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Serella posted:I wish your pics weren't broken because this is the best post I've ever read in PI. Please tell me Quark has big ears. Oops, sorry about the pics, they should be fixed now. Quark definitely has bigger ears than Odo, he also has a tendency to sneak to the food bowl and gather up all the latinum (corn) before hiding it away in a corner. I think Odo's on to him though, he's definitely been keeping an eye on him.
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| # ? May 14, 2013 07:03 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 02:30 |
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I think maybe I'm being a paranoid piggie owner, but I'm worried something is wrong with Jenna. Normally it takes her 2 days to drain her water bottle and I fill it up right away. Her water level has been the same for 4 days, it looks like she hasn't drank anything at all. She still has a healthy appetite and I've been trying to give her moisture rich foods so she doesn't shrivel up like a raisin. On top of that, for the last 4 days she's been wheeking loudly and almost nonstop. She doesn't sound distressed or hurt but it's a huge change in behavior for her. Should I be worried?
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| # ? May 14, 2013 15:58 |
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cuntvalet posted:I think maybe I'm being a paranoid piggie owner, but I'm worried something is wrong with Jenna. Normally it takes her 2 days to drain her water bottle and I fill it up right away. Her water level has been the same for 4 days, it looks like she hasn't drank anything at all. She still has a healthy appetite and I've been trying to give her moisture rich foods so she doesn't shrivel up like a raisin. A change in behavior should always be a source of concern. Are you sure the water bottle just isn't clogged and she can't get the water out? Have you observed her at all attempting to drink?
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| # ? May 14, 2013 15:59 |
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Sirotan posted:A change in behavior should always be a source of concern. Are you sure the water bottle just isn't clogged and she can't get the water out? Have you observed her at all attempting to drink? I haven't seen it, but I've heard her using the nozzle. Tonight is cage cleaning night so I'll definitely be taking a look at the nozzle and make sure it's working. Also when I gave her fresh hay this morning she went into mental fits of joy and then ran face first into the wall of her pigloo. 
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| # ? May 14, 2013 16:06 |
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cuntvalet posted:I haven't seen it, but I've heard her using the nozzle. Tonight is cage cleaning night so I'll definitely be taking a look at the nozzle and make sure it's working. Yeah tap it with your finger every day to be sure water still comes out. Sometimes the ball gets jammed, and you can hear them clanking the nozzle but they aren't actually getting anything.
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| # ? May 14, 2013 17:47 |
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I decided to leave my two gerbils with my family this week, because my building is currently under construction and without air conditioning. Since this is temporary and the gerbils' regular cage is a big, heavy tank/cage topper combo, I left them with the smaller cage that they stay in while I'm cleaning the big one. What I didn't realize was that the door latch on the small cage somehow got damaged since the last time I used it. So first thing this morning, I got a message from my mother that began with, "first thing I want to say is DON'T WORRY, everone is fine and happy." Hmm. At some point during the night, the latch broke off and both Smokey and Sunny escaped from the cage. I had always assumed that if the gerbils somehow escaped, it wouldn't be a big deal because they'd stay near their cage. This turned out not to be the case. They somehow made their way out of the spare bedroom, down a long hallway, through the living room, and down a flight of stairs. The stairs aren't even carpeted. I've seen a sober adult fall down those stairs. Luckily, my brother happened to get up to use the washroom at five in the morning and found the gerbs hanging out in the middle of the basement floor, apparently unconcerned that they were a hell of a long way from their food and water. Thankfully, they seem no worse for wear from their adventure. I'll have to buy a new temp cage, though. Here is one of the imps. 
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| # ? May 15, 2013 04:46 |
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Yeah, rodents can go a helluva distance if they escape. I think I mentioned this story before, but an old Syrian hamster I had, while I was at work one night, escaped. He piled his shavings under his wheel until it jammed, climbed on top of it, then lifted the top off until he could climb out. He fell about five feet to the floor without a scratch, then scurried off out of my room, down the hallway to the other side of the house into the storage room, and made his way into the closet there. I only found him because, being a male, he had massive butt-tufts to keep his balls warm, and this left a sparkling clean line in the dust on the storage room floor that led straight to him. The storage room hasn't been used much in a while. When I found him, he was happily holding and chewing on the skeleton of a mouse that had died in there at some point. I pointed the flashlight at him and he stood up, mouse skeleton held firmly in his front paws. 
