Hi ladies,

well, I believe it is confirmed that some of my back yard squirrels have mange. I have now seen about 4 of them with missing fur all to varying degrees. the worst one is one I saw this morning, poor little guy. from his head to his mid-section he has no hair and his skin looks really crinkled and pink. One of the other ones has it only on the inside of his arms and on his chest some. You can only see it when he stands up. I also have the original guy the one I posted in a picture. it looks like he may be growing a little of the fur back, but it is hard to tell. Sometimes it is hard to tell some of them apart, except for the one that has the dramatic hair loss.

I spoke to a person at an exotic animal hospital today. She said that yes, it is likely mange. I was worried that maybe by me feeding them that this is was how they were spreading it to one another, but she said no, she said that they burrow together in the nest at night during the winter and that is how it is spread from one to the other. She said that as far as using the Ivermectin, well she said that since I have quite a few with the mange, it is hard to tell one from the other and you have to be very careful in order not to double dose a squirrel or you could kill him. Poor little guys, I feel so bad for them. I orderd the Ivermectin so I am waiting for it to come. I am not sure what to do. My biggest fear is one the little guys having a bad reaction to the ivermectin. If that happened, I could not help him or get him to a vet since he is wild. Any suggestions?? Thanks.