I have a previous post that talks about all my releases from 2012 and then Holly in July 2017. In July 2017, I released a female squirrel named Holly in my release cage for a friend that lived in the city. Holly was born in February of 2017. She is kind of a mean squirrel, but she has bonded with me and she has never really went very far from our home. I shouldn't say she is mean, but kinda bitchy . She is destructive, although she is a bit better, she totally destroyed the release cage . She has now made her nest in the log my husband made that is in the release cage - I don't lock up the release cage so all squirrels are able to come and go as they please.
She had her first litter in February of 2018. She had five babies! Which I thought was a lot, especially for her first litter. All the babies were born without ears, or partial ears. She nested in our wood pile by the house, so they all lived in there until they got older. Two of them had no ears, two of them had only one ear and then one had both ears, but very small. These photos were taken in May of 2018.
She had babies each season, but never as many as she did for her first litter. Her ears are totally fine, here is a photo of Holly. These were taken in Nov 2019.
This year, I only saw two babies. Not sure when they were born, but they have become friendly with me so they are around the home a lot. Here are some recent photos of one of them.
Other than the weird thing about their ears, they appear perfectly fine and healthy. I just find this so strange that every litter Holly has have no ears or partial ears. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? Any ideas of why this is?
Thanks.