8:00 a.m.: I’m starting to have a lot more appreciation for new mothers! If I’m this tired after only two days with my charges… Of course, (most) mothers don’t have 5 babies under their care at the same time. Today’s first feeding was a bit mixed. A couple of the squirrels seem a bit dehydrated (skin is wrinkling on one, another one hasn’t eliminated anything in over a day), so I’ll be giving them Pedialyte for the next couple of feedings. Most of them ate a little less than yesterday at this time, but not enough to worry about.

One of the biggest risks for these guys is that they take in too much formula at once and aspirate it (get it into their lungs). This can lead to pneumonia, so it is very serious. The sign that they’ve done this is that it comes bubbling out through their nose. This happened to one of my guys this morning, but I immediately cleaned out his nose and mouth, so he should be fine. Although we do our best to avoid the situation by controlling how much they take in, it’s not that uncommon for it to happen, so that’s why I’m not panicking (yet). I’ll be keeping a close eye on him though for the rest of the day.

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7:30 a.m.: Okay, well, as expected I woke up in the middle of the night to check on the squirrels. Fortunately they were all fine (although I’m not sure how peeved they were at me for waking them up from a nice long snooze). And they all took a decent amount of formula this morning, so I’m feeling a lot better. Now for my own breakfast!

10:15 a.m.: Things definitely seem to be going smoother. It takes each of them a couple of minutes to calm down, but once they do, they seem to settle in and become more relaxed for their feeding. The most stressful part now is listening to one of my cats scratching on the door, wondering why she can’t come in!

1:30 p.m.: Third feeding, no problems.

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Today’s the day! I got my first squirrels from the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley to raise at home until they’re ready to be released back to the wild.

I had signed up for the squirrel home care program when I first began volunteering at the WCSV. But by the time I had completed my initial training and put in the required hours at the center, all the squirrels that had come in had already been assigned to other volunteers. But one of the things I’ve learned since working there is that squirrels have two breeding seasons during the year, so the center started getting new babies earlier this month.

Because I’m a first-timer in the program, I had to wait until the squirrels were at least a few weeks old, because the really tiny ones (called “pinkies” because they have no fur for a couple of weeks) are the most vulnerable, so being tended to by more experienced volunteers increases their chance of survival.

But my time has come! I’m planning to chronicle my adventures in squirreldom on a daily basis, so my readers can learn about this fascinating process while I’m doing the same. So here’s what’s been happening on Day 1.

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