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Captain Invictus posted:I will never adopt out any future accidentally-pregnant-hamster babies I get again, I gave one to a coworker I thought was responsible but their lovely kid killed it within a few months.  It's a terrible state of affairs but yeah there's not a single person in my life I would trust with a ham. If you see my cages and even lightly suggest they're too big you go in the Untrustworthy Bin forever. Also Nepita is very beautiful, hello 
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Nov 18, 2019 09:10
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I have often wanted to do that with a hamster, but how insane are the moms about protecting their babies? I am lazy; my mice have been so bred over the years that they don't care if you touch or switch babies out or around. Problem moms get fed out asap. I wonder if a mouse mom could raise baby hammies, and vice versa?
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Nov 28, 2019 22:35
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Depending on the species, you have to separate the mother and babies soon after they're weaned because they will begin genuinely fighting with the mom. I tried to keep the last mom and two female babies of hers together and they made it about two months before they got into a serious fight and I had to separate them for good.
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Nov 28, 2019 23:29
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Cowslips Warren posted:I have often wanted to do that with a hamster, but how insane are the moms about protecting their babies? I am lazy; my mice have been so bred over the years that they don't care if you touch or switch babies out or around. Problem moms get fed out asap. A hamster will eat her own babies on a dime if shes stressed, I don't see a baby mouse even registering as anything other than a threat or snackies. They're protecting themselves/the nest not the babies. Please dont try that lol
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Nov 29, 2019 09:15
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'Of Mice and Hams' didn't end well if I recall correctly.
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Nov 29, 2019 12:21
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Very short book, as Ham-George recognised his companions weakness and killed him immediately. Is anybody here watching the 7 Worlds 1 Planet thing on BBC? They had a nice little segment last week on European hamsters, got to see two of them beating the poo poo out of each other over a burial wreath. Delightful.
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Nov 29, 2019 12:53
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teenytinymouse posted:Very short book, as Ham-George recognised his companions weakness and killed him immediately. Thanks I’ll check that out. Our government in Flanders here is subsidizing some farmers to leave their land as is for a couple of years to give the last wild hamsters in the country a chance to have a comeback. I didn’t even know we had them before to be honest.
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Nov 29, 2019 21:05
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mrfart posted:Thanks I’ll check that out. That's so cool! I know they're not exactly a farmers friend kind of species. Took me till last week to realise we didn't have beavers so, y'know no judgement here.
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Nov 29, 2019 21:56
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teenytinymouse posted:A hamster will eat her own babies on a dime if shes stressed, I don't see a baby mouse even registering as anything other than a threat or snackies. They're protecting themselves/the nest not the babies. Please dont try that lol I used to keep african soft furred rats (they're about the size of standard mice) but they were always super wild. The odd thing was, if I had babies and the nursing mom had died, normal mice would raise the pups without issue, but the ones they raised never bred with other soft furred rats.
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Nov 30, 2019 05:55
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Cowslips Warren posted:I used to keep african soft furred rats (they're about the size of standard mice) but they were always super wild. The odd thing was, if I had babies and the nursing mom had died, normal mice would raise the pups without issue, but the ones they raised never bred with other soft furred rats. That's so sweet!  I was actually reading yesterday about keeping soft fur rats with male mice to keep them company. Close enough for some social interaction but far away enough that they can't breed. They are very cute but I've never seen any near me 
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Nov 30, 2019 13:28
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Hello thread!  We've been looking after these two piggies for six months now (they're two years old - my sister had them before me) and today I put a gnawing tree in their cage when we put the Christmas decorations up. And I thought "I wonder if SA has a thread about guinea pigs? I'd better look in that Pets subforum I've never been in before..." So here are Scruffy (the tricolour) and Fluffy (the long-haired one). My sister gave them those 'temporary' names when she first got them and they stuck.
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Dec 1, 2019 18:21
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Captain Invictus posted:Depending on the species, you have to separate the mother and babies soon after they're weaned because they will begin genuinely fighting with the mom. I tried to keep the last mom and two female babies of hers together and they made it about two months before they got into a serious fight and I had to separate them for good. Good husbandry is to separate mom from the babies at 4 weeks at which point you also split boys and girls. Then don’t adopt out the babies until 6 weeks so they learn to be good hamsters by interacting and socializing With each other.
