At the beginning of our baby season, in Spring of 2006, I received a call from a gentleman from Alta saying he found a flying squirrel in his wood pile.  He brought the squirrel to me in a box.  When I got it, I examined it and found it did have an injured front leg, to what extent I did not know.  When I got home the poor squirrel was so stressed and scared.  Flying squirrels are very timid and nocturnal animals.  I made a home for it in a medium size dog carrier, gave it food and water and left it alone in a dark and quiet place in my home.  The next day I took it out of the carrier to try and examine the injury further.  It did not appear broken, I was assuming she sprained it in a jump to another tree that went wrong! The squirrel was as soft as a bunny and her cute little bug eyes looked at me all the time.  I decided to have one of our vets examine the squirrel and possibly take x-rays.  The appointment was for the next afternoon.  The morning of the appointment I went to take the squirrel out of the carrier and clean it before the trip to the vet.  I reached in and picked up the squirrel, bringing it out of the carrier somewhat belly up.  As I pulled her out I saw a new born baby Flying Squirrel nursing on her tummy.  I looked in the corner where I got her from and there were 2 more pink new born babies!  I was so very excited! Not only do we very seldom rehab Flying Squirrels, as our area of Placer County is too low in altitude; we have never rehabbed an adult mammal having her babies in captivity. I decided to cancel our vet appointment and let her tend to her babies.  The paw can wait.  In researching further I found out that due to their timidity, the mama Flying Squirrel needs complete quiet so as not to stress her.  With any stress she  may kill her babies out of frustration. My home is not a quiet home with children and dogs.  I decided to put her out in my squirrel flight enclosure where we put adolescent squirrels being prepared for release.  Needless to say, my flight cage will now be unavailable for the rest of this season.  I put in a card table with the idea to keep the babies in the carrier on fleeces to stay covered and warm. Mom can then come and go in my 12 X 12 enclosure to get exercise and get away from her babies when she wants.  She had something else in mind.  The first night in the enclosure, she transferred her babies from the carrier to one of my nesting boxes stationed near the top of the cage. My job was to keep Mom healthy so she can raise her babies and keep them healthy.  That I did.  I offered her fresh fruit, nuts and vegetables.   Her favorite nut was a pine nut (expensive gal) and her favorite fruit was oranges.  In the course of the 12 weeks I had them, two of her babies died, (very normal in nature).  I put a 6 foot ladder in the cage near the nesting box so I could peak in every so often.  As the baby grew bigger, it would sleep side by side with Mom.  Sometimes its little mouth would be pink from nursing.  I would put food in the nesting box for convenience, and would talk and sing to them.  They seemed calm and very attentive. At about 13 weeks, we transferred Mom and baby up to Tahoe Wildlife Rehabilitation Center where they have many flying squirrels being rehabbed.  I gave them the nesting box in which the squirrels lived.  I heard about a week later, that Mom and baby were doing very well, adjusting to their new home and waiting to be released.