New house; squirrel's demeanor becoming more anxious and territorial

[ashmmc]

Hello! We recently moved into a temporary house for 2 months--our unreleasable (singleton raised around a cat) rehabbed 1.5 year-old was fine--and then moved into a permanent house two weeks ago. Our playful, sweet squirrel has gotten a bit territorial in the new house and has bitten us twice. She knows how to play with us and not break the skin, so the bites aren't accidents. The first one was mild; the second one was a single, serious bite intended to injure.

We could use your advice! How have you helped your squirrel(s) adjust to a new home when they've been nervous? Is she too changed to safely keep her in our current situation?

More background, if you want it:
The first few nights we kept her habitat in our bedroom to get her accustomed to the new house. Then we moved her into the living room, which has high ceilings, a very open floor plan and generally feels big. It doesn't help that we have almost no furniture in the room or house in general.

She has also been feeling the onset of winter and gotten more concerned about food--she's hiding it very intensely, eating more to bulk up and is generally extremely food-focused. She's originally a southern CA squirrel now living in GA, so this winter is also likely feeling unusually intense to her.

Is it possible she's feeling nervous because of how big and unknown the house is? I'm thinking maybe she needs to be moved back into our bedroom or a small side room to make things feel less intense for her as she's still adjusting. She's been hesitant to explore too much of the house while she's out--particularly the downstairs--so shrinking the amount of house she's interacting with might be a good idea, I'm thinking.

[Javarat]

This sounds like relocation stress. She feels like she needs to be more aggressive to stake a claim on the new area. The on-coming winter will make her even more desperate to legitimize her claim. Also she feels like she has lost all of her previous caches.. and has no food stored for winter. She is probably also peeing on a lot of things to mark the area.

Your intuition is correct.. the best thing is to move her into a smaller area. Try to surround her with as many familiar things as you can. A chair that was in her room before.. clothing, hats.. everything will help. Right now her cage is the only familiar thing.

I would start by moving her back into the bedroom until you have more furniture. A wide open (no furniture) room is threatening to a squirrel. We see lots of nice space.. they see a strange area with no place to hide from a predator.

[Javarat]

One thing you can also try is giving her a large bowl of nuts.. and let her hide them around her room.
It would make her feel more 'established', and less nervous/agressive about food.
90% of a squirrel's life is about making and checking caches.. and right now she has none.

I don't think she is 'too changed' to safely keep.
I just think her definition of 'moved in' is very different than yours.

[ashmmc]

Thank you SO much! This makes a lot of sense. We'll get her into a more comfortable and secure-feeling setup ASAP.

[ashmmc]

Update: we moved the squirrel to a safer-feeling area and, yesterday, created a "forest" of hanging cloth strips into the top level of her cage. She was out for about an hour with me while the forest was set up and was fine. She loved the new setup and seemed really happy. We gave her a huge pile of nuts which she hid all over her cage.

She has mostly been aggressive/territorial with my wife, which is my fault--we agreed about a year ago to stop giving the squirrel treats outside of her nightly food time, to keep her healthy, and I forgot that plan after about 3 months and started giving her treats again. As a result, the squirrel started to see me as the reliable treat-bringer and my wife as the one who takes food away when the cage is cleaned.

Last night, my wife accidentally closed the cage door on the squirrel's foot; the squirrel initially lunged at the door but then calmed down and was fine. This morning, however, she was the most aggressive she's been yet--but still almost exclusively with my wife. At this point, I don't know what the combination of causes is--the foot in door, the lack of treat-giving, that her new forest means she has food stashed everywhere, including in front of the door, etc--but I do know we are worried about being able to continue to keep her. She seems volatile in a way she never used to.

Is this because of the treat-giving imbalance? And, if so, can we/how do we fix it? (We've flipped the treat imbalance for several weeks now--I give the squirrel almost nothing and my wife gives her treats a few times a day, plus the nightly food.)

Any advice would be much appreciated--we're heartbroken and worried.

