It has an abcess on the right side of its face, it could be from an injury from a predator, dog, cat etc., I’ve also seen that in cats and dogs with an infected upper molar.
Source: been working at a rural animal hospital for a month now and looks similar to what I have seen on some patients.
Gotcha. thankya.
The photo is hard to make out but it’s looks to be in pretty rough shape, tbh. Is it moving normally? It looks pretty young. It looks like it may have had some recent damage and its head is swollen. Its eye looks damaged too.
Ideally one would take it to a rehabber for antibiotics and maybe if there’s an object in the eye removing the object, but I’m not sure what the options are for what looks like a juvenile eastern grey squirrel in general.
It’s gone back off into the woods. This is more asking out of curiosity at this point. But it was hopping around a lot through the grass. Mobile at least. 🤷
i didnt mean to be rude, if i was. Im sorry. I dont even know if there are places that will rehab a squirrel. I can think of like 3 places where i live that will take birds and turtles/tortoises/sea turtles but not where to take squirrels. The idea of catching a squirrel to take it to rehab kinda assumes quite a bit. I also dont have money to pay a squirrel’s rehab bill if it were to cost me money to fix a broken squirrel.
Hopefully the hopping around means its doing okay,relatively. As much ok as a squirrel can be doing I guess. Mobile is certainly better than not at any rate.
Oh no, it’s cool. I didn’t take ya as being rude. Nature’s tough. A lot of my original concern when I was watching was whether it needed to be put out of it’s misery. Would not have been the first time.
No ideal not a vet, my guess is to say mange? Was it acting normal or is it just rough looking?
It was hopping around a lot. I got weird vibes off it before I noticed it’s face.
Ah poor thing, wonder if it isn’t bad fleas or mange like I said
Yea, maybe. Ngl my first thought was it got roughed up, dropped by a hawk, and landed on its face.😅
Yeah it could have been in a fight, who knows, poor sweet baby tho, I love squirrels.
A Hexbear in this thread said it was an juvenile eastern grey squirrel. I don’t know anything about this stuff - I only googled for 60 seconds but maybe it has fibromatosis or squirrelpox? I don’t want to google more. A couple of depressing images were more than enough.
Diseases
Diseases such as typhus, plague, and tularemia are spread by eastern gray squirrels. If not properly treated, these diseases have the potential to kill squirrels. When bitten or exposed to bodily fluids, humans can contract these diseases. Eastern gray squirrels may also carry parasites such as ringworm, fleas, lice, mites, and ticks which can kill their squirrel host. Their skin may become rough, blotchy, and prone to hair loss due to the mite parasite during the chilly winter months.
The parasites are not transferred to people when these squirrels reside in attics or homes. A frequent illness spread by ticks is Lyme disease. Ticks can also spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever. It can result in damage to internal organs including the heart and kidney if not properly treated. An eastern gray squirrel is susceptible to diseases including fibromatosis and squirrelpox. A squirrel with fibromatosis, a virus-induced illness, may grow massive skin tumors all over the body.
Blindness could result from a tumor that is located close to a squirrel’s eye.
A couple of depressing images were more than enough.
sorry about that.To find what I wanted fast I googled jackalope disease. A jackalope is a mythical jackrabbit with antlers. In reality - rabbits can get a disease that makes huge growths form on their heads and faces. Google reminded me it’s called the shope papilloma virus. It’s like horror movie stuff for the little guys. Sometimes the growths might seem like “horns”. Then I realized that squirrel jackalope disease was the fastest way to get results even though it’s a very silly search term.
To anybody reading this - I strongly suggest you don’t google “shope papilloma virus”.
Armchair beer in hand diagnosis: it’s shit is fucked up. Nature is cruel.