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| # ? May 15, 2013 08:26 |
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Years ago when my sister had a pet hamster, my mom went on a week long business trip and we went off to live at grandma's house. My grandmother had cats so the hamster stayed at home and we had a neighbor stop in every day to check on him. On the last day before my mom flew back into town the neighbor must not have put the cage lid back on completely because the hamster escaped, which wasn't discovered until my mom got home from the airport at 2am. She spent several hours in the early morning looking for the drat thing, only to find out he had immediately taken to running along the walls, gotten into the kitchen, ran down a gap between the floor cabinets and the refrigerator and somehow was now behind the cabinets under the bottom baseboard. She ended up taking out her jigsaw and cutting out a chunk of wood from the floor of one of these things, and after all that noise and disruption here's that goddamn hamster staring up at her covered in sawdust. She dangled in a carrot to grab him and everyone lived happily ever after but moral of the story is 1) hamsters are kinda dumb, and 2) rodents are escape artists and will be able to get into places you were 100% sure they couldn't.
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| # ? May 15, 2013 12:50 |
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Rule number one of small rodents: if they can fit their head in something, they can fit the rest of their body into it too. Collapsible ribcage or something, right?
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| # ? May 15, 2013 12:59 |
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I had something like that happen with one of the guinea pigs I had years ago. They were out for floor time, and one followed me out into the kitchen (anything dangerous like cables or whathaveyou was blocked off, of course). And the cunning little bastard promptly waddled under a cabinet that we could've sworn he was too big to fit under. We couldn't reach in to grab him, but the moment I rustled a plastic bag (because the sound generally meant VEGGIES!  ), out he came wheeking his fuzzy head off in the hope I'd give him something.
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| # ? May 15, 2013 13:03 |
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Speaking of escape artists, I used to have a little grey hamster named Cotton. My roommate and I would let him run around in his ball, and he'd get into all sorts of mishaps, including but not limited to wedging his ball three feet up between the wall and a guitar case. That was magical. Basically, if we stopped hearing his ball clunking around, we would get worried and check. Our favourite story was one time he got out, and was wandering around on the light grey carpet. Great match for hiding, right? Well, he waddled himself out into the hallway and just stood and stared at us until we scooped him up and put him back into his cage.
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| # ? May 15, 2013 13:45 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:I had something like that happen with one of the guinea pigs I had years ago. They were out for floor time, and one followed me out into the kitchen (anything dangerous like cables or whathaveyou was blocked off, of course). And the cunning little bastard promptly waddled under a cabinet that we could've sworn he was too big to fit under. We couldn't reach in to grab him, but the moment I rustled a plastic bag (because the sound generally meant VEGGIES! Guinea pigs are the worst for that kind of thing because they're either fitting into spaces they seem way too big for or they're running away from you faster than those stubby legs have any right to carry them.
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| # ? May 15, 2013 14:10 |
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We took a video of one of our escape artist pigs last night, Luna. We have a cage, that we leave the opening down, forming a ramp, and then have a playpen area leading into a pigloo. This gives them plenty of space to play during the day, and then they get shut in at bedtime, or when we have to leave them alone. Well occasionally, we'll find one of them wandering around outside the pen, exploring. It seems that if they go under the ramp, they can sometimes get out where the pen connects to the cage. This isn't really that bad though, as typically once they realize they are out in the scary freedom, they frantically try to find a way back in. Luna though has figured out how to let herself back in when she gets out, and even closes the door behind her. It's absolutely adorable when she does it, and my girls frequently take her out now just so she can let herself back in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teD-V2h2fdU Sorry for the terrible lighting.
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| # ? May 15, 2013 14:25 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 02:30 |
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Captain Invictus posted:Rule number one of small rodents: if they can fit their head in something, they can fit the rest of their body into it too. Collapsible ribcage or something, right? You'd think their skulls were made of rubber sometimes with the places they can cram themselves into.
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| # ? May 16, 2013 17:38 |
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