Wild squirrels having trouble eating, throwing head back and looking upward

[Lescaret]

I feed squirrels and birds at my urban home which is surrounded by large old trees. We have quite a squirrel population; I've seen upwards of a dozen gathering and eating the nuts and birdseed I toss out. I began noticing that one squirrel seemed a little mangy, was missing fur. But more importantly, I noticed that he was having trouble eating; he would take a nut in his mouth, then rear his head back as if he had to do that to swallow. He would chew and sometimes even skitter around in a circle with his head up apparently trying to chew and swallow. We dubbed him "Coyote" because when eating, he raises his head up and it looks like he's howling at the moon.

Lately, I've noticed another squirrel eating in the same awkward way.

Does anyone have any idea what's wrong with them? I've searched through a lot of the posts for the specific diseases & conditions. I thought perhaps it was a malocclusions problem but I didn't seen anyone describing this eating behavior in any of the threads I looked at.

[TubeDriver]

Can you get photos of his teeth? video of this behavior? Two possibilities that come to mind are 1) maloccusions or 2) neuro symptoms with a wide range of possibly causes including head trauma, baylisascaris etc etc




I feed squirrels and birds at my urban home which is surrounded by large old trees. We have quite a squirrel population; I've seen upwards of a dozen gathering and eating the nuts and birdseed I toss out. I began noticing that one squirrel seemed a little mangy, was missing fur. But more importantly, I noticed that he was having trouble eating; he would take a nut in his mouth, then rear his head back as if he had to do that to swallow. He would chew and sometimes even skitter around in a circle with his head up apparently trying to chew and swallow. We dubbed him "Coyote" because when eating, he raises his head up and it looks like he's howling at the moon.

Lately, I've noticed another squirrel eating in the same awkward way.

Does anyone have any idea what's wrong with them? I've searched through a lot of the posts for the specific diseases & conditions. I thought perhaps it was a malocclusions problem but I didn't seen anyone describing this eating behavior in any of the threads I looked at.

[Lescaret]

I will try and get some video of this behavior and post it. Probably not going to get close enough to see the teeth. I can say that I've seen the two front teeth but I haven't seen any other teeth. I actually wondered whether it was missing the rest of its teeth, I imagined it was trying to gum the nut into pieces to swallow. Certainly can't confirm that, though.