The Squiggy Archives: Feeding Squiggy in the evening - Hyrax loving fruit

Most of squiggy's morning meals were leaves from outside. I'd hold her in my hands and let her browse around all of the nearby bushes. I quickly learned which ones she preferred, and just like a fully wild hyrax, she was picky - they don't eat all the leaves on the branch, they move on to other branches and get the best of the best in the vicinity of the house. Usually not more than a 30 meters from the house.

I was walking most of the time, sticking her in a bush for a few seconds, then moving her on to the next one. She took to solid food within a few weeks of her living in my place.

Anyway, in the evening she had phases. There was an avacado phase. A coriander phase. A wet oatmeal phase. A dry oatmeal phase. A bok choy phase (my favorite - because it sounded pretty funny and it seemed like the healthiest) and a baby spinach phase. She would eat this one food at night for a few weeks then start to refuse it.

When I left for work I would hang branches I cut from the tree outside the house (or various bushes on the property) and hang them. She wouldn't eat much when I was gone. They are social eaters. They don't like to eat alone. Oddly enough, they also are not good at eating RIGHT NEXT to one another.

There's a proper word for it, but basically competitiveness kicks in when these little fuzzbutts get too close to one another while eating.


Anyway she had a banana phase. It went away at some point too. I think she started to get tummy aches, because her refusals became dramatic.

I'm told that sugar isn't a thing for hyrax bellies, so I think she knew to stop eating some fruits after a while.

One very nice feature of this little beast, is no matter how obsessive they are about a particular flavor - they do chew things completely before swallowing. Not like a dog.

Anway I just found this old video. If I can scrape a higher res version I'll put it up eventually.