Saturday, January 23, 2010

Baby squirrel question?

my baby squirrel is now 5 weeks old and healthy but recently it has become very active and doesn't want to go to sleep at times. Why is he doing this? Please do't leave any answers saying take him to a vet because i already did that and they told me it was fine to stay with me.Baby squirrel question?
squirrels are Very energetic, so don't worry. Squirrels are ALWAYS like that,at lest,it starts when their old enough to run around!!Baby squirrel question?
Trust me----it will only get worse. I have raised plenty of orphaned squirrels and they're only ';fun'; until they get mobile. He needs to tone up his muscles and he will do this by becomming more and more active. I used to allow my babies to scamper around the house for excersize but they would get into the bread on the countertop, chew on the ends of my wooden shelfs and knock things off, pull curtains down, dig up my house plants, and just generally tear the house apart!! There comes an age when they are still too young to release, but too old to stay in the confines of a small cage. It's time to move your 5 week old to a larger one. I now have a special cage that I made just for this phase in their life. It's a large wire cage and has a wooden box in it for them to sleep in. I have the cage securely nailed to a tree outside by the house. Through the cage wire, I have cut about a 3'; hole and inserted a piece of 3'; PVC pipe with a cap on the outside. I put my babies outside in that cage for the first time when they get too active to be inside. They cant get out through the PVC pipe yet because the cap is on. I feed them in the cage and make sure their bed is warm and cozy. For about 4-5 days, they stay in this cage----like it or not. Then one day I take the cap off the end of the PVC pipe. Eventually they find their way out and onto the tree. (The pipe needs to be fairly close to the tree). They scamper around like lunatics all day long, but return to the cage in the evening to eat and sleep. I never put the cap back on the PVC at this point. The main purpose of the 3'; pipe is to allow the squirrel to come and go in his ';safe zone'; where cats or raccoons cant get him. Eventually they come back a little less and less and, at some point, they stop using the cage altogether. The last one I released would still come down to visit with me for about 7 months after I let her go. She's the only squirrel I raised to adolescence that did NOT bite the crap out of me. When they get to be about 12-14 weeks old, especially the boys, they have no quallms about biting you to the bone for no reason. That's why I no longer keep them that long. Now, with the cage I've devised, I let THEM decide when they're ready to go. Even though your baby is only 5 weeks old, he needs to be in a bigger cage right now....like one of those multi-story ferret cages, with several tree branches stuck in there for coordination practice. Temptimg though it may be, he will not make a good pet at all, if that's your intentions. He wont ride on your shoulder and impress all your friends. He is a wild animal and you'll be reminded of that the first time he bites the hand that fed him for several weeks. When he gets to be about 7 weeks old, he'll be ready to start scampering out of the cage and up into the trees. He'll stay in only 1 tree at first, and come back to his cage at night. But he'll eventually move on and become just like all the other wild squirrels. If there's any way you can, try to nail his cage to a tree and put the pipe in it so he can come and go as he pleases. It's getting cold so the sooner you release him, the sooner he can get started on his winter bed high up in the trees. He may decide to ride out the winter in the cage you've nailed to the tree....who knows? Mother Nature will show him what to do....you just need to let him do what he choses.
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