A Sad Ending

Yesterday morning, Hickory was sleeping. Every now and then, he would change positions, so I figured he was tired.

At 2pm, he was still napping, so I picked him up out of the cage with the intent to get some food into him. He was very limp and barely breathing!

Quickly, I rushed him over to a friends' house (he cares for squirrels in his yard all the time), and we force-fed Hickory some goat's milk. Hickory, by this time, was barely alive. After a couple of hours, Hickory seemed to be coming back around. He even crawled up my chest a few times while I cuddled him to keep him warm.

But, just before 6pm, Hickory took his last breath and passed away. :*-(

I've been barely able to function ... I miss the little guy SO much! He'd become part of our family, and we'd just decided to keep him and release him in a few weeks ourselves. :-( I'm completely heartbroken over his passing.

This could've been prevented had we known he was so young. We were told that he was approximately 6 or 7 weeks old, and therefore able to eat on his own. So we fed him apple pieces, and let him have water. When I got him over to my friend's place, though, my friend said he was much younger (only about 4 weeks), and was needing to be nursed by his mom, still. If only we'd known... :*-(