Email this to a friend. Although the Chinese calendar designates 2001 as the Year of the Snake, Division of Natural Resources officials say it's more likely to be the Year of the Squirrel. In hollow trees and leaf-ball dens throughout the Mountain State, a bushytailed population explosion is taking place. Fueled by record food supplies, squirrels are breeding like crazy. Well, last fall we had a bumper crop of hickory nuts and acorns, two staples in our squirrels' diets.
Squirrels ordinarily produce one or two litters of young each year.
In years when the food supply is poor, they stop at one. This year's abundance of food virtually guarantees a two-litter year. If squirrels were ever going to have two litters in a year, this would be the year. Squirrel mating ordinarily takes place in January. Fox squirrel litters tend to be a bit smaller, ranging from one to six pups.