It was all very sad last week, when my eldest female chipmunk ‘Chloe’ took ill. She was behaving strangely on the Saturday, by building a nest in an un-used aviary. She seemed still grumpy with her brother Pickles, who after being her best friend for many years, was not welcome in her presence for the last couple of months. I put this down to it being the mating season. indeed I mention in my last post about Chloe, how she had started chirping for a mate way back in January.

On the Saturday I thought Chloe didn’t look all that steady with her climbing. But she was just going in to her new nest, so I couldn’t be sure in that fleeting glimpse of what I’d seen. The next day she had not come out of her nest box, so come midday I decided to investigate. I found her in next box, warm, but unwilling to move much. I gently lifted her out to take a closer look. She was very placid, I don’t mean she’s normally aggressive, but she was making no effort to run up on my shoulder, as chipmunks normally like to do. But her head did not look right, just between her ears, looked to be a small lump.

She stayed in her aviary that day, hardly coming out of her nest box at all., but she did come out once and took a long drink of water.

The next two days I closely watched her aviary, and around mid afternoon witnessed her come out of her next box. But each time she looked weaker than before. I’d moved her drink and favourite food to right outside her nest box.

Tuesday morning I spot her out of her nest box, she is climbing down the mesh to a shelf which also has a bowl of water on it. She makes it to the shelf, but slips, and falls 20cm to the floor, but on a bed of soft hay and torn up tissues. I reach in and pick up up, having another chance to examine her head. The lump on her head had has increased in size.

I phone my vets, who offer me an appointment that day. So I prepare the small cage I use to transport my chipmunks to the vets, and off we go. I sort of knew the likely outcome of this visit to the vet as I drove down there, with Chloe on the seat next to me.

At the vets, I lift her out of her transport cage and hold her gently in my hands. She is behaving as if she has had a fit, or has been sedated, poor thing is obviously not with it. Her ears were lying flat, was she in pain? The vet thought this was most likely a tumour on her brain, which had now got so big it was coming through her skull. I’m afraid there was nothing for it, as she was most likely in pain, but for her to be put to sleep.

My only regret was that I did not go with her out the back to just be with her as they administered the injection. I was there with Sue right to the end, but not with Chloe.

It’s horrible that what seems a perfectly healthy pet can go downhill so fast, but we hope if the time comes we can make the hard decisions and choose what’s best for our long term friends like Chloe.

Chloe

I have two chipmunks, Almond and Izzy who are the best of friends. I’m mentioning it here as these are two males and their friendship is quite odd in my experience. I don’t know if chipmunks can have ‘friends’ by my observations over months tells me these two are at least very close.

For a long time I thought Almond was a female, but as he was climbing up the aviary mesh early this year, there could be no mistake. These two spend lots of time together, often sitting next to each other. When one comes back in to the aviary the other will rush towards the other and rub noses and have gentle wrestling matches. They are both mature adults now but no sign of even the mildest disagreements let alone fighting. They are happy to eat together with no noticeable competition for food.

I have other males which can tolerate each other, but their relationship is variable with what I interpret as challenges towards each other from time to time.

Almond pinning Izzy down

Now Izzy tries to pin Almond down

Hi, and so sorry I haven’t posted an update for so long. I have been posting on our Chipmunk Forum

All but one of my chipmunks have been fine through the winter, except for poor Tucker. I found him dead at the bottom of his new home one morning. That was very sad, as I built a brand new aviary for him and thought he would really take to it.

The girls began chirping for a mate back in January and at one point i had two girls chirping on the same day. Only this week Willow was off again, but the last two days have been quite. I managed to get a snap of Willow in mid chirp this week, it makes her look a bit aggressive with her teeth showing. She is quite small and very sweet with it, but she is a fast mover, so hope you enjoy seeing what see looks like.

Willow chirping loudly for a mate this week

I was listing to a local phone radio station (LBC) last week when the host began talking about a news article describing how an NHS trust were having problems with the staff being attacked by grey squirrels. I though you might like to hear some of the people who phoned in, so I’ve uploaded it here as a 15 minute long MP3 file.

When squirrels attack

There’s a little bit of interference at the start as i was moving around, but it gets better towards the end.

I’ve also found a couple of pages about this story in the Internet:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-world/2009/01/22/nurses-in-county-durham-on-violent-squirrels-red-alert-115875-21059941/

http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/vip/profile/nufc1892/blog/102291/Nurses_told_to_walk_in_pairs__to_protect_them_from_squirrels_.html

Chipmunks tend to follow routines, some examples: Snowy is a late riser, getting up about 9am. Star will not want to come out of her aviary until late afternoon. Toto will be first up and run around all day. But in the last few days my chipmunks Behavior patterns have nearly all changed.

Chloe started calling for a mate on Sunday all day, the next day it was Stars turn. Two days in a row Star has been coming out on free range first thing in the morning. Toto is trying to stay outside of her aviary overnight. She’s only been seen for a couple of hours each day. Willow hasn’t asked to come out of her aviary for four days now. But she can be seen playing happily with her aviary pal Billy for most of the day.

Is the cold weather sap we’re going through, even though mine are all indoor chipmunks, and the place is nice and warm. I do believe even despite them being indoors, chipmunks are still very aware in the change of seasons. Do they know by moon phases, or do they just look out the window and the shivering office workers scuttling to the next meeting.

Chloe and Pickels having just played both on the wheel