Squirrels

Sorry I don't have more pics up yet, but Geocities is being characteristically rotten. I'll try to upload a few more later tonight.

At left: The cage the squirrels were originally in. The same cage that Harriet escaped from one morning, as recorded on my weblog. After she made it abundantly clear that she had outgrown this cage, I had to move her.

At right: Their current living quarters. The bottom cage measures about 2 x 2 x 1.5 feet; the top, slightly smaller. Harriet lives on the first floor, Julia on the second. Both cages have towel bedding, a stick to play on, and a fishbowl, stuffed with washcloths and bits of cut up t-shirts, in which they sleep. They often entertain themselves by climbing on the cage walls.

At left: Last, but certainly far from least... Harriet the squirrel, here pictured just after her feeding time -- fuzzy and fat, and ready (as always) to climb up onto my shoulders and snuzzle to sleep in my hair.

At left: The original three grey squirrels whose nest had fallen one rainy day over a month ago. Pictured here at four weeks old, their eyes have yet to open. Clockwise from top is Lucy, Harriet, and Freddy. Freddy died the day after this picture was taken of dehydration, internal injuries, and severe pneumonia. Lucy died a few days after her eyes opened due to a cold that weakened her immune system and a calcium deficency that I could not rectify.

At right: Julia. This little girl came along three days after Lucy died, eyes open and screaming like a banshee. It was doubted that she would live long due to the list of injuries she had received in the fall: two severely broken forelimbs, nerve damage, outwardly bleeding internal injuries, pelvic and spinal fractures, lacerations on the inside of her hips, and severe nasal congestion. I wrapped her up in a towel and put her on the heating pad so that she could die warm and in a peaceful resting place.

At right: Twenty-four hours later, Julia is suckling on an Esbilac/heavy cream mixture.

Today, her injuries are all but healed. She has limited grasping capability in her right forearm (where the nerve damage occured), and an abscess that is slowly going down in her left forearm. The congestion cleared up, the wounds healed, and she regained the ability to curl her tail and climb like a normal squirrel. She's doing beautifully, in other words.