Is this calcium deficiency?

[Purplefish47]

Link to video below.

We have a really, really picky 1-year-old male squirrel.
He runs laps around our house every morning for hours and then lately he's been doing this head rolling back thing a bit. We always follow it up with giving him yogurt, kitten milk, or a Tums piece (anything with calcium) and it seems to reside. He won't touch his squirrel blocks (we have Henry's picky swuirrel blocks ordered), loves all nuts, lettuce & apple, sometimes carrot. Besides that he's picky picky picky.

Does this look like calcium deficiency head nod to you?


http://photos.app.goo.gl/F6djB68xYevR8gVE6

[Purplefish47]

Anyone? 🙏

[Spanky]

If his diet does not include a high quality rodent block it is almost certain he has MBD. I'd start the emergency MBD protocol, it cannot hurt and more likely will help.
Emergency Treatment for MBD (Updated 3/31/09) (http://thesquirrelboard.com/forums/showthread.php?17680-Emergency-Treatment-for-MBD-(Updated-3-31-09))

He will eat the block before he will starve himself to death, but it seems his humans make it too easy for him to eat junk. Just like a human child that learns they can eat their less than healthy desert even if they don't eat there healthy dinner, soon they'll be eating mostly dinner and soon have health issues.

Nuts are very bad, like cotton candy for a human baby. Stop all nuts per the protocol.

The difficult path is not establishing rodent block in their diet as youngsters... it will take months to reverse the MBD and that long to adjust his diet making rodent block the foundation.

[CritterMom]

Every single time you give him nuts you are cancelling out a big chunk of the calcium you are giving him.

I do not know if the head thing is associated with calcium, we have not seen that in the past, but with the diet described, he is absolutely low in calcium. For now, stop feeding him nuts PERIOD. Then go back to Henry's site and read this: https://www.henryspets.com/what-is-metabolic-bone-disease/ and at the very bottom of the page is a link to the emergency treatment of MBD which you should read and follow. If his delicious nuts are not there anymore, but he has the quite tasty Henry's blocks which are made with nuts (it is supplemented to counteract the "bad" effect of the nuts) he will likely eat them. As long as you don't cave!

His head...that behavior is often referred to as "stargazing." I have seen wilds that were so bad that after the head was straight up it looked like it pulled them up and up until they were on their tiptoes on their hind legs and then finally fell over backward. He has a very slight case. Is there a chance that he fell off of something or slammed into a wall while racing around the house? It is usually due to a head injury.

[Charley Chuckles]

I hope others agree if not I hope they will correct me but can you crush up the HHB possibly add a small amount of yogurt or baby food or both. Roll in pieces, even try freezing them and hand out either cold or semi defrosted. I've had to do this with some picky eaters.
Also yes stop all nuts/ corn and personally even months LATER WHEN he's back to normal I'd be very cautious about giving anymore, in the RARE event shake them in Henry's calcium.
I'm praying for your baby MBD can come on gradually that we don't even notice or can't put our finger on it, it can also come on fast and it's scary but if treated immediately and with much patience it is curable 👍
Not sure anyone said this but they can fall and break bones so it's wise to keep him in a location that can't happen at least till you know what's happening and he improves 🙏
I've also use the calcium powder and sprinkle on food.

[Purplefish47]

He has squirrel blocks he just won't eat them and he does unfortunately starve himself when we take away the nuts completely, he got very skinny when we did that the last time and started losing patches of fur too.
As said above, we have Henry's "picky" blocks ordered but they take a good few weeks to get to us.

We already know in detail about MBD and about the Henry's link to the protocol to it :)
We coat his fruits/veggies in calcium carbonate powder as well.

He had some Tums crushed in water and some yogurt (we do this for him every day since he's so picky) and is back to being completely normal. We just hadn't seen him do this head tilt thing since we found him as a very injured baby!
(Maybe it wasn't even calcium this time after all, maybe he did just bonk his head on something like someone else here suggested).

Thanks as always!

[CritterMom]

Wait... "very injured baby." Can you give more detail here? Where and how was he injured?

[Charley Chuckles]

Wait... "very injured baby." Can you give more detail here? Where and how was he injured?

In the video his head keeps moving up/ back in an unusual manner.
Possibly if he hit his head this could be why🤷
My Willy did that and Dr Emerson put him on steroids and it worked👍
Ok I just reread and saw the part about finding him as injured.

[Tuff]

In my unprofessional opinion this does look like something neurological. But with MBD it can start with seizures and to me this looks seizure ish. Check and see what his eyeballs are doing during these episodes. Are they twitching?? It still can be MBD because it can cause seizures. Doing the MBD protocol is not a one and done. It’s not a race until he is acting and behaving normal again. It is a marathon. If you do not correct his diet you will kill him js. I’m not trying to be harsh but those are the facts.