One afternoon Jemma and I were sitting at home reading when I heard this weird squawking coming from the back door. I crept up to get a closer look and peered through the mesh to see a small ball of fluff shaking rapidly every time it made the weird noise. It was quite amusing to watch the ball of fur start vibrating every time it squawked. After a minutes examination I realized it was a baby squirrel that had fallen out of it’s nest. It didn’t look hurt in any way, although a little bit stressed, so we decided to leave it for a while to see if it’s mother would come and pick it up (knowing that if it smelt of us the mother wouldn’t touch it). We left it squawking on the doorstep for about an hour, in which time the mother did come down the tree, look at it, then turn around and go back up to the roof. Deciding that she obviously wouldn’t collect it I opened the door and picked it up. By this point Christina (the maid) had gone round the house so that she was the other side of the back door matt and was peering at it with disgust. The locals aren’t massive fans of animals and they tend to be scared of anything small and furry. Jemma tells me that when they first got the kittens, Christina couldn’t understand why on earth you’d want the scary little creatures in your house. Over time she grew to love them, and although never picked them up she seemed to like it when they rubbed up against her legs while she was doing the ironing.
The instant I picked it up Christina grabbed the matt it had been sat on and promptly put it in the washing machine, as if it had left some disgusting squirrel germs there. It soon settled down and stopped squawking, promptly going to sleep curled up in my hand. After closer examination we realized that it was a boy and after Jemma’s suggestion, I named him Monty. I cut up my woolen scarf that I had been knitting (that hadn’t been going very well anyway) and made a little nest for him to sleep in. After speaking with Amelia, who has raised a few baby squirrels before, I found out what to feed him and how to look after him. I bought a couple of syringes from the pharmacy, made the formula and fed him. He drank the whole syringe and promptly went back to sleep.
Over the next few days I carried him around in my bra; Amelia told me that they like the warmth and also as he now thought that I was him mum, it would be best to keep him somewhere he can smell me. This worked quite well for a few days as he’d sleep happily in there until I woke him up every 4 hours to be fed. If you are wondering how it is possible to keep a baby squirrel down your bra and not get covered in poo, the answer is this: In the wild the mother would lick the squirrel to stimulate it to go to the toilet. When they are this young (Monty was about 4 weeks we think) they can’t go on their own., so every time I fed him I would also ‘wee’ him. It was a very strange sight. At night I kept him wrapped inside his wool nest next to my pillow, inside the mosquito net so that the cats couldn’t get to him. I set my alarm every 4 hours to wake me up to feed him during the night which was exhausting as I was still getting up early to ride every morning.
The instant I picked it up Christina grabbed the matt it had been sat on and promptly put it in the washing machine, as if it had left some disgusting squirrel germs there. It soon settled down and stopped squawking, promptly going to sleep curled up in my hand. After closer examination we realized that it was a boy and after Jemma’s suggestion, I named him Monty. I cut up my woolen scarf that I had been knitting (that hadn’t been going very well anyway) and made a little nest for him to sleep in. After speaking with Amelia, who has raised a few baby squirrels before, I found out what to feed him and how to look after him. I bought a couple of syringes from the pharmacy, made the formula and fed him. He drank the whole syringe and promptly went back to sleep.
Over the next few days I carried him around in my bra; Amelia told me that they like the warmth and also as he now thought that I was him mum, it would be best to keep him somewhere he can smell me. This worked quite well for a few days as he’d sleep happily in there until I woke him up every 4 hours to be fed. If you are wondering how it is possible to keep a baby squirrel down your bra and not get covered in poo, the answer is this: In the wild the mother would lick the squirrel to stimulate it to go to the toilet. When they are this young (Monty was about 4 weeks we think) they can’t go on their own., so every time I fed him I would also ‘wee’ him. It was a very strange sight. At night I kept him wrapped inside his wool nest next to my pillow, inside the mosquito net so that the cats couldn’t get to him. I set my alarm every 4 hours to wake me up to feed him during the night which was exhausting as I was still getting up early to ride every morning.
