Day 44: The Squirrel You've Been Waiting For

Alright.

Yes.

There's a squirrel.

 

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine found a baby squirrel on the side of the road, next to his squished mother.  She couldn't find a local rehab place, so she asked if anyone felt capable of rehabbing the little guy.

I really feel like the rest of the story is pretty self explanatory, isn't it?

Anyway, since he came over Passover, I have named him Elijah.  His full name (as Elliot is fond of telling people) is Elijah bin Snuggles.  He's a pain in my ass but he's pretty cute.

Here we see Elijah in his early days.  Squirrels bond with their mothers, and if you're a human rehabbing a baby squirrel, you're gonna get bonded with.  This involves being climbed on, nibbled, and occasionally bitched at when you don't feed the little wanker fast enough.











Speaking of feeding, when he first came to me he wasn't on solid foods yet.  I fed him every five hours with this dropper.  It was hilarious.  And messy. 

He's on solid foods now, but he's still in the transition phase, so two or three times a day he still gets to be hand fed.  He gets pretty snarky about the whole business.

His preferred place for napping, for at least two weeks, was inside my clothes.  Baby squirrels can't regulate their own body heat, so they get cold pretty quickly.  In the cage I would leave him little heat packs to stay warm, but if I was awake it was mostly easier to let him ride around in my bathrobe.

 


Plus, it was totes adorbs.

All his action shots are blurry, partly because my camera sucks but also because he's a little spastic.  It's going away now that he's getting older, but for a long time he shook constantly, and instead of walking he kind of thrashed his way across the floor.

He used to like to perch in my hand and survey the world.  Now he's too cool for that, and will climb up to my shoulder.  While the weather was cool I wore my bathrobe most of the time, to give him something that was easy to cling to, but now that the weather is warming I want to wear my normal tank tops, and he's been most indignant to find that a bare shoulder is not as easy to scale as a fuzzy robe.

He's super cute, though, isn't he?

I have a lot of shots of him eating.  It's just too freaking cute.








His first solid food was a frosted mini-wheat.  They're still one of his favorite treats.

He likes to snuggle when his tummy is full.

He spent about a week demanding to ride around in my pocket, whenever I would let him.

And yes, he does actually spend some time in his cage.  He doesn't much like it, though, so I mostly only pen him up when he needs a nap.  You can tell cause he starts trying to fall asleep standing up.

He's getting bigger, though, and I think he'll be moving mostly outside before the end of the week.  Currently I'm planning on hooking him up with a sweet home in the backyard where he can hide from predators, and still get fed on occasion.  I'm worried, but I know it's time.  

Mostly-feral animals need freedom.  And I need to stop smelling like squirrel.