I spent most of today worried about one of my girls. She’s the smallest one of the group, although only by a few grams. She’s also the one who’s had occasional digestive problems, with some minor diarrhea and constipation. But recently she had been totally fine. In fact, even when she had those issues, she was always one of the more active ones when I would feed her. She would excitedly clutch at the syringe and when I reached for another one, she would run all around my lap until the next nipple showed up. And I’ve been saying all along that, as long as they’re running around full of energy, I figure they must be fairly healthy.

But at last night’s final feeding, when I picked her up from the cage, she was almost limp. She showed no enthusiasm for eating at all and didn’t struggle when I held her up to look at her belly—not like her at all. So I figured she must have overeaten during the day and by morning she’d be fine.

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Now that they’ve all got their eyes open, they’re becoming a lot more active, as well as a lot more interactive, as you’ll see in this video. (By the way, you can right-click on the video screen and choose Zoom > Full Screen to get a better view.)

Also, based on their weight and the fact that each of them has been not hungry for at least one daily feeding, I’ll be changing their schedule tomorrow from every 4 hours/5 times a day to every 5 hours/4 times a day. They’re definitely growing!

Not much to report today (which is a good thing!). They’re now ranging from 126-186 grams, so they’re certainly thriving.

It’s funny though. Even though they’ve been doing so well and they’re all very energetic, I couldn’t help but worry when two of the males didn’t want to eat much at one of the feedings. But they both ate the normal amount at the next one, which I guess goes to show that, just like people, they don’t always want to eat the same amount at the same time every day. Especially since they’re now eating the solid food in the cage, so they’re not coming to each feeding with empty tummies like they were when they were younger.

I did take some more videos today, but haven’t had a chance to transfer them to my computer yet. So stay tuned…

Five squirrels. Ten open eyes. Woo-hoo!

I don’t have much to say today, so I’ll just post a few new videos.

This was how I found the gang when I went in for one feeding.

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Another weird thing happened today, although this one was kind of funny.

At this morning’s first feeding, my little guy’s left eye was fully open. (Yay!) At the second feeding, his right eye was halfway open, but his left eye was closed again. (?) THAT didn’t happen with my other ones…

Then, at the third and fourth feedings, his right eye was fully open and his left eye was just slightly open. (!) But by the last feeding, they were both fully open, so I guess he isn’t regressing after all. (Whew! 🙂

AND… at the last feeding, my last little girl had one eye open too!

All in all, a very good day for squirrels.

Wow, has it been two weeks already since I brought home my little charges? It’s hard to believe I was ever worried about them not eating enough, seeing how much they love to toss back the formula now!

Even though they’re all eating more, the process goes much faster for several reasons:

• I’ve finally got my routine down pat: fill the syringes, moisten a cotton ball and a Q-tip in case they’re needed, set up a t-shirt so I can easily throw it over my lap as soon as I sit down, etc.
• I don’t need to spend five minutes before feeding each one just trying to get the air bubbles out of the syringes… 🙂
• Between me getting better at controlling the flow of the formula, and their mouths being able to hold more, they almost never aspirate anymore
• The three who have their eyes open don’t need to be stimulated to pee and poop afterwards

Speaking of opening their eyes, I’m starting to get a little impatient for the last two to get there. They’re both in the right weight range, but so far no signs. Maybe tomorrow?

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Just when you think you’ve got things under control…

I discovered my big guy is being sucked on again, and I caught one of the culprits in the act—the larger female. So in addition to the Tabasco technique, I looked up some other remedies in the manual. One of them is to remove the squirrel doing the sucking about an hour before a feeding and putting her in a separate shoebox with a big piece of apple to use as a pacifier instead. No problem.

I didn’t want to leave her alone in the box, though, so I put the other female in with her, thinking she wasn’t as likely a target. She’s one of the smaller squirrels whose eyes haven’t opened yet. So imagine my surprise when I went in later to feed them and discovered the little girl OUTSIDE the shoebox! She was sitting on the heating pad, smelling the cage.

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So my one little girl can’t seem to make up her mind. A couple of days ago she had diarrhea. Today, she was constipated!

But thanks to the wonders of Pedialyte, combined with a little tummy stroking to help move things along, she seems to have overcome this bit of digestive distress as well.

My biggest guy is at the point now where he’s ready to start taking in some solid food. So I put a few greens into the cage, along with a couple of small apple chunks, and a single raspberry and blackberry. He actually picked up one of the pieces of apple and pulled it back into the shoebox with him and did a little tasting. I would have had a nice video of it… if I had remembered to open the lens cap… D’oh! Oh, well, I’m sure I’ll have more opportunities.

Well, so far today everything’s going pretty smoothly (but there’s still one more feeding to go, so I’ll just knock on wood for the time being… 🙂

After the great pics Connie and Carla let me post yesterday, I wasn’t sure what I could do today that was anywhere near as cool. So I decided to haul out my video camera (which I’m none too proficient with) and made a short clip of my big guy climbing the cage walls. I hope you enjoy it.

It’s hard to believe how much he’s already developed since I got him, less than two weeks ago! I plan to shoot more videos as the rest of the gang become more active as well.

Well, we have a big treat today! As I mentioned earlier, my squirrels were already about 3-4 weeks old when I got them. Because this is my first time as a home-care volunteer, I wasn’t ready to take on the extra challenges involved with caring for the really tiny ones. So I wasn’t able to show you any pictures of the “pinkies.”

But two of the more experienced volunteers who do look after the wee ones have given me permission to post their pictures so you can all see what these guys look like at that age.

This first picture comes from Connie Devine, who’s been working with the squirrels for almost ten years, so she’s a real expert with them. This is a photo of the 9 (yes, 9!) young’uns she had in her care all at the same time.

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