I saved a baby squirrel! Now what???

[TXMomof4]

We had a terrible storm blow through here yesterday and late last night I found a baby squirrel in our backyard. He's got all of his fur - he just looks like a miniature squirrel. I looked online and according to what I found last night and today I've been feeding him a mix of pedialyte and puppy formula - just a few ccs every 3-4 hours. You can hear him sucking on the syringe (so cute)! He is moving around in the box when we aren't there - he's curled up in a different part of the box every time I go out there. He hasn't made any effort to get out and the box isn't closed.

 

We called the Vet school and they gave us the number of a nature preserve locally that *might* take him. If not, what on earth do I do? I have a cat and a dog and ZERO interest in a rodent pet. I haven't touched him with my hands at all - a towel or gloves have been used at all times. Last night I could hear the mommy squirrel fussing in the tree, but I haven't heard her again this morning. I wish I could just let him go but he doesn't seem to be able to climb yet and we have too many cats in the neighborhood to leave him out there alone. He'd get munched in a minute.

 

Help!

[jentancalann]

We raised a couple a few years ago. In my experience, handling will not tame them. Continue to bottle feed, then move on to a nutty diet (can't remember what we gave them, I know peanuts. Just google it). We kept him in a cage until he reached adolescence- you will most certainly know when it is time to let him go. When he starts using you as a tree is one hint he'll give! They grow really quickly. I'd say in just a few weeks he'd be ready to turn out.

[Renthead Mommy]

We had three blow out of their nest last fall. The rescue people said to put them in a box under the tree they fell out of (at the base of the trunk) and the mother will climb down and carry them back up to the next. Because it was fall and cool out, and they were still pretty hairless (and extremely ugly!!) she had me fill an old sock with rice and and microwave it so they could keep warm with it. Probably not a problem right now, but so you know for the future.

 

We put the box on a chair under the tree in the afternoon. She didn't get them till it was dark, but she got all three of them.

 

We were happy we saved them. Then spring came and we began to do battle with them over my birdfeeder.:glare:

[Donna]

My kids saved a baby squirrel from our cat last summer. I searched the internet and found a local animal rescue person to take it. She stayed in touch with us and the baby grew to adulthood and is probably still playing in her backyard woods. In our state it is illegal to keep wild animals for yourself. Before we found her I discovered they need to be few a certain kind of formula...can't remember if it was for puppies or actually for wild animals but I got it at a pet store. (I'm sure an internet search would tell you what it was. Cows milk was supposed to be bad for them.)

[TXMomof4]

The Nature Center had us bring it to them. It was really a neat experience. The guy let us go back in the room where they treat orphaned/injured animals. They had several birds, a possum, other squirrels, etc. He moved the baby into a bigger crate with a warmer and towels and the squirrel was really walking around and very active. He said they'll probably be able to release it in about 2 weeks and that it looked very healthy! I'm so proud of us! (yes, I know that's silly, but if you'd seen that poor wet, bedraggled animal last night, you'd agree!)

[Jean in Newcastle]

The Nature Center had us bring it to them. It was really a neat experience. The guy let us go back in the room where they treat orphaned/injured animals. They had several birds, a possum, other squirrels, etc. He moved the baby into a bigger crate with a warmer and towels and the squirrel was really walking around and very active. He said they'll probably be able to release it in about 2 weeks and that it looked very healthy! I'm so proud of us! (yes, I know that's silly, but if you'd seen that poor wet, bedraggled animal last night, you'd agree!)

 

Wonderful! We took two different tiny rabbits in (once dogs had gotten the nest, the next time it was cats). But both times the baby rabbits died. Rabbits are very fragile. But your squirrel sounds like it will do just fine!

[Mesa]

I rehabilitated a rabbit when I worked at a vet clinic. The Dr gave me instructions and turned me loose with a bald little baby bunny. I was up round the clock for weeks... he/she eventually got big and wild enough to be set free. It was amazing and sad at the same time.

[Georgia On My Mind]

Years ago in the fall we found two without fur that had blown out of a tree at Callenwald Center in Atlanta where my daughter went to sing. We kept them, fed them, put them in a cage my father had built and raised them until it was mating time in the spring. They were named Moses and Mariam and lived in my daughter's room on her dresser. As they grew older, during the warm days of winter we let them out to play in the dogwood tree next to our house. At night, they would come scratch on the door to be let inside and fed in the cage, since they didn't know how to get food outside and it was winter and all the acorns and nuts in our neighborhood had been spoken for. You should have seen the look on our friends faces one night after dinner when we heard them scratching on the door and let them into the foyer. They couldn't believe it! Moses was the first to go off on his own when mating season began in the early spring and a few weeks later Mariam didn't come in one night and we knew she had found a mate as well. We often saw them climbing in the trees near the porch but they never came to scratch on the door for food or come inside again. We will always remember them and someday my now grown daughter with four homeschooled children of her own wants to write a children's book about Moses and Mariam and their adventures in and outside our house. Good luck with your little ones. The vet gave us a formula to mix up for ours that had an egg mixed in but I don't remember what kind of milk we used. I think it was evaporated milk but not certain.

Carolyn in Georgia

Edited August 15, 2010 by Georgia On My Mind

[Jean in Newcastle]

Years ago in the fall we found two without fur that had blown out of a tree at Callenwald Center in Atlanta where my daughter went to sing. We kept them, fed them, put them in a cage my father had built and raised them until it was mating time in the spring. They were named Moses and Mariam and lived in my daughter's room on her dresser. As they grew older, during the warm days of winter we let them out to play in the dogwood tree next to our house. At night, they would come scratch on the door to be let inside and fed in the cage, since they didn't know how to get food outside and it was winter and all the acorns and nuts in our neighborhood had been spoken for. You should have seen the look on our friends faces one night after dinner when we heard them scratching on the door and let them into the foyer. They couldn't believe it! Moses was the first to go off on his own when mating season began in the early spring and a few weeks later Mariam didn't come in one night and we knew she had found a mate as well. We often saw them climbing in the trees near the porch but they never came to scratch on the door for food or come inside again. We will always remember them and someday my now grown daughter with four homeschooled children of her own wants to write a children's book about Moses and Mariam and their adventures in and outside our house. Good luck with your little ones. The vet gave us a formula to mix up for ours that had an egg mixed in but I don't remember what kind of milk we used. I think it was evaporated milk but not certain.

Carolyn in Georgia

 

What a wonderful story.:001_wub:

[Pam L.]

So glad it worked out with the Nature Center for you.

 

On two separate occasions we also were the recipients of a squirrel falling from his nest 50ft up. Both times we contacted the wildlife rescue organization (about an hour away). Both times they took the animal and nursed them back to health.

 

Unfortunately, the first one did not make it. But the second one - that is another story. It is the policy of the organization that when possible, they will return the animal to its original habitat. So one day we got this call that they wanted to bring it back out. They came over with him in a cage and we all gathered outside as the lady released him into the wild on our property. It was beyond words. To this day, dh is convinced he can pick out that squirrel from all the others leaping around from pine tree to pine tree! :lol: