2ui
Although we love him dearly, he is not our pet. My understanding is that some people do have squirrels as pets. What would you do if you found a baby squirrel? Would you try to raise it? Not a good idea according to the following article.
http://www.scwc.org/Library/Animals_SquirrelsAreNotPets.pdf
Squirrels can be awfully cute. They can be destructive pests too. Without my cat, I'm a bit more inclined to feel affection for the squirrel. The pigeons aren't bad either. HELP - I'm desperate to have an animal in my life!
I have an octodon, its a like animal. We found him at a public park. Some pet shops in here are selling squirrels. I think they are extremely hard to keep. Like your post.
ReplyDeletewow - never heard of an octodon until now -
ReplyDeleteI raised a baby squirrel.
ReplyDeleteI found the little guy on the ground, under a tree. From previous animal experience, I knew it was too young to be weaned (his eyes were barely open). He was small enough that I wasn't entirely sure that he was a squirrel. He was covered with bugs. I wasn't sure that he would survive. The first thing I did was to carefully wash him then warm him up quickly.
I used an eyedropper to feed him Kitten Milk Replacement, then bought a tiny nursing bottle. He ate eagerly, and would sometimes eat so fast he'd cough milk out of his nose.
We started him with sunflower seeds, and a big part of eating solid food was being able to balance on his hind legs. He'd fall over a lot and this was funny.
When he was eating peanuts, he'd "bury" them in my carpet. It was hilarious. He usually slept in a pocket of my bathrobe, which was hanging from a door. He'd climb to the top of this door (or the refrigerator) and
make this cawing noise. Squirrels seem to need to make this noise every morning at about 7 am, and it lasts for a good ten minutes. It sounds a lot like a crow.
He was a lot of fun, but he was also very destructive and sometimes dangerous. Once he got scared and bit me. He and would not let go. A squirrel's jaws can put an amazing pounds per square inch of force, and the teeth sink right in. He clamped on and jumped around, still biting and not releasing. I had the common sense to hold still, placing my hand on the ground, and just waited for him to release. He chewed up all of the speaker and stereo cords, the tops of the door ways, and anything else up high. His urine stripped varnish off of furniture. He was a lot of fun to save and raise, but it became clear that it was time for him to move out of the house!