Tell Me About It: Nuts for squirrels

1. What exactly is a flying squirrel?It’s a nocturnal squirrel — a southern flying squirrel is the official name. They are native to Ohio and the surrounding states. There is a northern flying squirrel but it’s a lot bigger — about the size of a red squirrel. People keep the southern flying squirrels for pets. These are different than sugar gliders. Those are from Australia.2. How did you get interested in them?When my daughter was about 10 years old, she wanted something different. I said, “Let’s get a flying squirrel.” At that time, you didn’t need a license or anything, so I got a cage from this lady who built rabbit cages. My daughter saved up to get one from this lady in Texas. Well, about a week before that happened, she called me up at work, and she said she had a flying squirrel. She found it in the corner of our garage window. It lived quite a long time, although it never got super tame since it was from the wild. My daughter breeds flying squirrels in Kentucky now. 3. How long have you had flying squirrels?I’ve had them over 25 years. 4. How many do you have now? How many do you usually have?I only have five right now, but usually I have eight — four breeding pairs. 5. How many do you sell each year?I used to sell about 10 babies a year, but last year we didn’t have any, and the year before that, they only had three babies. Most breeders only keep four or five breeding pairs because you have to take the babies away at five weeks and bottle feed them and then the people pick them up when the babies are 7 weeks old. If I had 50 squirrels, you wouldn’t get a tame squirrel. You can’t find these in pet stores at all, either.6. How much do you sell them for?I sell the males for $125 and the females for $150. Others sell them for a bit more than I do.7. Where do you sell them?People find me over the Internet even though I don’t have a website. Basically, if you Google flying squirrels, my name comes up. I’ve had people drive from as far as West Virginia or Wisconsin to pick up a baby. I usually have a waiting list — some people wait as long as two years for one.8. Do you have to have a special license or anything since they aren’t a domestic animal?I have a commercial license — it’s called a wild animal propagation permit license. It’s through the Division of Wildlife. Any native legal animal, you have to have a license in Ohio. By legal animal, I mean one you didn’t get from the wild — you have to get it from a licensed breeder. I have to keep track of who buys my squirrels and turn that into the Division of Wildlife. To keep one as a pet, you have to have a license, too. I give them the information, but it’s up to them to do the paperwork to get a license. Each state is different how they do things, too.9. What kind of equipment do you need?You just need a cage and proper vitamins. Since they are nocturnal, you have to give them Vitamin D and calcium. Most of their food, you can get from the wild. They eat acorns, hickory nuts, black walnuts — I give them to them raw because their teeth are always growing and chewing through the hard nuts wear their teeth down. 10. What kind of pet do they make? Do they bite?They are a bonding squirrel, so if you only get one of them they will bond to you and want to be with you all the time. If they are bonded to you, you could put them up on the curtain rods and they’d glide right to you because they’d want to be with you. They can glide up to 200 feet from a big tree. If you get more than one, they will bond with each other. In the wild, they live in groups of 10 or 20 in the same den. Males and females make equally good pets. I wouldn’t really recommend them for young children, like under 5 or 6, because the kids might squeeze them too hard and they will bite then. 11. How long do they live?In captivity, they live about 15 years. 12. Are there any special health issues to watch out for?As long as you give them the proper vitamins, they pretty much take care of themselves. They don’t have an odor and they don’t have parasites either. They are a very clean little animal. They would probably be a popular pet, but they are hard to find. 13. Are there vets around here who will treat them?I’ve only ever been to a vet once and that was to get a certificate of health to transport one across state lines to my daughter. The problem is vets don’t really know anything about them. I suppose they’d treat them like they would a hamster. I haven’t really ever had a need for a vet — they don’t need shots or things like that.