Eye injury infected in wild eastern gray squirrel

[abuelitastic]

Hello! I have a wild female eastern gray squirrel that is 2-3 years old who visits my backyard frequently. Over the years she's become friendly enough with me that she isn't scared of me and will take nuts and fruits from me from time to time.

About 2 weeks ago, I noticed some lesions near/around her left eye. It caused some slight swelling but she seemed very normal and wasn't scratching at it or anything. But this past week, it's gotten much worse. Her eye is clouded over and the swelling grew a lot where she looked like she was squinting. When I saw her today, she is totally blind in that eye. She sat with her bad eye facing me -- good eye out facing the yard -- and I waved my fingers slightly about a foot from her eye and she didn't budge, but this normally would have made her move away from me.

Her bad eye is completely white and her eyelids are very swollen and seem to be seeping a little discharge.. it's clearly infected.

Is there something I can offer her to help with this infection? She may be a nursing mom right now (I see her take food directly to the tree where I think her den is) and I'm worried about transporting her somewhere because of the harm of the stress that'll put on her as well as possibly leaving her babies alone. I am in Ohio and the temperatures are rather cold.

Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you!

[island rehabber]

Poor girlie. If you could post a picture of that bad eye it would help a lot. One common eye injury in squirrels is an ulcerated cornea -- as they rush through the trees they sometimes get hit with a branch or something else sharp in the eye and that becomes infected. If that's the case and you can get close enough to her to drop some eye drops into that eye it will really help I have cured ulcerated corneas like this with two or three days of drops. If you don't think you can get the drops in her ( terramycin is most often prescribed) you could try giving her a course of antibiotics with each dose on a half of Walnut or pecan. Bactrim or SMZ/TMP are very good for this if you don't have a vet who would cooperate ask around with friends and family who might have dogs or cats; both meds are very commonly prescribed and people tend to keep the old medicine.

[Diggie's Friend]

Question, is there also any significant fur loss?

[abuelitastic]

Thank you all! She is not showing signs of any fur loss and looks very healthy despite her eye. Attached are two photos. The first (the close up of her sitting with a pile of walnut pieces) was taken Wednesday, Jan 24th and the second (where she is taking a walnut from my hand) is from Monday this week (Jan 29th)-- sorry it is upside down, I cannot fix that. We have a local wildlife center where I can call and ask about possibly obtaining eye drops for her, but we will see if she'll let me get that close more than once. She still has a healthy appetite from what I have observed though her behavior is a little more nervous than usual (for good reason).

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