Hello The Squirrel Board,

Two weeks ago, my neighbour gave me a very dehydrated 6 week old European red squirrel. We found the drey, installed a surveillance camera and discovered no adult for 18 hours and decided to capture his two siblings.

I’ve rehabbed a squirrel before so hydrating, milk feeding, intro to solid food all went very smoothly. However they all remained so scared of us. I would feed them in the box they were living in and didn’t handle them as they would start trembling with fear.

They gained weight well but we decided to release them into our large soft release enclosure (2.5m3) outside yesterday, because they needed space to run, they had no direct sunlight and were stressed indoors.

However I cannot syringe feed now since they’re so scared. However 4-5 days ago, they lost interest in milk. I started to train them how to use a water bowl a week ago.

The problem: one baby squirrel (the one who was initially very dehydrated), isn’t sleeping with his siblings and just doesn’t look great. I might be able to capture him and rehydrate. When he’s running, he’s alert, running and eyes bright. But I feel he’s lost weight in 24 hours and I’m not sure if I’m panicking too soon and should give him some time to adapt.

They have access to hazelnuts, walnuts, dandelion leaves and flowers, sweet almonds, pear, apple, sweet potato, zucchini, arugula, kale, reindeer antler, Water, water with a little bit of honey, and a bowl of milk. Also plenty of sticks, bark, pine/ spruce cones, young leaves).

Any recommendations? Or should I just give him some time. Generally I’m quite anxious that I cannot syringe feed them anymore but they were so stressed and panicked living indoors, it was definitely better to take them to the enclosure.