Keeping Your Squirrel Happy and Healthy

Some say it's outrageously wrong to try and keep wild animals as pets. They belong in their natural environment. Then again, others might say that all animals were once wild, and humans managed to tame some of them and turn them into domestic animals. At any rate, in my opinion, no animal should be kept in a cage. I'd rather not keep them as pets than keep them in cages. In my opinion, if you really want to have a nice happy squirrel around, you might consider keeping it outside, or letting it come near your house. So one should try to let the squirrel in its natural environment, and maybe "make friends" with it so that it may visit one from time to time, to eat, play, be admired as the adorable creature that it is. Still those who are absolutely in love with squirrels and want to have them around all the time, for those who really want to take care of those lovely animals, I've found some recommendations regarding their care.

First of all, as far water is concerned, they should have a water bowl nearby. This water should be changed daily, and it is more recommended to use non-plastic bowls (squirrels, being rodents, like to chew on plastic.)

Secondly, one should mind a squirrel's daily diet. Squirrels can eat a variety of foods. For instance, you can feed them unsalted peanuts or unsalted sunflowers. They are also crazy about shelled and unshelled nuts like almonds, hazel nuts, walnuts, pecans, and so on. The thing is they all have to be unsalted! They may also eat fruit and vegetables like grapes, apples, tomatoes, cherries, melon, and avocado. Some squirrels may also delight in sugar free peanut butter. Other such creatures may eat cucumber, corn, pears, spinach, lettuce, blueberries, kiwi, banana, mango, pineapple, raisins, peaches, apricots, nectarines, figs, strawberries. So they do like all sorts of goodies that kids also enjoy. Apparently, each squirrel seems to have different tastes in food, so one cannot know for sure if they'd eat this or that. Some people even feed their squirrels mice food bought from pet shops, but being primarily wild animals, squirrels do prefer their food to be as natural as possible. The best hours to feed a squirrel are at 8:00 a.m. and 6 p.m., i.e. twice a day. The squirrels' diet naturally depends on their age.

In their natural environment, squirrels are awake for a certain period of time: a few hours after sunrise and a few hours before sunset. They spend the rest of the day sleeping or simply relaxing. So, unlike many people (me included), they have very healthy sleeping hours. During their "awake" hours they generally have plenty of energy; they feel the need to run, climb trees and play a lot.

If you want your squirrel to play around your house, you need to make sure there aren't any dangers, like electric wires that they might want to chew on, cats, dogs that might not be very friendly towards squirrels and even try to hunt and eat them.

Apart from all these, you should also be careful with handling the squirrels, because they have really sharp teeth and claws. Some solve this problem with cat nail clippers, but then again, I personally recommend leaving them as they are and admiring them from the distance.

When you hold a squirrel, you should avoid grabbing it by the tail and hold its entire body instead. Like any other animal, they would feel a lot more comfortable if they are treated gently. Some say squirrels can make wonderful pets and get real affectionate towards their owners. Sometimes they can even recognize their own names, and come when they are called. They can do tricks, especially the so-called "flying squirrels", famous for their jumping qualities. If you let them in the house, you may discover that they also like looking out of the window. But because they like to be always in action, they might get bored, so the best thing is to let them play outside. They cannot survive otherwise; they really need to have a lot of activities. Indeed, one can make all sorts of improvisations of tree-like objects that squirrels can climb on or jump from.