Growing herbs and flowers for squirrels

[Newbiewnc]

Hi everyone. Hoping someone can offer advice here. It’s kinda looking more and more like my bobtail gray may be unreleased. She’s very healthy and extremely active but also very tame and a bit uh...spoiled I think. She’s turned her nose up at formula here at week eleven so I am giving her a teaspoon of organic full fat yogurt stonyfield brand. Should I sprinkle some formula powder in there too ? She’s eating two Henry blocks a day fresh vegetables some fruit like a banana slice or apple chunks. She loves sweet potatoes and is starting to nibble broccoli and radishes. Not big on greens but she’ll eat them last. At nite I give her a tablespoon of mixed rodent chow fiesta blend or half a pecan for a treat. I pick the corn and peanuts out of f the fiesta blend so it’s mostly sunflower seeds and the rodent nuggets. Every couple days I give her a Timothy biscuits instead of the fiesta. These are her evening treats after she eats her good stuff. I would like to grow some flowers or herbs that she could eat. I pick dandelion and white clover for her every few days and we also have zucchini and cukes and butternut in our garden we can feed her. Seems most articles about squirrels and plants involve how to keep squirrels out. I am an herbalist by trade and love the thought of giving her natural goodies. When we rescued her we had no idea the extent of her injuries for a few weeks and I had planned to release her when she was big. Now with a missing tail and no fur on her nub and only a partial back pinky toe I’m not feeling to good about putting her out there...so if we are gonna be her parents then I want her to have the best possible life with lots of play and good nutrition as well as continue to spoil her in a healthy way. Surely some of the awesome squirrel folks here have ideas and I’d love to learn about this. Thank you

[CritterMom]

I addressed some of this on your other post in the Calcium to Phosphorus thread. You are doing pretty well other than the sunflower seeds - pick those out as well.

Herbs are likely a little problematic just because they are so strongly flavored and scented. Mints are actually used to REPEL rodents! So she may not like herbs but yes to flowers. Any flowers that are edible to humans are okay - like nasturtiums. Roses and rose hips are very popular, as are hibiscus flowers. Since this is your thing I am sure you know to never ever ever feed commercially grown florist or supermarket flowers - they have as many pesticides on them as the average Superfund site. But things you grow yourself are fine and likely to be appreciated.

[Newbiewnc]

Great! Thank you. I’ll check the other thread too.
No sunflower seeds and amen to no commercially grown flowers...or herbs for that matter.

[Newbiewnc]

So excited! I just put my little girl out on the deck for some sun and fresh air and natural sounds. This is her first time outside ever. Well since she was about three weeks old and we found her. I’m a nervous mom for some silly reason watching from the kitchen window but she’s great. She’s in a 25”x25x52” cage with branches to climb up and down on and pine needles on the bottom to potty in. She’s not scared at all of the new sounds. It’s a little windy and about 56-58 degrees. A nice day for this. I’m gonna leave her out a while and check on her occasionally. She ate her lunch, drank a little water, did some exploring and now is napping in her blanket. I’m a real happy momma right now!!!!

[Abbi's Mama]

I may need to post this separately, but figured it fit in this thread and wanted to ask.
Can squirrels eat petunias? I've read that people aren't supposed to, but they're not toxic to other animals. I have 2 potted plants outside and just got curious about them today.
314832

[Newbiewnc]

Hi there. Our German shorthair pointers think petunias are chocolate chips! My boy eats them right off the plant not even waiting for me to deadhead. I asked our vet and he said they are perfectly safe. They are also safe for people to eat. They are kinda sweet. In an earlier post a member advised me that if it’s a flower safe for people then our squirrels can eat it as well. The Henry’s page has a really nice food chart and you may find petunias listed there. I know I always feel better when I actually see it specifically written.

[CritterMom]

Yes - my rule of thumb is that is something is toxic to ANY LIVING THING I do not let my animals have it. I don't see anything about petunias being anything but safe.

However, the other thing I do is give only a very small amount at first, so don't dump a whole flower in there - just give a small bi and make sure everything is okay.

[Abbi's Mama]

I was really curious because I'd also read that Petunias are in the nightshade family, and that people shouldn't eat them. Which didn't make sense if they were saying that other animals could (I mean, if it being in the nightshade family would affect humans, I'd assume it would affect other animals).
Abbi is 6 now and I've always tried to give her nice little natural treats (like buds off the trees and stuff), but this is the first year I've had Petunias and I got curious as I was plucking the dead ones off yesterday lol I definitely wouldn't want to give her anything that would hurt her.

[Chirps]

I may need to post this separately, but figured it fit in this thread and wanted to ask.
Can squirrels eat petunias? I've read that people aren't supposed to, but they're not toxic to other animals. I have 2 potted plants outside and just got curious about them today.
314832
According to this screen capture squirrels eat them, but how accurate is the source? :dono

From personal experience with petunias and hanging baskets my squirrels seem more interested in uprooting the petunias to stash a treasure and the petunias dry out, have roots broken etc. I haven't noticed them eating them.

[Chirps]

I was really curious because I'd also read that Petunias are in the nightshade family, and that people shouldn't eat them. Which didn't make sense if they were saying that other animals could (I mean, if it being in the nightshade family would affect humans, I'd assume it would affect other animals).
Abbi is 6 now and I've always tried to give her nice little natural treats (like buds off the trees and stuff), but this is the first year I've had Petunias and I got curious as I was plucking the dead ones off yesterday lol I definitely wouldn't want to give her anything that would hurt her.

Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are also in the nightshade family. And you know the deadly nightshade, that looks like a tiny tomato, grows like a vine or can be freestanding if it sprouts where there's nothing to climb, has purple flowers that look like tomato flowers, supposed to taste sweet but is poisonous? When I was a kid it always seemed like one would grow up along the wire of the chicken pen. The chickens loved them! But poison to us. (Haven't seen them in years so never had the chance to observe whether squirrels eat them or not, but I wouldn't chance it.)

We really can't compare us to animals since they can eat things we can't and vice versa, but like CritterMom said best to err on the side of caution.

[Lighten-Up]

I just saw this thread and will mention a few things that I have noticed in relation to herbs. I have a baby squirrel now getting ready for release.

When I first got him, I found that the squirrel would run away from me when I first went near him. I quickly realized that I was washing my hands with Dr. Bronners Peppermint soap. I stopped this immediately and got Dr. Bronners Lavender soap. The squirrel was fine with me. I realized that peppermint is a squirrel deterrent for sure.

Long story, but I pretty much raised my guy in the large RC I have, because I had no other place that was safe for him. It was room sized and it worked very well. I spent lots of time with him in the outdoor room, and began to get bitten by mosquitos, so I began bringing in springs of lemon balm for myself. They would dry out and litter the floor. One day I saw him picking up the dried lemon balm and eating them? Not long after that he developed a cough. I don't think he got the cough from the lemon balm, I am wondering if he was trying to self medicate for a problem he was developing? He ate pieces of the lemon balm every day. The cough got worse quickly and he started sneezing. I immediately gave him homeopathy for the cough/upper-respiratory, and in one day the cough stopped and never came back. I decided to offer feverfew flowers and he ate them for two days then didn't want any more. The sneezes got less and less every day until they were soft normal things and I stopped the homeopathy. And I noticed that he no longer wanted the lemon balm.

I am fascinated with the idea of herbs for squirrels, I am on a learning path of understanding herbalism for myself, and so I was observing all of this with great care and interest. For what it is worth, those were my experiences.