Originally Posted by
BigNibbler
Thank you Sam for that INFORMATION PACKED minute!
My squirrel is 9.5 to 10 years old.
She has always had slight rear leg difficulties since a dog broke them when she was about five months old.
She would often walk more like like a rabbit. And she was always slightly lighter than well fed squirrels.
I have had her since January of 2014. She had a tremendous fear of other squirrels, that took her many years to overcome.
After her finally making friends with a neuro that I rescued... and them being friends for some years, she experienced a tail bite attack from him,
because as he aged he would compensate for lessening mobility by biting.
She has had a very full life including a few litters of babies. And gets a lot of sunshine and healthy blocks.
When she was about 8 years old, I thought she was ten and figured she did not have that much longer.
I decided that quality of life trumped longevity.
She and I would go for long walks together ( harnessed ) , and she would want to bury lots of nuts.
It was her mission to makes sure she invested in her future!
Of course after working so hard to bury nearly ten nuts - she seemed like she was expecting I could conjure them up as needed.
Yes she would remember most of them, and when given the chance she would search, check and often find them.
But she was reluctant to eat them, while we walked. She preferred doing so after fully grooming and being able to sit down - at one of her dining spaces, indoors.
THAT is when she would look to me for nuts.
Anyway, as she was getting on in age, I figured she should be able to enjoy her remaining days, and so I would loosen my lock on the nuts I gave her.
Hazelnuts were her drug of choice last year and while I would clamp down a month here or there, after feelings of overgenerosity, some months she probably consumed 5-8 nuts a day.
Always along with HHB and high calcium foods.
There was a period where I noticed the beginning of a slight balance issue, and so cut off all nuts entirely and started saturating her food with Calcium after first forcing a few tums early on.
But with the warm summer last year and her becoming so well trained in our walks to stay off of private lawns, not climb any trees, and immediate stop when I said "NO!" I would take her out on the house lawn ( always harnessed ),
where she would not only find her own buried treasures but also those that my wild friends had saved. And THOSE were a LOT! She was happy and seemed healthy being able to run at my maximum speed for three plus blocks at a time.
Then this past November she got a UTI, and responded well to Baytril. But simultaneously was having serious balance issues, when grooming, eating, sitting up, etc.
One or the other of her hind legs would often collapse from under her. And soon she was dragging to the point I had to Vaseline the fronts of her legs to prevent fur loss and scabbing.
There are days now, she seems more perky and high-haunched. I have been experimenting with a variety of delivery methods for calcium citrate which I decided is far more acceptable than carbonate.
I make a mix of ingredients to provide magnesium and Calcium and she really does love those balls I make. But it is hard to evaluate how much and how widely spread out over the day she eats them.
Invariably to have any chance of consuming sufficient calcium, runs the risk of having far too much than could be metabolized, or not adversely affect her in other ways.
She still eats at least two HHB, and lettuce, as well as a lot of Butternut Squash seeds ( have never been able to find the Nutritional Data for those! )
Daily she has some of the following too: Cooked/Raw Butternut Squash, Kale, Spinach, Honey Crackers, Empire Apple, and often the ubiquitous Harlad Teklad 2018 that she was raised on.
She has for much of her life, NOT been caged and knows many rooms here. She used to always run up and down the stairs, but stopped doing so in November.
I built "pee pads" both in her "cave" as well as strategically about. It is humbling to see how hard she works to get to one of those as she - now- on in years is peeing more often.
I have created ramps for the room she is in, so that she can go from her "cave" to the other side of the room where she loves to look out the window.
Just as she loves looking about - up and down this and that street, as I carry her nowadays, rather than her balancing skillfully on my shoulder.
And I have three LED UVB lamps strategically placed to light her, over the gloomy winter. But I am resuming her outdoor walks.
Sadly, there are days that I don't harness her anymore because we both know that she does not need to be restrained.
Both personally and as a rehabber, I strongly believe that life's quality far outweighs length. I don't want to force her to live one day more than she enjoys being alive.
Bottom line is - at her age, are MBD symptoms possible to reverse without taxing her kidneys too far?
She feels and behaves best when she is 550 to 580 grams. But lately she is around 520, and feels more like a bag of bones.
THAT is why I am considering Batata. She would eat that, and it could help her gain a bit of weight. I would have to watch that she continues to eat the other stuff.
BUT I would not want to find out that the Yam actually had sabotaged all our joint efforts.
One last thing, on days after I am sure that she has consumed a lot of calcium, it certainly seems that she has better muscle tone and walks higher up with more gusto.
Balance does not seem to improve much even on those days.
Still, daily I question if I should wake her from her peaceful slumber to get her to eat, not always with success, or just to let her remain as close to a vision of heaven anyone will ever get!
Anyway... is this the end of the line for her... or could it be a new beginning that both of us would feel happy about. And might any foodstuff be helpful now?
Korean Yam ?
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