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What to do if you find a baby squirrel.... Keep the baby warm and safe. It is not safe to use terrycloth towels as they can become tangled in the loops. T-shirts or similar fabrics are ideal, or even paper towels temporarily. If you can put the baby in a box at the base of the tree nearest where it was found and if you can watch it closely for an hour or so, many times mamma will come and get it. If baby is injured it should go to a rehabber immediately - mamma doesn't have a first aid kit! If she does not come back, or if you can't keep watch over it, it is best to just get the squirrel to a rehabber. For the first 24 hours, you don't need to worry about feeding the baby anything but water or pedialyte just to keep them hydrated. This can be done with an eyedropper (preferably plastic as even little sharp teeth can break glass eyedroppers!) or even a straw. Just be careful they don't inhale the liquid as that can cause pneumonia. A heating pad with a layer or two of towels on top is the easiest and best way to keep them warm overnight until you can transfer them to a rehabber. If you can't do that, keep them wrapped up well in a towel inside a cardboard box in a warm area, possibly even under a lamp. How old is the squirrel I found? http://www.squirrelsandmore.com/feature/174/How_to_determine_the_age_of_a_baby_squirrel.htm If you're in the Daytona Beach area, Wildlife Rehab Daytona will be glad to take the baby to raise with the many brothers and sisters we have! Call us at 386-767-2500 or 386-235-3751. If you're not in the Daytona area, look for a rehabber in your area here: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~devo0028/contact.htm or here: http://wildliferehabber.com/modules/xoopsmembers/
If you are trying to raise the baby yourself - it is not recommended, or even legal - but, please click here for important information: http://www.squirrelsandmore.com/feature/166/Basic_steps_to_hand_rearing_a_baby_squirrel.htm We routinely get calls from people trying to raise babies on their own using Enfamil, Similac, other human milk formula, or other homemade mixes and the babies are getting sick and dying within a few days to a week. If you know someone who has raised them on these types of formulas and it seems to have worked, it is probably because the squirrel was large enough when they started feeding it that any nutritional deficiency was not visible but the squirrel may have had metabolic bone disease, a condition like osteoporosis. In many cases it is not reversible. You only get one chance to do it right, so if you love the baby, please feed it good nutrition! NEVER USE THE SCALDED MILK RECIPE advocated by a woman on the internet. Any professional rehabilitator will tell you that recipe is completely inadequate! It doesn't make any sense - "whole" cow's milk sold in the grocery store isn't whole - it has had the cream scraped off the top and is only 4% fat. It's not even sufficient to raise a cow! Squirrel milk can be as high as 62% fat, so using a 4% fat milk will starve the baby to death. (see pictures of scalded milk babies here). All pasteurized milk has already been heated to destroy bacteria and enzymes are required to digest food. We do not own stock in the companies that make the commercial milk formulas and we get nothing from them except good nutrition and cooperation in continuing to try to make them better and closer to mama's milk! We use and recommend Fox Valley Nutrition, a company that was established to make milk replacers specifically for a wide range of wildlife. Whole goats milk or Esbilac, a puppy milk replacer, is also widely used, but we currently have best success with Fox Valley or Goat's milk. After seeing dozens of adult pet squirrels over the years with the metabolic bone disease, it is also important to mention adult diets. They must be fed a complete nutrition diet like rodent blocks, monkey biscuits (primate food), or dry dog food. By just giving them an assortment of fruits and nuts, you will never be able to approximate the complete diet these products do. These products are available at many pet stores and www.squirrelsandmore.com. Another great manual published by Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Central Florida can be downloaded from the page: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/3119/manual.pdf
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