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Dec 3, 2019 04:03
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We foster guinea pigs, and one just gave birth the other day. Who wants to see a 6 hour old guinea pig? Our daughter named her Sweet Treat.
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Dec 5, 2019 20:43
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Wow, for some reason I didn't expect it's eyes to be open so soon.
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Dec 5, 2019 20:51
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BalloonFish posted:Hello thread! Those are some real cuties! Unless you've got another habitat for them not pictured, they would really benefit from a larger cage. Have you ever seen the DIY tutorials on C&C cages? They're super cheap and easy to make: https://pethelpful.com/rodents/how-to-build-a-CC-cage-for-your-guinea-pig You can also buy some pre-cut kits that just require some simple assembly: https://www.guineapigcagesstore.com/ Pigs love to run around in circles and popcorn from happiness when they've got a ton of room to spread out.  Chin Strap posted:We foster guinea pigs, and one just gave birth the other day. Who wants to see a 6 hour old guinea pig?
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Dec 5, 2019 21:11
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Chin Strap posted:We foster guinea pigs, and one just gave birth the other day. Who wants to see a 6 hour old guinea pig? She is a sweet treat!!! Aashhhhh  Also bless Sirotan
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Dec 5, 2019 21:13
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Captain Invictus posted:Wow, for some reason I didn't expect it's eyes to be open so soon. They are born eyes open, hairy, even making noises in the first few days. The main thing is that their feet are hilariously big compared to tiny body, and they are wobbly on their feet as expected.
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Dec 5, 2019 21:37
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For anyone buying a cage off that guineapigcagesstore site I recommended just buying the coroplast and grids separately, then zip-tying the grids together. The plastic connectors are just a big hassle. My two boars have a gigantic cage comprised of two 2x6 sheets hooked together and they love it.
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Dec 5, 2019 22:08
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Sirotan posted:Those are some real cuties! Unless you've got another habitat for them not pictured, they would really benefit from a larger cage. Have you ever seen the DIY tutorials on C&C cages? They're super cheap and easy to make: https://pethelpful.com/rodents/how-to-build-a-CC-cage-for-your-guinea-pig You can also buy some pre-cut kits that just require some simple assembly: https://www.guineapigcagesstore.com/ Pigs love to run around in circles and popcorn from happiness when they've got a ton of room to spread out. I thought this might come up The cage is definitely on the small side - I certainly wouldn't be happy with it being any smaller. It's the biggest that will fit in any suitable space in our house. More importantly, they're only indoors for the winter. In the summer they have a 3m x 3m enclosed run connected to a similar size open-topped fence enclosure which sits in the garden on the lawn, which we move around so they can keep the grass down. Now they're indoors they get plenty of 'floor time' on the days I'm working from home, which they mostly spend doing laps of the skirting boards in the living room. Thanks for the links to the DIY cages though, I'll have a read and see if I can rustle up something that fits that also provides them with a bit more space!
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Dec 5, 2019 22:15
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Slider posted:For anyone buying a cage off that guineapigcagesstore site I recommended just buying the coroplast and grids separately, then zip-tying the grids together. The plastic connectors are just a big hassle. Truth. I just moved and probably broke half the dumb plastic connectors taking the cage apart/reassembling. The whole house is currently in a state of remodel and once I get to the pig room I may reconfigure their cage and just replace them all with zipties. BalloonFish posted:I thought this might come up Can always make something multilevel to fit in that same footprint! Ramps might be a bit steep but I bet it'd work. Also I went into a bit of a Google hole when I tried to find a good DIY guide for C&C cages. I just bought a house and one room is the "pig room", I've got visions of maybe someday expanding their cage by installing some tunnels around the room/house ala cat superhighways. Found this which is way cool: https://www.omlet.us/shop/guinea_pig_products/zippi_guinea_pig_tunnel_system_and_burrow_pipe/
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Dec 5, 2019 22:26
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Fuckin pigs, man. Get up this morning, give the pigs their breakfast snack. Mommy (I adopted her and her two daughters and I'm terrible at coming up with names ) is excited about food but can't eat. Acts like she's got something stuck in her teeth and is pawing at her face. Call the vet and they get me an appointment early in the morning. She starts eating a bit while I'm waiting to go to the appointment, and by the time I get there she acts completely fine. Vet does a visual inspection and finds nothing. I bring her back home and then go to work. *moments ago* Get home from work, give the pigs their evening snack. Mommy acts like she's got something stuck in her teeth, eats but not very successfully. I call the vet again to schedule an xray on Thursday. I get off the phone and Mommy jumps in the hay box and eats a bunch of hay like nothing's wrong. I hold her on my lap and she eats a couple green beans without a care in the world. 
