[NOTE: This story has a happy ending (hopefully), but if you find a baby squirrel you should immediately search for professional help in your area right away, rather than attempting to rehabilitate it yourself. Online information about rehabilitating squirrels is inconsistent and sometimes wrong and it often doesn’t stress enough what is most important to do and not to do. Only act on the advice of the professional help that you contact before you try to feed it or give it any water, or you can seriously harm it and likely even cause its death!]
The other night I heard chirping on the other side of the door into my attic, and upon opening the door I found a small hairless infant squirrel laying on the stoop. I was surprised to see that because I haven’t heard any squirrels in my attic for a long time, and I assumed that they no longer had any access.
So I clamored to try to figure out what to do. I first put the squirrel in a large plastic container with a towel on the bottom of it, but then I decided to put the towel on the stoop inside the attic and let the squirrel rest on that for the rest of the night with the hope that its mother would return.
Here’s the little guy. Note that all of the pictures are taken on the last day of my having him, when he abruptly started growing dark fur. In the previous days he was hairless.
I turned a light on in the attic so the mother could see if she came inside, but while I did that I accidentally tripped a fuse, and the power in much of my apartment went out, including to my computers. So I took that as a sign to just go to bed until the morning.
In the morning the squirrel was still alive and chirping, so I put it back into the plastic container and then went to the store to buy things to help it after doing some research online. I was anxious to get the materials that I needed as quickly as possible, and thus in retrospect I unfortunately missed some of the most important online information that I could have seen about it.
While he was small and hairless, he was also rather large where I could tell that he was not a newborn and he was likely at least over a week old. I think it was very strange for me to find him like that, with him being so large and in such a place with no trace of his mother. He was at the bottom of a large wooden stairwell, and I shudder to think what he went through to get to that location! It must have been a lot of extremely painful drops on each step in the dark while crawling forward— pure suffering! (That is if the mother hadn’t deposited him there for some reason, which I doubt because there has been no sign of her, and I haven’t heard her.) The next day I left the attic door open with the hope that the mother would come into the house looking for her pup, but there was nothing.
A few weeks previously I found a decomposing body of a much smaller baby squirrel in the same location, but I wasn’t sure if it was a mouse or a squirrel, and I assumed it was a mouse because I haven’t heard any squirrels in the attic recently.
According to instructions that I saw online, I started treating him by hydrating him with Pedialyte using a tiny 1cc feeding syringe. Pedialyte is similar to Gatorade, with it being intended to re-hydrate human infants. He soon figured out how to drink from the feeding syringe when I was doing that.
I was anxious to give him milk though, so I did that during the next feeding a few hours later. I gave him powdered Esbilac Puppy Milk Replacer, which most websites say is the most appropriate milk to give to nursing squirrels. He took to drinking it well, however the next day I started to become very worried because I was then finding a lot of information online that said that the squirrel must first be totally hydrated before giving it any milk for the first time, because otherwise it might die. I was worried that I didn’t hydrate him enough before giving the milk, and I became more and more worried that the milk was accumulating in his body and it would eventually kill him. Before I first fed him, he did go to the bathroom by peeing and having tiny poops, but not afterwards, which was the biggest reason for my concern.
I became really worried when I saw a website that said you should first give Pedialyte to the baby squirrel every 15 minutes for about 2 hours before you start giving it milk for the first time, which was much more than what I did, since I only gave it to him one time! Eventually I became so worried that I stopped giving him milk and I switched back to hydrating him only with Pedialyte instead, and in the morning I found some tiny little poops in the bin, which relieved me a bit, but he still hadn’t really started peeing again as far as I could tell. So to be sure I hydrated him only with Pedialyte instead of giving him milk for most of the rest of the day, although I don’t know if it was too late to do that.
I think it makes sense about the pup first needing to be completely hydrated before drinking milk. For example, you would never see a TV commercial where someone crosses the finish line of a marathon in the desert, to then be awarded with a tall glass of milk! He certainly never minded drinking the Pedialyte, and he was often active after doing so.
I also saw online that Squirrel milk is high in fat, and therefore it is good to mix some heavy whipping cream in with the Esbilac powder, so I started doing that also. However, I was so paranoid about not hydrating him enough at first that I think I underfed him with milk with each feeding, which might actually have been a problem as he is a bit skinnier in the pictures than of other ones at his age (although he is not emaciated like some pictures I have seen.) I also heard that giving him too much milk could kill him, so the combination of all those concerns always made me apprehensive when feeding him.
A few days later (last night) I was continuing to look for information online, and unfortunately it was only then that I found out about an organization called Acorn Acres that is nearby in Millersville that specializes in treating squirrels who are exactly in such a situation, which I initially missed in my haste to get out and purchase the materials! I called to try to make an appointment to bring him in, however they were at full capacity with squirrels due to it being the birthing season, so they couldn’t take him.
Of course I always knew that I would soon need to find some sort of a wildlife sanctuary to adopt him, but I assumed from the online information that I was seeing that professional care for newborn squirrels was rather rare and mostly beyond reach, particularly because I saw information that said it is even illegal to care for Squirrels in Pennsylvania! I didn’t realize that licensed Squirrel rehabilitators exist in many areas.
Thankfully, I then found an organization in Washington Borough, PA, called the Raven Ridge Wildlife Center, which is on the Susquehanna River near Columbia, and they were willing to take him to be rehabilitated despite the fact that they were mostly at capacity and they specialize more in rehabilitating birds. So I went on an bus adventure with him to bring him there today. Columbia is a nice town on the river; I used to live close to there, and Lancaster where I live now is nearby as well.
While I had him, the little guy slept and crawled around and stretched and yawned a lot. I noticed this morning that hair was starting to grow on his tail, head and his back, as you can see in the pictures. As far as I could tell he seemed to be very healthy except for the fact that he was not going to the bathroom enough, however that can potentially be a very serious problem, apparently. I hope the only problem was that I was not feeding him quite enough due to my concerns, since if that was the problem it could most easily be rectified.
I hope that I did not harm the little guy by making mistakes. I tried to be cautious but I was anxious to treat him as soon as possible. I’m praying that he will be ok. Squirrels can live to be twenty years old.
This link shows a list of wildlife rehabilitators in each state, and this link shows a list of wildlife rehabilitators by county in Pennsylvania, although it doesn’t list all of them, so you should also make sure to call around if you are looking for one.