Milk coming out of squirrel's nose.

Dr. Marie replied:

Oh my, this is a tough question. If the squirrel has truly aspirated some milk forumla this means that he has breathed the milk into his lungs. If this is the case then there are several possible outcomes:

1. It may be a small enough amount that it won't affect him at all.

2. It could be a large enough amount the he could possibly drown. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do to prevent that without veterinary care.

3. It could be that a small amount of milk got into the airways and over the next few days this can cause some infection. Infection is what leads to aspiration pneumonia.

If this were a dog or cat then my treatment would depend on how the animal were doing. (The treatment is likely the same for squirrel, but I'll be honest with you - I don't do much squirrel medicine!) If the animal was struggling to breathe then I would administer oxygen and possibly sedate the animal and put in an endotracheal tube to help me to administer oxygen effectively.

If the animal seemed fine then if I would monitor him over the next few days. If he was coughing or lethargic then I'd likely take an xray to see the extent of the damage and then probably start antibiotics.

Orphaned wildlife care can be difficult. I wish I could give you better advice but I can't see that there is a whole lot that you can do.

Is the squirrel having obvious problems?



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Dr. Marie replied:

Hmm...what you are seeing doesn't sound like aspiration pneumonia. If there was enough milk in his lungs that it is coming out his nose he would really really be struggling to breathe.

I'm wondering if he could have been born with a cleft palate. If he allows you to look at him, have a good look at the roof of his mouth. If there is a severe cleft palate then you may see that there is a space that extends down the middle of the roof of his mouth. Sometimes it's not that obvious though.

When an animal with a cleft palate tries to drink, the tongue pushes the milk up through the hole in the palate and it can go into the nasal cavity.

Unfortunately if there is a cleft palate there is nothing you can do about it. Sometimes with dogs and cats if the palate is not too severe you can still manage to get enough food in for them to survive and then when they are big enough they can have surgery to fit the hole.

If this is a cleft palate (which really is the most likely explanation for milk to be coming out of the squirrel's nose) then this could be the reason that the squirrel was orphaned. Often when an animal is born with a deformity, the mom will abandon the animal rather than spending energy on an animal that is not likely to survive.

There still is a chance for the little guy, but there's not a whole lot more that you can be doing for him unfortunately.