Looking for advice and rehabber in LA/N.Hollywood area
Or thereabouts!
Hi, everyone - first let me say how amazing this board is!
I stumbled upon these forums the night of 1 May when I rescued a young squirrel from the roof of my garage. It's quite an amazing story; really - we have a massive feral cat problem. My roommates run a rescue out of our home and try to catch, spay/neuter, and release as many as they can, and try hard to find and adopt out as many kittens as possible. Well, several of the cats had this little guy pretty well cornered, and I spent the better part of the afternoon and early evening defending him and trying to help him by chasing the cats off, building bridges of sticks and things between rooftops of my garage and neighbor's house, and then going back inside and staying out of sight while I watched. His mama was nowhere in sight and never appeared.
Just the day before, I spent about six hours rescuing a very young squirrel indeed from the tree next to the garage, and his mama never left him, even when I was out there chasing off the cats. We did manage to help them to safety by making a bridge from the tree to the roof, by which the mama finally convinced the baby to escape. Before that, she'd leapt from roof to tree, then from branch to roof, showing the baby how to go - he was terrified and too young for the jump, and she did this probably three dozen times, and never left him for more than five minutes at a time. Then the next day, I find young Squeaky here.
I put him at about 6-8 weeks, perhaps a wee bit older. I can't get a good pic of him yet because he's quite shy even though he does overcome that to chatter at me through the bars of the carrier he's in!
He was trapped on the roof, and looked totally lost. As I said, mama never showed after several hours. Finally the sun was setting and I could tell he was exhausted and panicked and terrified. He began scrambling over to the part of the roof nearest where I was standing, and then hunkering down either in the gutter or on the edge, unmoving. His nose had been bloodied earlier in the day, but no active bleeding was observed.
I was standing there wondering how, exactly, I was going to convince a squirrel to trust me and went around to the backyard to watch what he was doing, when two of the ferals leapt up on our wooden fence and started to stalk him. I ran forward, yelling, they ran off, and Squeaky dodged up under the garage eaves. Then I walked over to my patio and to my astonishment Squeaky came tearing across the yard and jumped up on our air kennel and sat right next to me, nearly touching me, and did not move. I called to my roommate to bring a cage quickly; she did, and I tapped the opening, showing it to him - and you could have knocked me down with a breath when he actually jumped into the cage.
I shut the door and he did NOT like that, but my plan was quick and I released him over on the next roof, close to a palm tree we know to be a main squirrel conduit. To my dismay, he just ran over to the other corner of the roof, only to be confronted again by one of the ferals who was particularly determined to nab him. I chased her off and Squeaky ran over to me, squatted on the fence, and did not move. My neighbor came out and caught him while my roommate fixed up a kitty carrier with soft cloths and he's been on my desk ever since.
I have been insanely busy with work or I'd have written sooner; but I do rat rescue myself and so am familiar with the small ones and rescues and what the general guidelines are, as well as how to recognize a number of potential problems. I researched squirrel-specific rescue care, concerning what the absolute basics were and in the meantime started him on Pedialyte just in case, though he was very active when I had caught him. I still didnt know when he'd eaten last, given mama's absence. The next day I gave him some Esbilac and he ate like a starving thing. I got a closer look at him and he was rail thin. He ate well every four-six hours, slept a whole lot, and just looked weary to death. Not once has he shown any sign of aggression toward me, though now he's getting a little impatient with the carrier, I'm betting. I know I would be! Well, aside from keeping an eye on him, chatting to him once in a while, and giving him a once over to make sure there were no obvious injuries that required immediate medical care, I let him be so he could get his rest, and when he's more active and at the bars, I talk or sing to him. He chatters at me and occasionally grinds his teeth. I hope that's positive behaviour for squirrels; in rats, grinding teeth is called "bruxing" and it means theyre very content and happy!
Last night he began strongly rejecting the formula, which is why he may be older than I thought at first, but he is eating the veggies I put in there for him. I was worried about his food intake but I have since caught him nibbling and right now he's munching away, under cover of darkness - he won't eat while the door is uncovered, but if I hear him moving around I try to take an unobstrusive peek at what he's up to, and I've spied him nibbling or downright munching away.
I do not want to release him back into this neighborhood. I am looking for a rehabber who has the means and availability to just introduce this little darling into a squirrel-friendly area. He's a wild thing and he should be pretty healthy - I can give any rehabber info on what I've observed there - so the reintroduction shouldnt be too harried; he'll just have to get used to his new territory, I think. The idea of putting him back into an environment with all these cats makes my blood run cold.
I am very, very much hoping that I can get in touch with someone near(ish) to me so that we can release Squeaky back into his own world, and give him a safer existence than he would ever know here, even though I will miss him.
If someone can contact me either here or via my email (available through my profile), I would be profoundly grateful.
In the meantime, any suggestions on how I can make absolutely sure he is getting the proper nutritional requirements will be most welcome. I am supplying him with a constant stream of vegetables such as broccoli, zucchini, squash, red pepper, carrot, small pieces of avocado, he got a little apple today, the Esbilac until about 9:00 Thursday night, when he began flatly rejecting it, a little Odwalla Superfood beverage, I have rat blocks in there (which I dont think he's touched), I still offer him formula every few hours (not interested), I have a wooden chew in there, I have a bottle of water on the door of his carrier and I believe I heard him drinking from it (he doesnt appear dehydrated, and is eating and now has a rounder belly), he's urinated but I have only seen very very very tiny, horrible, shriveled-looking stools from him (which is probably due to his extreme lack of nourishment before I managed to nab him myself), he's bright-eyed, chattery, active, doesnt appear injured, and all round seems to be pretty much okay now that he's recovering from his ordeal. One thing I wanted to know: can / should he have grains, like oats? How about baby rice cereal?
I'm so sorry that this is so very long, especially for my first post, but I'm very tired and wanted to get as much info as I remembered down here that I thought anyone would need, so you'd know ahead of time what the situation is and can advise me more coherently. This is not for me; this is all for Squeaky, and I would love to hear your suggestions as to how I can help him thrive and be happy until we find a new place for him to live. We have limited space, but not limited love. He will get the best of care I can possibly provide - if you good people will consent to assist me.
Thank you so much for everything that you ALL do. Just reading these forums made me feel good. You're all just fantastic, wonderful people.
Take care. I look forward to hearing from any rehabber that can offer Squeaky relocation assistance!
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Re: Looking for advice and rehabber in LA/N.Hollywood area
Welcome to the board. You've done your research well and thank you for helping the squirrels. There are a couple of great rehabbers online and one of them should be seeing this post soon.
I'll definitely keep you guys posted!
That's great news! -- so glad you were able to find a rehabber to help you (we are not having as good luck on the East Coast this weekend 
). It sounds like he will have a very nice new home and some pals as well! 