After a few days he began to be a lot more active and would wriggle around too much to keep him in my bra (plus it was difficult to find enough tops that he wouldn’t fall out of when I bent over) so I cut up my fluffiest sock and made it into a pouch to hang around my neck. He wasn’t too keen on this at first but after some persuasion he curled up and went to sleep. It was hilarious when he’d wake up, stick his head out of the pouch and start squawking up at me to tell me that he needed a wee. He was so friendly, if you stroked his tummy he would lift his arm up to allow you to tickle him. As he got older he would squawk at me for a wee then pull a concentrating face while he was going, letting his legs dangle down loosely while I held him. He started to sleep less and get a lot more active, getting quicker each day that went by. His tail started to curl over his back while he ran, which helped us establish how old he was with a bit of internet research. He started to grow his bottom teeth and would chew on my finger gently when I picked him up. He became known at Tutwa and most people that came to the café would ask how he was doing. He went everywhere with me.
One evening I was stressing that he seemed to be a bit constipated, so was trying to work out what to do. Jemma had got me some milk to make the formula with, but as they didn’t have any evaporated milk, she’d bought condensed instead. Thinking that it probably wouldn’t make much difference I fed Monty as usual. To my horror he went absolutely mad. He was attacking the syringe trying to get more food out whilst darting from side to side. He ended up with it smeared all over his face and paws, then starting attacking his paws trying to lick it off. It looked like he was chewing his thumbs off. I shrieked for Jemma and explained that I thought he might have chewed his thumbs off, and trying not to laugh she calmed me down and said that he probably wouldn’t do that as it would hurt. I never lived it down, although I still stand by the fact that if anyone had seen what he’d done they probably would have come to the same conclusion. After dipping my finger in the formula, I realized that condensed milk is obviously just pure sugar. It was so sweet I couldn’t believe it. Obviously Monty had had a bit of a sugar rush and liked it judging from his attempts to attack the syringe.
When Richard came over to see Jemma for a few days, I was debating what to do. I couldn’t leave Monty at home for that long as we needed to pick Richard up from the airport at Kasane which was a good 2 hour drive away. I decided my best option would be to take Monty with me, which technically involved me smuggling him into Botswana. I made a nest in my camera bag and took him in the car with us. While we were driving I had the zip open so he could play, but as we drew nearer the border I zipped the lid on so that there would be no chance of him escaping or someone spotting him. While we were in the Border Post he was squawking loudly so I had to keep coughing to cover up the sound. As you drive into Bostwana they have a checkpoint and search your car for fresh fruit etc, whilst also making you stand on a chemical filled rag to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease. We though it was hilarious as when they asked us if we had any fruit or veg, we were able to honestly say no… they didn’t ask if we had any baby squirrels so technically we weren’t lying. Richard wasn’t massively amused at first, he thought Monty was cute but expected him to be quite wild and not much fun to play with. As Jemma decided to sprawl herself on the back seat of the car, Richard was left holding Monty while I drove home. Monty soon charmed Richard into being just as soppy about him as the rest of us were by squawking at him loudly from the opening in the camera bag. I think Richard wasn’t sure what to make of him at first, but once he’d realized how tame and playful Monty was, he was happy to play with him constantly.
I had been worried about what to do with him when we moved to Cape Town as smuggling him into Botswana was one thing, but trying to smuggle him into South Africa was another. There was a woman called Karen that lived on the Fish Farm, who already had a couple of squirrels she had rescued. Baby squirrels are actually very easy to raise and fine to release back into the wild after only 12 weeks. After checking out Karen I decided that would be the best option for Monty as she obviously knew what she was doing and cared for the squirrels very much. When it came to me handing Monty over to her I was very upset and gave her his woolen blanket, syringes and explained how he like to have his belly rubbed. She humored me and put him down her top straight away, where he burrowed down a bit and went to sleep. I visited him a few times before we moved to see how he was getting on. He seemed very happy and Karen was always very understanding with me fussing about him. Although it was sad to see him go, he has definitely been left it good hands.
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