Greetings to dear All!
Found a lone baby Chipmunk 3 weeks ago in an unoccupied house. It did not make any sound or any serious attempt to run away, so kept it on a window sill. When re-visited after about 6 hours it was still there; no screaming, so brought home. Reading various posts in this forum and articles from the web, its age is guesstimated to be about 5 weeks when found, making it approx. 8 weeks old now.
When unattended, it’s now housed in a 2 x 1 x 1 feet cage and we have no intention to restrict its life to such unnatural environment forever. But we have a few concerns which are listed below;
1. First day or so, it did not consume anything at all, but now drinks only and only “Ensure” Vanilla flavored milk. We tried fruits (Mango, Banana, Papaya) vegies (Carrots, Pumpkins, sweet-potatoes) both in pulped and solid form, bread crust, cookies, nuts etc., etc.
No way! not interested at all, just sniffs and licks; that’s all.
2. When a danger is sensed, it freezes rather than running to a hiding (that’s how we held it by hand the very first day); and our garden and surroundings are visited by all kinds of predators like stray cats, snakes, mongoose, raptor birds etc.; also, scores of other adult Chipmunks.
3. We live in Colombo, Sri Lanka; a tropical country - temperature about 26C-32C throughout the year. Despite such hot whether it loves to be curdled close to our bodies for warmth and perhaps, for security.
For all above reasons, we feel it is best to babysit the poor thing until it is at least 4 - 6 months old and until she makes up her mind to eat solids etc.,
My questions are;
Will continuous feeding of “Ensure” cause any long-term harm?
We cannot bring our hearts to let it starve on a “we give nothing until you eat solids !” kinda stance either, but could they go without consuming any solids forever?
Sorry for the long post, but We don’t have a variety of pet food / accessory stores, nor rehab centers to resort to as alternatives in our locality.
Thanking you in advance,
ViKARLL