Posted by djs27 on December 27, 2002 at 13:42:00:
Hey everyone,
Hope all are having a safe holiday season. I wanted to share a little story about my Southern Flying Squirrel, Maple, since she makes me so happy.
Maple was born in June and I've had her since she was 5 and 1/2 weeks old. Her cage is a converted ferret/chinchilla cage that is 2x2ft on the base and 3 ft high. She has a 12 inch running wheel. Most people have reported that their squirrel doesn't run on their wheel. This was the case with Maple until about a month ago.
Every night I hear the wheel squeak as she runs around. It gets pretty loud, so I've been putting vegetable oil on it about once every 2 weeks. The little bugger gets up there and licks it off sometimes. Even though I knew she ran almost every night, I've never watched her. When I go to the cage or turn on a light, she runs over to see me.
Well, I walked into the bedroom one day and she didn't stop running, so I sat down to watch her. She can run very quickly on the wheel, stop it from spinning and even jump off and on while it is going around.
The thing that astounded me was what she did next. She would run on the wheel to get it going quickly and then just hold on. When she would do this, she would spin around and around in a circle, letting the wheel carry her. Even better, she would turn herself sideways on the wheel path. I don't know if this was done to make her less dizzy or to increase her velocity. Going parallel to the axis would definately increase her speed though.
Usually, she would spin around about five times and get it going again. However, I saw her that night hang on to the wheel and spin around 27 TIMES in a row without stopping!!! I couldn't believe it. I wish I had night vision video. It was the most amazing thing I've seen her do. She is quite a character.
See you guys later,
Dave
Here is a picture I took of her for a presentaiton on the psychopharmacology of alcohol.
