What do squirrels eat in nature and in captivity?

All of us from a small age know the illustrations tochildren's books on which a squirrel is depicted, usually in the background of a hollow, holding a nut or mushroom in its paws. Well, the illustrators are kind of right - this is really their favorite food. But is it the only one? So, where do people live and what do they eat?

Proteins are distributed practically throughout theterritory of Russia, where forests grow. They live in the taiga, where mainly coniferous species grow, as well as in mixed or broad-leaved forests, trying to arrange their dwellings in old massifs, since there is more food there. They can also settle in city parks and squares, close to a person where they take their food with pleasure. Most of us are sure that they eat protein only vegetable food. Actually this is not true. In addition to the seeds of tree species, which constitute the main diet of their food (coniferous forests are cone seeds and pine nuts, and in deciduous forests - beech nuts and hazelnuts, acorns), they consume mushrooms and berries, fruits, and flower buds. They also eat various beetles and butterflies, can occasionally and destroy bird nests, while drinking eggs and eating chicks.

Their dwellings are arranged only on trees. In the deciduous forests, they prefer to live in hollows in which they arrange a soft litter of grass, dry moss, foliage. Animals that live in coniferous forests build themselves nests of spherical form from dry branches, called hayns, which are also lined with soft materials from the inside. Usually, proteins are built up to 15 nests, where they live for 2-3 days, after which they move to a new one, with males and females living separately. In winter cold, the protein rarely leaves its shelter, being there in a state of half-sleep.

In summer and autumn, proteins create their own supplies for the winter,folding the food in the hollows of trees, cracking the bark, digging in among the roots, and also hang mushrooms on branches. True, they quickly forget about their reserves, finding them later in the winter by accident, by smell, breaking through a tunnel in their snow. It is noticed that squirrels usually eat high-quality products, only inexperienced young people can make a mistake and pick up a wormy or rotten nut or mushroom. These extraordinarily mobile animals are strikingly diligent about harvesting supplies for the winter, extracting kilograms of mushrooms, nuts and berries, trying to collect as much as possible. Protein a day consumes 80 grams of food in spring and summer and up to 35 g in winter.

Proteins can live in captivity, and thanks totheir cleanliness, they do not require particularly careful care. It is enough to clean the cage three times a week, including removing food supplies. To keep a home squirrel it is necessary in a spacious cage or an open-air cage in which necessarily there should be a wheel. From time to time, the animal can be released by closing the windows and removing objects that can harm it. Captive protein eats nuts (you can not feed almonds!), Acorns, fruit, berries. To make food similar to the one that squirrels eat in nature, sometimes they need to be treated with quail eggs and flour worms. Also in the diet should be present vitamins and minerals.

With good care, protein, living in captivity, can live up to 12 years. In natural conditions, the average life expectancy of these animals is 3.5 years.