I too am in a similar situation with 2 little boys that came to me around Labor Day. They were approx 6-8 weeks old at that time, so now they are approx 12-14 weeks old. They have never been "friendly" and they have always HATED me...chattering, swatting, tail flicking, etc. and even a few good hard bites to my hands.
I am in an area that gets much more of "winter" than NC or VA and maybe slightly less than NY. It does go into the 20's for a high during the day, so it's COLD and we have been known to gets LOTS of snow. From everything I have been reading related to the type of winter we are supposed to have...it will be slow arriving, but after it gets here it will be a "bad" one.
These 2 are currently in the release cage (2 nights and 3 days so far). We still have lots of leaves on the trees but they are starting to fall quicker and quicker.
The things I have been wondering...
- Do they already have their winter coats? (in comparison to the wilds, their coats look thin to me)
- Their tails look much thinner than the rest of the wilds, will they be able to stay warm enough?
- Would they have a better chance of "making it" if I over winter them IN the release cage?
- Since they are so young and males, I would fully expect them to be chased off so my efforts of feeding all winter (if they are released) would not guarantee that they would get any, right?
- The nest box in the release cage has been filled with Polyfill and some fleece and they have many branches with leaves (maple, oak & pine) in the release cage (RC)...if over wintered in the RC will I need to provide an additional heat source for them?
- The RC was built for "summer" use so there are no solid sides or top (all hardware cloth), if they would stay in the RC for the winter I would make some modifications to the RC (add a sloped solid roof and at least 2 partially solid sides) so they would have at least some protection from the frigid howling winds we get...would this be enough?
I am really torn with these two. Since they have been in the release cage, this morning is the FIRST time I have actually seen them out of the nest box and they appeared to be very scared, but I was delivering avocado, HHB's & nuts in their breakfast, so they could not resist.