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🩺 Your free vet-prep sheet

Your Flying Squirrel Vet-Prep Sheet

Exotic-mammal vets are rare, and it is easy to freeze in a crisis. This is the one page to have ready — how to find a vet, what to bring, what to tell them, and the questions to ask. Print it and keep it with your care notes. This helps you prepare for a vet — it is not treatment.

Black & white saves ink and prints cleanly on any printer.

Not sure it’s a vet trip yet? Run the “normal, or should I worry?” check first — many worries turn out to be a husbandry fix.

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Flying Squirrel — Vet-Prep Sheet

🔍 Find an exotic-mammal vet — before you need one

  • Search the AEMV find-a-vet directory (the Association of Exotic Mammal Veterinarians), or, in the UK, the RCVS Find-a-Vet tool — or search “exotic / small-mammal vet near me”.
  • Call ahead and ask the key question: “Do you see small / exotic mammals?” Not every vet does. Ask the exam fee while you’re on the phone, so the cost is one less panic in a crisis.
  • Find and save one now, while things are calm — not in the middle of an emergency.

📇 Fill this in now — before the crisis

Two minutes now saves ten in a panic. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

My vet
My flying squirrel
What I’m seeing

🚨 Is this an emergency now?

See a vet promptly if you notice any of these:

  • Weakness, bendy limbs or fractures, tremors or seizures — metabolic bone disease is an emergency; see an exotic vet
  • Not eating, weight loss or lethargy
  • A cold, torpid animal when it shouldn’t be — warm gently and seek advice
  • Signs of parasites (lice/fleas), or any wound

When in doubt, a vet call is never wrong — most issues are reversible if caught early.

🚗 On the way / while you wait

✅ Do

  • Keep it warm — small mammals chill and dehydrate fast, and cold makes almost everything worse.
  • Bring it in its own bedding/carrier with some familiar food.
  • For rabbits and guinea pigs, keep offering their normal hay, greens and water — a gut that stops is an emergency.
  • Bring a fresh dropping or urine sample if you can.
  • Keep it calm and quiet.

⛔ Don’t

  • Don’t give any human or OTC medicines — some common antibiotics are fatal to rabbits and guinea pigs.
  • Don’t withhold food from a rabbit or guinea pig.
  • Don’t let it get cold.
  • Don’t handle it more than necessary.

🎒 What to bring

  • A fresh dropping or urine sample, if you can collect one.
  • Photos and a short video of the behaviour or symptom — it may not show it in the clinic.
  • A note of your setup and exactly what — and how often — you feed.
  • A note of eating, drinking and toileting over the last day.
  • The animal in a secure, warm carrier.

🗣️ What to tell the vet

A general vet may not know this species. Come ready to explain its correct care:

Enclosure
A tall, escape-proof cage with branches to climb and glide, and a nest box placed high — they’re arboreal and glide, so vertical space matters far more than floor area. (Authorities don’t publish exact dimensions or safe bar-spacing for pet flying squirrels, so aim for as tall and secure as possible rather than a fixed number, and confirm a safe wheel/setup with an exotic vet.) Keep bedding clean and dry.
Companionship
Social animals that do best with a companion, and they bond strongly to their keeper — a lone, ignored flying squirrel does poorly, and daily interaction (hand-feeding in the early weeks) builds the bond. Rehoming is hard on them once bonded.
Temperature
Keep them warm and stable indoors. In severe cold they enter torpor and stay nested for days, which can be mistaken for illness — so avoid letting them get cold. (Exact numeric temperature ranges aren’t well documented by authorities, so keep them comfortably warm rather than to a fixed figure.)
Substrate
A high nest box and clean, dry bedding/nesting material. Natural nests are in tree cavities, so provide an enclosed, elevated nest.
Enrichment
Branches to climb and glide between, safe toys, foraging, and out-of-cage exercise time in a safe space to prevent obesity — they’re highly active at night. (Wire wheels can be unsafe for a gliding-membrane animal — confirm any wheel with an exotic vet.)
Diet
A true omnivore — among the most carnivorous of squirrels. The diet should include protein (insects such as mealworms and crickets), plus nuts, fruit and vegetables. The critical risk is calcium balance: a nut/seed/corn-heavy diet is high in phosphorus and low in calcium, which drives metabolic bone disease. A calcium-adequate, balanced diet (correct calcium-to-phosphorus ratio) is essential. Fresh water always available.
Supplements
They’re prone to calcium deficiency and typically need a calcium supplement, with vitamin D3 (via diet or appropriate light) to use it — but D3 dosing must be vet-supervised, since over-supplementation is harmful. Have an exotic vet set the calcium/D3 plan.

⚕️ Small mammals are prey animals and hide illness until it is advanced, so any change in eating, droppings, drinking or behaviour is urgent — in rabbits and guinea pigs, not eating or passing no droppings for 12–24 hours can be a life-threatening emergency (gut stasis). They also chill and dehydrate quickly, so keep it warm. Tell the vet about your diet and any remedies you’ve used, and ask for exotic-mammal-safe medicines and doses — several antibiotics that are routine in other pets are dangerous to rabbits and guinea pigs.

Then note which of the warning signs (above) you are seeing, when they started, and whether they are getting worse.

❓ Questions to ask

  • Do you routinely see small / exotic mammals? If not, can you refer me to a vet who does?
  • What are the likely causes — and could my setup or diet be contributing?
  • What is the treatment plan, the likely cost, and what should I watch for at home?
  • How do I prevent this from happening again?