yard every day for about two months to get food. Sometimes the others squirrels would pick on him, and sometimes they would chase him away from the food. It seemed like it took all the strength and energy he had just to make his way to my backyard to get food. And if he got picked on or chased away, he wouldn't even try to get food, he would just leave and not get anything to eat that day. I have a feeling the only food he was getting was what I gave him in the backyard because he also cannot forage for food like the other squirrrels. He cannot bury anything or attenpt to dig up anything like a normal squirrel. I debated on rescuing him for quite awhile. He is an adult squirrel, already accustomed to the wild. I have experience with rescuing and raising 7 squirrrels since 2013, but they were all orphaned babies. I don't have experience with rescuing an adult squirrel and I also didn't know if captivity would be the best thing for him because he is an adult. What prompted me to go ahead and rescue him was he was sitting there in the middle of my backyard and a hawk swooped down and grabbed him! I ran toward them as fast as I could and the hawk got scared and lost its grip on the squirrel and flew off. Thank goodness! I was so terrified! I ran into my sunroom and grabbed a swimming pool net and ran after the squirrel. He tried running from me, but since he is so slow I was able to catch him. If he was a normal squirrel I never would have been able to catch him. He didn't even try to bite me when I picked him up. I honestly don't know how he survived as long as he did out there. I named the sweet little guy Jacob.
So fast forward six and a half months later. At first he didn't like being in captivity, obviously. But he has adapted very well, much better than I thought he would. He is such a very good little eater and he absolutely loves h hiis comfy nest and loves to snuggle with his blankets in his nest. I let him out of his cage every morning at 7am. His cage doors stay open and he has free run of the house. He doesn't get into anything and he doesn't climb up on stuff he shouldn't. He goes to his nest in his cage and takes naps throughout the day, and he puts himself to bed every night right before dark. I feed him a good diet. He eats various veggies, although I can't get him to eat any greens, darn it! He eats apples occasionally and papaya is his favorite. He was eating his Henry's Healthy Blocks just fine, but then he seemed to get bored with them or something and he stopped eating them. So for now, I am giving him Boo Balls that I made from a recipe I found on here. He loves them so far. He has the occasional nut treat of almonds and pecans, one every 3 or 4 days. Things were going really well and he seemed to improve a bit from how he was outside. He has adapted to being around my boyfriend and me quite nicely, although, of course that did take some time and patience. He lets us pet him and love on him and he seems to like the attention and care. He still does that staring off into space thing I talked about earlier. I suspected they were some form of seizures, but I wasn't positive. So on the 11th of this month, he just started turning round and round in circles to the right all day and he couldn't stop himself from doing that. I took him to the vet that night because I knew that was serious. I thought maybe he somehow had an internal parasite in his brain. The vet does not know if that is what it is, but he started Jacob on Panacur for seven days. Jacob's x-rays were normal and his bones look good. He was diagnosed with Nystagmus. I have researched this thoroughly so I know now what it is. Jacob also has a bit of lung congestion due to him aspirating his food. I have no idea how or why he's aspirating his food because I watch him eat all the time and he never appeared to me to be aspirating his food. I asked the vet how I can help him to stop aspirating his food, and he said let's focus on these other things that are going wrong first. So Jacob was also started on Baytril for 14 days. He was also started on Metacam for 5 days. The 5 days are over for the Metacam doses. Jacob has shown tremendous improvemet. His head tilt has improved, the use of his back legs has improved, his balance was improved, and there is now no more circling around. Oh, and the vet also gave him a shot of Ivermectin on the 11th. Jacob had a follow up appointment on the 18th and then he has another one on the 24th. On the vet visit on the 18th I discussed that whole "spaced out" thing Jacob has always done and the vet agrees with me that they are seizures. I really, really wish I would have taken him to the vet when I rescued him, but I didn't. Things were going so well with him so I didn't think I needed to take him to the vet at the time. I really regret now not taking him. Because whatever is wrong with him may have gotten worse over the last 6 months. But I can't change the past. I can only do my best to take care of whatever is wrong with him now. And the vet did say on Jacob's last visit that he was surprised that Jacob had already improved as much as he has so far. So for the seizures and for pain the vet also started Jacob on Gabapentin for 7 days. On one hand Jacob's functioning has greatly improved due to the addition of the Gabapentin. On the other hand, it really knocks him for a loop. He gets kind of dazed ( different from the "spaced out" thing, though) and very sleepy. He goes back to bed and sleeps for about 4 hours. I also take Gabapentin for Fibromyalgia. When I first started taking it, the Gabapentin had the same effect on me. But after awhile I adjusted and it no longer effects me that way. Sorry this was such a long story. I just wanted everyone to have a full understanding of the whole story before I got to my questions. Will Jacob adjust to the Gabapentin like I did or will it always effect him the way it does? I haven't had a chance to ask the vet this yet, but I am wondering why the Gabapentin was only prescribed for 7 days. It is also my understanding that there is nothing that can be done to treat Nystagmus. Is that correct? Also, I am really, super worried about his food aspiration. How can I get him to stop doing that? Especially when I didn't even know he was doing it in the first place. If he keeps doing that his lungs are always going to be congested and he could get pneumonia. Also, since I have no idea what actually happened to Jacob out in the wild, the vet also suggested that, in addition to a possible fall, it could be that Jacob has some kind of brain disease that he was born with. Could that possibly be true? And, sadly, I know that nero squirrrels do not live as long as normal, healthy squirrrels. Does anyone know what the average lifespan is of neuro squirrrels is? I love him so much and I'm trying to do anything and everything I can for him. He needs help with eating too sometimes because sometimes he can't hold onto his food. He is a LOT of work, but so, so worth it and I cherish every moment he is alive and every moment I get to spend with him is such a blessing! Thank you so much for reading Jacob's story. Any help with my questions would be greatly appreciated!