Menageries and menu choices

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. As I’ve said before, my mother was very tolerant of letting my brother and me keep strange pets at home. Baby birds and one or two squirrels that fell from their nests lived comfortably in the kitchen until they were old enough to be released. One of the squirrels would eat a slice of apple, just like kid, with a piece of watermelon. When we let him go, he hung around the backyard for a while and we’d leave apple slices for him by his favorite pine tree. Interestingly, too, my mother said that as a child sometimes they’d have a whole meal of squirrel brains. It’s not recommended to eat squirrel brains now, although if brains or sweetbreads of domestic animals are on a menu, that’s what I’ll order.