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Dec 11, 2019 00:35
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 Happy new year, thread. Nepita is such a dream. Although she does have a habit of doing a little wee when my wife holds her too long:)
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Jan 5, 2020 18:42
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Nepita fat af
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Jan 6, 2020 21:05
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teenytinymouse posted:Nepita fat af Oh, she's a big girl. But she has a healthy diet, she's super active and her parents were even bigger. So I guess that's the way she is.
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Jan 6, 2020 22:38
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https://youtu.be/uUpQSEVmjvE Japanese guinea pig train.
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Jan 10, 2020 07:11
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Hi all! Brand new guinea pig parent here, adopted two 4 month old brothers from a local rescue, and I gotta say I'm already adoring them but feeling a tiny bit overwhelmed. Their names are Crowley (a brownish gray agouti) and Aziraphale (a grayish brown agouti), and I've only had them for a couple days so I'm expecting some squabbling while they try to situate themselves, but Crowley seems to be very aggressive towards his brother. He decided to claim the loft as his territory and attacks Aziraphale any time he tries to go up there, and I had to pull out Aziraphale's hidey because it only has one entrance and Crowley kept blocking him in to beat him up. I started reading stuff on how to have two boys live together and apparently this is considered the worst possible pig combination you can have? I really wish the shelter lady had told me that before she signed these guys over to me. Here's a picture of their current setup. The blue area on the right is a "kitchen" with paper bedding in it, ostensibly to make it easier to clean up poop and food garbage, just at the time of the picture I hadn't put the bedding in it:  Here's a picture of Crowley when we were at the shelter (I have no non-blurry ones at the house because he's terrified of me still):  Here's a picture of Aziraphale enjoying a carrot in a hidey (had to remove it because Crowley's an rear end in a top hat, modifying it to add a second exist so I can put it back in for Azzy!):  Currently Crowley mostly stays up in the loft and Aziraphale hides under a ramp near the platform on the left, or in the kitchen on the right. surfacelevelspeck fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jan 13, 2020 |
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Jan 13, 2020 21:08
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I've been looking at getting one of these little fellows, but my room-mate is pretty heavily allergic to cats and dogs. Are there any that wouldn't trigger those allergies?
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Jan 14, 2020 02:12
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Two boars are not the worst possible, but it depends. The best you can do the alleviate the issues is to get a larger cage, and make sure all your hideys have 2+ exits so they don't get trapped. Chasing and humping is nothing to worry about. Has any blood been drawn? If so, that's a problem.
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Jan 14, 2020 02:59
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Slider posted:Two boars are not the worst possible, but it depends. The best you can do the alleviate the issues is to get a larger cage, and make sure all your hideys have 2+ exits so they don't get trapped. Chasing and humping is nothing to worry about. Has any blood been drawn? If so, that's a problem. No blood's been drawn since they got here, but apparently Crowley injured Aziraphale enough to leave scabbing while they were at the shelter.
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Jan 14, 2020 03:07
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Got a problem with Albin. He's fine for the most part, runs in his wheel, does hamster things as usual. But when he wakes up, one or both eyes are completely sealed shut from eye gunk. Every single day. I take a damp, warm paper towel and gently wipe it away until he can open his eyes, but it's been getting progressively denser basically since I got him, sometimes he would wake up and clean himself and the one closed eye would open, now while he can see, it seems that he's become accustomed to not being able to and navigates around his cage blind as if nothing was wrong. I thought it might be too dry so I brought a humidifier into the room, but that hasn't changed anything at all. It doesn't seem to be bothering him, just curious if there's some way to prevent the eye gunk from caking so easily. It even happens when he's sleeping in my shirt sometimes, just seals his eyes shut within a half hour. It's weird, maybe a genetic defect? None of my other hamsters have had this problem.
