Safe amount of nuts for squirrel during soft release

[Julie68]

I have a grey squirrel around 16/17 weeks old who is in soft release. She has a nest box she uses in a tree in my yard, and I feed her twice a day on my porch, where she was living previously and feels comfortable, and provide water. I plan to continue feeding her through the winter, or longer. Before I released her I was following the Henry’s recommendations for diet and only giving nuts occasionally. Now that she is free to come and go, and is presumably eating stuff on her own, I would like to give her more nuts, but am unsure about what would be a safe amount to avoid MBD. Would it be okay to give her a walnut, an almond and a hazelnut (all in the shell) every day? She seems to bury the ones I give her immediately so it’s hard to know how many she actually eats. Thank you for your advice :)

[supersquirrelgirl]

Hello, I'll give you my take but all squirrels here are wild and live up in the trees (or possibly someone's attic in the winter?).

Every day the same squirrels come and lay around or stretch-out on branches in our yard. I feel like these are all on soft-release as they come every day from morning to evening. They are wild but are so friendly to us and even come in the back door a few feet. Many are here for 6!8 hours a day.

We feed them all kinds of nuts and sunflower seeds throughout the day. This has gone on for many years. Never seen any signs of MBD. I was concerned but was told many times, wild squirrels know what to eat out there and MBD is not a concern.

Sounds like your squirrel has access to natural food as well as you giving nuts. Not sure its any different from my yard. When I give a whole walnut, they immediately run off and bury....food for another day. Its their nature to stash nuts. In reality with many squirrels around, several nuts are stolen and some are forgotten, so not sure they are eating every one.

So, if your squirrel is eating other food and you giving nuts is a supplement, I would say don't worry about it. Have fun! This is my opinion so I'm interested to hear other TSB people.

Mr.SSG

[Diggie's Friend]

Adding calcium powder on water misted nut kernel pieces to lend support to a healthy calcium to phosphorus ratio when supplementing the wild diet with nuts. We use a olive spoon that has slots in it, to load and sprinkle Calcium powder over a larger amount of broken nut kernel pieces. Feeding hazelnuts is the best option for whole nuts, also the least expensive. Organic nuts are not sprayed with fungicides; yet all other nuts require spraying according to the USDA.

Squirrels also prefer Calcium citrate from this source, fine milled no taste, also found to support optimum pH for digestion in rats of (6.5); , vs. Calcium carbonate that supports a higher ratio not optimum for digestion.

Calcium Citrate Powder Pure Bulk; made in the U.S.A. and third party reviewed.

https://purebulk.com/products/calciu...BoCmyQQAvD_BwE

There is more to the issue of calcium availability than the elemental amount by percent. In a study that sought to determine the bioavailability of various forms of supplemental source of Calcium, when combined with (tannins, oxalates, phytates) in gastric juice in a dish that happens to be the three most common significant calcium lowering anti-nutrients in the wild and captive diets of tree squirrels. Calcium citrate was found to be the most available to the body; Calcium carbonate also tested, came in third.