A multitude A bunch Both of my commenters wanted to know more about the squirrels. We here at Chez Kat are all about pleasing, so here ya go...
We live in the woods of northwestern Wisconsin. In these woods there live a variety of animals, the majority of which have six or eight legs, an exoskelton, and often an annoying ability either to produce webs or to bite. In addition to the arthropods there are also a variety of creatures that are warm-blooded, bear live young which they nurse through the use of handy mammary glands, and which have, somewhere on their cute little bodies, fur. I am speaking, of course, of the northern flying squirrel. The description also fits bears, deer, foxes, opossums, skunks, porcupines, and deer mice, all of which occupy their own particular environmental niche in our woods, but the subject is squirrels. Stick to the subject, Kath.
If one's attic is not hermetically sealed, it is possible for flying squirrels to take up residence there. I have heard of this from 1, a neighbor, who learned by experience; B, an internet friend in Kentucky, who learned the same way (non-knitter; not much of a friend, really), and III, our contractor. Obviously, this is Truth. So when #2 son, whose bedroom is pretty much surrounded by attic, reported hearing scurrying noises in the walls, we knew what it was. The two or three flying squirrels that had previously escaped the attic into the house only to be demolished by the cats were a clue, too. We're not dumb here, nope, we can read the scat on the attic floor signs.
Many year ago my husband was a biology major. He had been a critter-chaser/catcher/keeper ever since he could hold a little net and never completely got over the “it-followed-me-home-can-I-keep-it” stage. The aforementioned squirrels that we had rescued from our cats were each placed – over-optimistically, it turned out – into a little cage with cedar shavings, a water bottle, and a hamster wheel for exercise. Each one duly succumbed to its cat-induced injuries. That last one had looked pretty healthy when we got it away from the cat, and we hoped we had gotten it early enough that it hadn't suffered any serious harm. Nope. Scratch another one.
Finally the little light bulb appeared above my head. “A live trap! We need a live trap!” One trip to the hardware store and $29.95 plus tax later, I had the exact model for our needs:
#2 baited it, placed it in the attic, and about three seconds later, we had a flying squirrel. Cool. This time we put it into an empty hamster cage and put that into the large dog crate/kennel we already had, so as to keep the felines at a safe distance. We needed some time to figure out exactly how we were going to house the little feller permanently.
You can just see the edge of the blue hamster cage peeking out from behind the old monitor. I know my house is a mess. Shut up.
Smokey found the perfect squirrel home on eBay:
That's En Esch in one of his favorite spots. Since it is daytime, there are no squirrels visible. He's watching the chipmunk (see below).
We kept trapping squirrels until we heard no more scurrying and the baited trap remained untouched for several days at a time. I think our cage population was about four at the time.
I should insert here that Smokey had done a fair amount of internet research to determine whether it was even feasible to keep flying squirrels as pets. (It turns out that yes, they make good pets according to several sites. There's lots of information about keeping them on the 'net.) I of course had insisted that, no, they were wild animals and would/could never adapt to living in a cage. He heard me out and proceeded to do otherwise. Go figger.
In the years since then, the population has fluctuated. There was the time someone left the cage unlatched and three squirrels ventured out. One became cat kill, one was recaptured, and one disappeared, never to be seen again. Not seen again that is, until months later when we found its desiccated body underneath some shelves. For some odd reason it hadn't decomposed and started to smell; it just dried up, thank FSM. There was more wall-scurrying and live-trapping every winter. One cute little guy, Codger by name and identifiable by the notch in his tail fur, actually died of old age.
In his internet researches Smokey had found that flying squirrels are, in many ways, similar to sugar gliders, which apparently are also popular as pets. I remember reading an front-page, center-column article in the Wall Street Journal (this used to be the spot for the Journal's daily soft news story) several years ago telling about how apartment-dwellers are happy to pay $150 apiece for sugar gliders. At least the flying squirrels are free (initially; the cage was not cheap).
We also had a chipmunk in the cage for nearly a year. He was terrified of the squirrels, which was weird because he outweighed them by several ounces, which when you weigh way less than a pound is a lot. Here you can see him demonstrating exactly how many sunflower seeds a fully grown chipmunk can stuff into his cheeks:
The squirrels' main diet is sunflower seeds, the same kind you would put into your bird feeder, supplemented by parrot chow, which contains some dried fruit in addition to various kinds of seeds. We also feed them mushrooms, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, raisins, and occasionally a pecan.
One reason that Smokey is so fond of the squirrels is that they are nocturnal, just like him. He keeps a kitchen stool right next to the cage and put a red light bulb over it so he could watch them comfortably without turning on any bright lights. Red light doesn't impair night vision, so it seemed appropriate for the little night dwellers. Their behavior that amuses us all to no end is running in the exercise wheels. One will run at top speed and another will jump into the wheel with it, hang on for dear life, and get a round-and-round ride. Occasionally a third will jump in, too. It's like a carnival ride for squirrels.
The most interesting population decrease was the fall that #1 son went back to college. He has always been a lover of furry critters and liked the idea of having one or two of his own in his dorm room. Absolutely forbidden by housing rules, of course, but rules are made to be, how shall I put this tactfully... bent beyond all recognition. He checked with his roommate-to-be, who had no objection, so when he boarded the plane back to New York he had two flying squirrels in a bonding pouch under his shirt. Just to be on the safe side, I stayed in the terminal (knitting, of course) until well after his plane had departed; I wanted to be available to take possession of the squirrels if they were discovered. No problems with Homeland Security, though. Whew.
You can read all about his squirrelly [mis-]adventures here:
Illicit dorm pets dodge the fuzz.
Second squirrel meets maker; dorm room pet profiled in WSN died after neglect
(The article refers to our pets as southern flying squirrels. Smokey thinks that's what they are based on the picture in our Audubon guide, but I prefer to think that in the north we have northern flying squirrels. He could easily be right, though. We now have opossum here in Wisconsin; they have been inadvertently imported in trucks of somethingorother from the southern US. Whatever.) Andrew was reprimanded by NYU's housing authorities, had to write a letter of apology to his roommate, and was on probation for some period of time. Luckily, it didn't affect his very generous scholarship. We all felt bad for Cain and Abel, but, after all, they are just rodents. Stuff happens, we move on.
The population swelled to seven this summer. (Can you imagine what a 7-squirrel cage smells like when the teenage son *forgot* to clean it? Ewww.) Earlier we had all observed quite a lot of amorous behavior between one [presumably] male squirrel and every other squirrel in the cage. Later on in the summer my husband called me at work one day: "I'm a daddy! Again!" Two litters of baby squirrels had been born. Smokey said the babies were about half the size of his little finger. We didn't look at them much, to avoid alarming the mommas. Alarmed mommas may actually eat their babies to protect them. (How I know that is another story. Some other time. It had nothing to do with squirrels. A novice blogger has to stretch her material.)
I leave you now with a couple of cute squirrel pix:
