# Baby squirrel advice



## madelene (Aug 24, 2006)

Hi,

I am hoping that someone here can give me some advice on hand rearing a baby squirrel.

We found one last night, as he was very dehydrated I just gave him dioralyte from a syringe and this morning cos he was crying for food a weak solution of lactol.
I have searched the web but advice varys vastly so can anyone with experience please give me a little practical advice.

Thanks

Maddie


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## Fixx (May 6, 2006)

madelene said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am hoping that someone here can give me some advice on hand rearing a baby squirrel.
> 
> ...


PM Feorag for all your squirrely needs  They did an excellent job of rearing and releasing a pair of red squirrels.


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## Moshpitviper (Oct 21, 2005)

We hand reared a grey on goats milk. pm me if you want more advice.


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## feorag (Jul 31, 2007)

Hi there, this thread has been brought to my attention.

You have done the right thing by giving the squirrel an electrolyte first because, if he was dehydrated the worst thing you could do is to feed him milk as this would only increase the dehydration.

You can feed baby squirrels on a good quality cat milk, such as cimicat or lactol, but the best way to feed a baby grey is on a mixture of:

• full fat goats’ milk
• full fat cows’ milk
• *live *natural plain yogurt
• Abidec toddler vitamin drops (or similar)
*Method*
- Using two thirds goats’ and one third cows’, make up approx ¼ pint.
- Add one teaspoon of yogurt.
- Add 2-3 drops of Abidec.
- Stir well and store in fridge.
- At each feed, pour a few teaspoons of the mixture into a small bowl and *warm gently*. I use a small pyrex bowl over a ramekin with warm water in. Feed squirrel and discard any leftover milk.
To store, cover and put it in the fridge. Only keep a batch for 24 hours, then make up a fresh batch

Most sites I found giving advice said to feed every 2 hours from dawn to dusk, but because of my job and so forth it was very difficult for me to feed my two every 2 hours, so I fed every 3 hours morning and night until they were slightly bigger and then I increased the time to 4 hourly.

Do you have any idea how old it is? To help you work it out, their hair begins to grow at 1 week and they are covered with fine hairs at 2 weeks.
Lower incisors come through at 20-23 days, eyes open at 28-32 days. Upper incisors can be felt at 34 days and break through at 37-41 days.

Take your time feeding it, do NOT force feed as you could get milk into their lungs which would be fatal.

You must toilet it to get rid of the urine and faeces after each meal until it can pass this itself. The poo should always be soft - if you get small dry black stools it's still dehydrated.

If you think it's dehydrated, don't water down the food - replace a meal with an eletrolyte, or even top it up in between feeds with an electrolyte, but don't water down the food.

If you have any other questions, you can pm me any time, although I'm going out now for a couple of hours. Similarly if you are successful in getting the kitten to weaning stage and you want help with how to wean, just pm me.

Good luck and thank you for caring for a creature who is considered vermin and being killed by the thousands up where I live!!! :2thumb:


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