Brand new squirrel rescuer here! What an amazing new world this is! 🐿️

[June29,2023]

A nice lady begged me to rescue a five week old, baby squirrel, who was dehydrated, emaciated, not doing well at all. I’ve had him for one week. he’s doing great! I’ve learned a lot, but I still feel like I need so much more information. If Teklad pellets don’t get here for a week, can I feed another brand of squirrel pellets? Who sells them? Do you have any recommendations for squirrel pellets that I can feed him in the meantime? He’s 6 weeks old. 106 grams and he’s starting to chew on everything. He’s only had the goat milk/plain yogurt/heavy cream/egg yolk milk combination. I just received the Fox Valley milk and will begin to introduce that to his diet today. I feel like he just woke up today and he’s so curious. He’s adorable! 🐿️

[CritterMom]

Welcome to the world of squirrel insanity. You will learn so much about them and how crazy smart they are from watching your baby.

Go very slowly when introducing the Fox Valley. I hope you got the 20/50. It is a much richer food so you need to introduce it slowly to give his digestion a chance to accept it. Mix a tiny batch to the normal strength (2 parts water to 1 part powder). Also mix up some of your goats milk formula. Then take a small amount of the goats milk out and replace it with the same amount of the mixed FV. Feed that mix for 3 or 4 feedings, and then replace a little more of the goats milk with FV and do the same. I would spend 2 days at least switching formulas. It is a pain and everyone wants to rush it but boy that can go really badly. You really can't do this TOO slowly and having him come through transitioning to the new stuff with flying colors is worth is. Like all formulas, mix up fresh each day. You will want to mix the FV at least several hours before using it and keep stirring it.

I would very strongly urge you to start him weaning on these: https://www.henryspets.com/squirrel-blocks/ They are very different than the commercially available blocks like Teklad (which many of us ALSO feed). They are "supplement blocks." For an average 1-1.5 pound adult, 2 of these will provide ALL of the vitamins and minerals they need, and if supplemented with healthy fresh veggies and occasional fruits and even some treats it provides a complete diet mostly free of one of your big worries. In addition, they are designed to be TASTY. They have a new flavor - the Walnut - and you can bet several bags of those will be in my next order! We shorthand this food as "HHBs" - Henry's Healthy Bites. BTW, they have NO preservatives, so store them in the freezer, taking out just the number you will feed through the day, and go through and remove any stashed in the enclosure each day, because they WILL go bad. I supplement with the Teklad, which are not NEARLY as yummy, because they are so hard they do a dandy job keeping their teeth ground down to the correct length.

You have such fun ahead! They are magical. Prepare yourself. You will never be the same again. Trust me...