[Mel1959]

If she has treats hidden all over her cage she will instinctually be protective and aggressive of her stash. I would clean out all of her stashes and then see how she behaves. When giving a treat if you limit it to one nut a day (which is much healthier for them) then she will probably eat it and not hide it.

This time of year in warmer climates squirrels could conceivably be mating in the wild. This could have an affect on her aggression.

Also, squirrels typically pick one “person”. Others may be tolerated, or not, every squirrel is different. If you decide you are no longer going to keep her, please prepare her for a life in the trees by putting her in a release cage outside for several weeks, maybe longer, so she can acclimate to the outside sounds and smells. She shouldn’t be released in the winter in areas where it is cold since she won’t have a drey or stash of food. And when she is released she may need supported with food for awhile.

[ashmmc]

I guess we're torn between wanting to give her food to stash so her instincts are sated and wanting to limit her food to keep her from getting too territorial. Is there a middle ground, or just pros and cons with each?

We have moved to GA, by the way, so temperature re:mating shouldn't be an issue. There are a lot of territory battles happening with squirrels in our backyard; could that be a factor?

We've had her cage in our bedroom before to help her feel more bonded. Maybe we should try that again.

[Javarat]

I also note she is 1.5 years old... that is about the time when they go into their first heat.
This could also be affecting her behavior.
Plus the door thing... :P

[Diggie's Friend]

A fellow member and friend here had a squirrel that was food aggressive, yet in changing the diet and ceasing to hand feed food directly to their squirrel, the problem of aggression was eliminated. I'm not going to say was easy, but it worked, and today the squirrel is more active, healthy having lost excess weight, and is no longer aggressive to members of the family.

This was accomplished by first and foremost breaking the connection of nuts being given to them directly by hand, and replacing this with giving them food bowls in their enclosure.

The other major change that supported lowering food aggression was to include more magnesum (citrate) in the diet, and removing ALL processed food sources from the diet, as they contain high levels of salt, sugars (including all artificial sugar sources), unhealthy fat sources. Replace these with ith organic whole food sources, that include organic baked squash daily, fresh tree fruit, and berries. Also, offer the immature smaller less developed leaves of organic chicory leaf at least once a week. Try steamed organic Bok Choy, or other Chinese cabbages, or Kale, or organic boiled 20 to 25 min. drained and rinsed broccoli, and/or cauliflower, as cooking these sources this way will remove most of the calcium lowering anti-nutrients they contain raw, yet only lowers the calcium they contain comparably by a small fraction of the total they are raw.

Instead of using nuts for treats, which ends up being more than what a treat for them is, and will only continue to support food aggression, include no more than 1/2 to 3/4Tsp. of chopped organic English Walnut, or Pecans total daily that is fed along with meals daily, in their cage enclosure, not outside of it and not directly from your hands. Use small feeding bowl, but not your hand to their paws, or mouth. Give a presoaked oven dried thick empty clean (having never had any mold in it) organic hickory nut half shell for your squirrel to chew on.

If you include a salt block, remove it and throw it out, for table salt is toxic, and lowers the uptake of calcium. All the sodium these animals need can be provided from a rodent block with other foods in the diet.

All these sources can be fed with a rodent block diet; I recommend Envigo Global Rodent diet 2016, or 2014 if the squirrel is excessively overweight.

If you can see your way to making these healthy and needed changes in the diet, and show your squirrel that their territory is their habitat cage not the rest of your home, you should see a positive change for the better of your squirrel and your family in the future.

[ashmmc]

I also note she is 1.5 years old... that is about the time when they go into their first heat.
This could also be affecting her behavior.
Plus the door thing... :P

We had noticed her having a weird, sour milk smell a few times before now—we thought that meant she was in heat. It only lasted a few days, and probably started when she was 9 months old or so. Is that too early?

[ashmmc]

Thank you SO much for all this info!

If she has decided that she’s consistently okay with me and sometimes not okay with my wife, will changing this food setup potentially help balance that relationship out? The earlier comment about squirrels developing a favorite has me worries that this is just the squirrel’s random reaction to my wife now.