I was driving home from work a few weeks ago and got a call from my husband to let me know he caught a baby squirrel. Apparently, to his dismay, after giving our dog Bonnie a bath she went outside and immediately started digging in the dirt to get under our deck. This isn’t totally out of character for her, but he discovered a young squirrel hiding under the deck. And even more shocking was this squirrel came up to him and practically climbed his leg. He ended up catching it in a large bucket and releasing it under a bush in our front yard.
But this squirrel kept coming up to him and our daughter, and then up to me once I got home.
As a vet my mind tends to go to worst case scenarios when animals are acting weird. Squirrels shouldn’t come up to people. Did it have rabies? There was a lot of “Don’t touch it!” said to my husband and daughter. Thinking maybe the dog had scared it away from it’s nest I recommended we re-trap it and move it back to the backyard.
But the little thing wouldn’t stop coming up to us. So we did some research. Apparently there’s a term for these little guys: “Pant tuggers” When they get hungry enough they become so desperate they will even come up to people. This meant it was probably orphaned and wouldn’t make it much longer without help.
A couple of websites recommended a slice of apple in an emergency so we quickly cut one up and brought it out. She (just our guess) immediately ate it up.
But now what? Did I need to call a wildlife rescue? Did she need squirrel formula? There is no way I could keep her in my house with 2 kids, 2 dogs and 2 cats. It was early September so not too cold, but the nights were getting chillier. Would she freeze to death outside without a nest? I spent some time reading different websites about squirrels and decided I needed to figure out her age. If she was about 10 weeks old she wouldn’t need formula or much support, and within a couple of weeks would probably be able to take care of herself.
My husband thought she was about 8 weeks old but I was optimistic she was older based on this picture we took of her climbing on our daughters shoe.
In this image you can see that her ears are open and her tail is bushy. She looked like a small adult squirrel which from my quick research put her age at 10-12 weeks. Squirrels this age can chew on sticks and twigs but may not be able to break open an acorn yet. But a momma squirrel would likely be weaning her babies around this age anyway so I figured we could help her with minimal interaction. I definitely didn’t want a domesticated squirrel in our yard.
I got out a cat crate from our shed and put an old baby blanket inside. Despite the slice of apple she was still following us around so I was pretty easily able to trap her inside the crate. We then put it beside our shed. This crate had a zipper opening on the side which I left open for her to get in and out. Once settle under the blanket she took a big squirrel nap and we were hopeful that this would keep her safe and warm through the night.
Over the next several days we would quietly check on her in the morning where she was content to sleep burrowed under the blanket. We had some cashews and pecans in the pantry which she happily ate. And she wasn’t coming up to us anymore. When we would go down to check on her she was downright ‘squirrely’. It made us really happy to have helped this little squirrel. I jokingly named her Karma to make it up to the baby squirrels we had to relocate out of our attic a few years ago.
But then about 5 days in to our squirrel rescue a heavy thunderstorm hit. Several inches of rain fell and the little cat crate was located at the bottom of the hill. The next morning Karma was gone from the crate and we didn’t see her again for a few day. We weren’t sure where she had gone but I was hopeful she was safe and old enough to take care of herself. But then one morning my husband was out front and up came our little friend again. Apparently she had found somewhere safe to sleep but was still not able to feed herself because she came right back up on his leg.
We offered another slice of apple and some cashews and pecans. I’m honestly not sure how much a squirrel that age should eat but she finished most of the apple and ate several nuts. We continued to put out some nuts on our front porch each morning for about a week. And then I stopped putting something out every day. I didn’t want her to rely on us for food, just help her out till she could feed herself.
It’s been over 3 weeks since we first helped her out and we no longer offer her any food. But we occasionally still get a glimpse of her. Climbing high in the trees and now eating acorns. I can still pick her out as she’s the smallest squirrel in our yard. But eventually I’m sure she’ll look like every other squirrel who comes to our yard to steal our birdseed.
And that’s the story of the little squirrel we rescued in September. I hope you enjoy the adorable baby squirrel pictures.
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