Clicking 😭

[Catbird98]

Hello I'm new to this forum and new to caring for a baby squirrel. I have cared for a few other young wild animals and successfully released them back to the wild. A friend of a friend found 3 small squirrels in her back yard. One had blood coming out of its nose and died and another died from " unknown causes" she kept the last one alive for a week maybe week and a half and then reached out to my friend for help because it was declining. That's when my friend reached out to me and I became involved. I picked up The squirrel yesterday. He looks to be maybe 5 weeks old now but is small for it's age and his head looks larger then it should. The previous care giver had been feeding it carnation milk out of a pet nurser and even fed it powdered coffee creamer mixed with water at one point and I did not see a heating source of any kind around the cat carrier in which I assume it lived when I picked it up.

Since yesterday I have read the entire guide that lead me here 3 times and created the proper living tote, switched to a good syringe and puppy milk replacer. I'm working on rehydrating with honey water between feedings and currently waiting on my 50/20 ( or maybe 20/50) formula. However yesterday on the way home I heard clicking and I NEED to know what to do. What antibiotics should I give and where would be the quickest/ easiest/ cheapest place to get it.

I would also enjoy any input on anything I wanna be able to see this guy love a happy healthy life.

[CritterMom]

Is baby eating with any enthusiasm? Is the clicking coming from the mouth/nose area or the chest? They make all sorts of mouth noises.

If it is aspiration pneumonia and given what you tell us of his early life that seems a distinct possibility, you need antibiotics. That means you need to check your medicine cabinet, and ask any friends, family, neighbors, if they have ANY leftover antibiotics from a previous illness. You would only need one pill. Things to look for specifically would be Cipro if a human med or Baytril as a veterinary med. Also Amoxicillin clavulanate or even plain old amoxicillin. Even SMZ-TMP (Bactrim).

If you find meds, get the name and size in milligrams and let us know what they are. You will need a 1ml syringe w/o needle, which you should be feeding with anyway. We will also need the current weight of the baby. With that we can send you detailed directions on how to properly dilute and dose the med in question.