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Thread: General help; male and female 11 weeks

  1. #1
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    Default General help; male and female 11 weeks

    I have a lot of questions. I only raised a single baby girl a few years back and she was released easily and stayed pretty wild. She was already big and opened her eyes the day after I got her. Now I have a baby girl, Rhea, who I got as a pinkie with the unbiblical scab and everything, only had fur on her nose. Later, I got a boy, Ren, and he was big, opened his eyes within days of getting him. I guess 4-5 weeks? He is starting to get very forceful, not really aggressive per se, but Rhea cries when he tries to play with her and he mounts her! He takes food from her and she runs from him, but sometimes they play together just fine and she sleeps with him at night usually. I sleep in the room with them, they don't have a cage. She comes and sleeps in the bed with me if he bothers her since he can be up late trying to play and bothers me too. He plays rough with me and I try to get him to be more gentle, but he doesn't respond to my or Rhea's squeaking. He's pretty wild and only acts tame when he's ready to cuddle and sleep. Is it safe for Rhea to be with him? I don't want her to be alone, but if he bullies her is it better to separate them? Will she get tough? I am afraid I babied her too much since she was so small and I never had a baby that young. I fed her every 1-2 hours around the clock and barely slept at all for the first two weeks. I didn't want her to be lonely and I didn't have a heating pad, so I ended up keeping her on my belly literally 24/7 until she was about 4-5 weeks and Ren came along. Her eyes were open then and I got the heating pad and put them together. They were fine and had no problems until now that he's bigger and acting up. Rhea is very docile and runs to me for safety and always wants to be on me or in my clothes. She's very gentle and responds to being squeaked at. She seems to like Ren, but gets tired of his crap.

    Can he get her pregnant ?! His balls haven't dropped yet, I'm pretty sure he is the same age as Rhea, but maybe a little older? He was badly dehydrated and super skinny when I got him, so it was hard to tell.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: General help; male and female 11 weeks

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  3. #3
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    Default Re: General help; male and female 11 weeks

    I have them in the laundry room with a cat tree and my bed. I have had the window open since the start of October and they are acclimated to the weather. Recently, I set it up so they can go outside if they want, but now I've been told they don't need to go out and I don't know how to stop them at this point. If I leave the window closed, I'm afraid it will be too musty and if I close the screen I am afraid they will just tear through it... I can go get some hardware cloth and out that over the screen, but is it really that bad for them to explore outside right now?

  4. #4
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    Default Re: General help; male and female 11 weeks

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    Okay, so I just fixed the going outside issue. First pic is how it was, second is fixed so they can't get out, but still get fresh air.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: General help; male and female 11 weeks

    1) Yes, it is really "that bad" for squirrels this age to be exploring outdoors... not "that bad" but much worse.

    2) "Humping" is normal play activity for squirrels and a way of establishing the hierarchy; they are not having sex at this age.

    3) Bullying can be a huge problem and if the bullying represents a physical danger or the dominate squirrel is absolutely preventing the other from eating, they'll need to be separated. Sometimes a dominate squirrel will be the first to rummage through the food bowl to get prime pickings of what they want for their first "bite / bit" of food but once they have made their choice they should not be aggressive at all about allowing less dominate squirrels to get a piece of food from the bowl. However, if the dominant squirrel is aggressive in protecting the food bowl and preventing others from getting to it until they have had their fill to eat, that is a problem.

  6. Serious fuzzy thank you's to Spanky from:

    SquirrelDad (11-03-2018)

  7. #6
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    Default Re: General help; male and female 11 weeks

    Quote Originally Posted by Spanky View Post
    1) Yes, it is really "that bad" for squirrels this age to be exploring outdoors... not "that bad" but much worse.

    2) "Humping" is normal play activity for squirrels and a way of establishing the hierarchy; they are not having sex at this age.

    3) Bullying can be a huge problem and if the bullying represents a physical danger or the dominate squirrel is absolutely preventing the other from eating, they'll need to be separated. Sometimes a dominate squirrel will be the first to rummage through the food bowl to get prime pickings of what they want for their first "bite / bit" of food but once they have made their choice they should not be aggressive at all about allowing less dominate squirrels to get a piece of food from the bowl. However, if the dominant squirrel is aggressive in protecting the food bowl and preventing others from getting to it until they have had their fill to eat, that is a problem.
    Thank you for the reply. He's not super aggressive, just a little rough and takes food out of her mouth, but he does let her eat after he does it. I'm relieved they won't have sex, I didn't think they would, but I was nervous. They won't go back outside until the spring.

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