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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It figures. I was all excited about being able to post that everything went smoothly today, when Bam! One of my girls had diarrhea at the last feeding. It was a creamy consistency, which could mean she’s dehydrated. So I immediately stopped the formula and got her some Pedialyte. Hopefully that will help calm her insides overnight. Of course, I probably won’t be able to sleep well worrying about her.

And my jinx theory gets proven yet again…

We’re movin’ on up…
To the East Side…
To a de-luxe apartment
In the sky-y-y

Okay, so it’s not in the sky. And I guess “deluxe” is in the eye of the beholder. But the gang moved into some snazzy new digs today:

Now that they have a home with wire mesh all around them, they’ll really be able to go mental… 🙂 The shoebox gives them a little privacy and they still have the t-shirts to burrow into. It will probably be a little while before any of them are able to climb into the hammock.

I’ve also put a few “natural” items in with them—grass, leaves, a stick, etc. This will help them get comfortable with the environment they’ll eventually go back to. And I’ve added a few small greens so the guys (or girls) who are ready to give solid food a try will have something easily digestible to get started on.

The smallest two still haven’t opened their eyes, but given their current weights, I won’t be surprised if it happens by the end of the week. Then I’ll have five climbing maniacs on my hands!

Oh, and nobody had any signs of diarrhea today. Yay!

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Well, this is my one week-iversary with my little guys and gals. I’ve definitely become a lot more comfortable with the routine. And I’ve gotten much better at controlling their intake when I’m feeding them, which means they’re aspirating a lot less. That’s not only better for their health, but it actually speeds up the process quite a bit as well. Because each time they do inhale formula the wrong way, I have to stop, clean out their noses and mouths with a Q-tip, and blow into their nostrils to activate the little hairs inside to cause them to sneeze.

That’s not to say that there aren’t still challenges. So much of this is based on using your judgment and, of course, as a newbie squirrel mom, I’m still in learning mode. For example, since they hadn’t gained much weight as of yesterday morning, despite having been feeding a lot, I moved them up to a more concentrated formula. That seemed to work well and they all had gained a fair bit this morning.

And based on these new weights, they were actually ready to move up to a different formula (at a lower concentration while they get used to it), and a different schedule. Instead of 6 feedings 3 hours apart, they should now be at 5 feedings 4 hours apart, according to the guidelines. So that’s what I did. And I do have to say that the increased time between feedings has made a lot of difference for me in terms of feeling a little less frantic.

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