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jan 14, 2020 |
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Jan 14, 2020 15:04
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surfacelevelstudd posted:No blood's been drawn since they got here, but apparently Crowley injured Aziraphale enough to leave scabbing while they were at the shelter. Pig introductions are hard. Sometimes they go well, sometimes they don't. Here is what I would suggest: Remove any hidey houses from the cage and then thoroughly clean the entire cage with a 10% bleach-water mixture. You essentially want to make the entire environment smell neutral so that one pig or the other has not already laid claim and will feel territorial about it. A large cage makes this easier. Not having any hidey houses means the aggressor can't corner the other pig somewhere. I would do this and wait a few days and see if their behavior changes at all. Your alpha pig will probably continue to fight and chase the other one for a while. As long as they don't draw blood, leave them be. If the above strategy doesn't work, here is the shock and awe treatment: bathe both of the pigs, together. Use a bunny shampoo. Dry them off and put them back into the cage after you've thoroughly cleaned it with the 10% bleach-water mixture. Wait a few days. Repeat if their behavior has not changed. I have had success with this, I think I had to go three rounds in the bath before they started to play nice. Worst case scenario here is you may just need to house them separately. I have needed to do that in the past when one pig in a group of three was being aggressive. I built an extension onto my current cage and used grids for one of the walls, so that the aggressor could interact with the other two pigs but couldn't physically get to them. I did some reintroductions after a couple weeks and found that they were getting along better, and the divider could be removed.
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Jan 14, 2020 15:22
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Sirotan posted:Pig introductions are hard. Sometimes they go well, sometimes they don't. Here is what I would suggest: The bath strategy does work, one suggestion is that if you put a small amount of lavender on their noses and dry them together, with a towel over them, they will find each other and cuddle. This shared trauma followed by comfort can help bond them.
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Jan 14, 2020 15:59
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when I got home yesterday they were actually fairly calm! Crowley was still bullying Aziraphale a bit, but that mostly only happened when I caused the piggy apocalypse by spot cleaning their cage and freaking them out. they're actually brothers, and have been living together since they were born (Sep 8, so they're 4 months old), so I don't think introductions are the problem so much as a new home that looks and smells strange. I'm hoping that over the next few days they continue calming down and settle into a routine. I looked into what I could do to fix the issue if it keeps up and I'm opting to extend their cage out to 2x6, and add in a second feeding area on the other end of it. that way I can feed them separately, have separate water bottle areas, and hopefully let them just eat in peace without squabbling over who gets to dig in the bedding. in other news, Aziraphale lets me pet him!!! he went back to being super skittish after i cleaned their cage up, but i spent a good 5 minutes just being able to gently stroke his head and whiskers while he busily ate a lettuce leaf 3x his size. Crowley will happily accept hay and lettuce from me but if i put my finger near him he either runs away or nips, he's definitely still in the "getting used to new surroundings" phase.I did end up removing all hideys that don't have 2 entrances, and the one hidey I know Azzie likes I'm cutting out the back, re-sewing it shut, and putting a cloth cover on it so he can escape out it but still feels safe. I'm otherwise just sticking to cardboard tunnels and the ramps by the lookout lounge. surfacelevelspeck fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jan 14, 2020 |
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Jan 14, 2020 18:02
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ok so 2 days later, and they've calmed down significantly! Crowley is still pretty terrified of my hand being anywhere near him, but Azzie tolerates me petting his head while he eats. progress!
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Jan 16, 2020 22:41
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Captain Invictus posted:Got a problem with Albin. He's fine for the most part, runs in his wheel, does hamster things as usual. But when he wakes up, one or both eyes are completely sealed shut from eye gunk. Every single day. I take a damp, warm paper towel and gently wipe it away until he can open his eyes, but it's been getting progressively denser basically since I got him, sometimes he would wake up and clean himself and the one closed eye would open, now while he can see, it seems that he's become accustomed to not being able to and navigates around his cage blind as if nothing was wrong. I thought it might be too dry so I brought a humidifier into the room, but that hasn't changed anything at all. It doesn't seem to be bothering him, just curious if there's some way to prevent the eye gunk from caking so easily. It even happens when he's sleeping in my shirt sometimes, just seals his eyes shut within a half hour. It's weird, maybe a genetic defect? None of my other hamsters have had this problem. So bedding allergies are a thing, we keep our Hydro hams on fleece pads with some toilet paper torn up in an igloo as a nest.
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Jan 21, 2020 07:05
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Alright, I'll try giving him a space that isn't made of his bedding and see how he likes it, he generally likes to use paper towel ive torn up as his man bedding so I'll try giving him lots more of that and see how it goes. His health has been declining in general since that post, in the "old hams getting frail before they die" way, so he may just be on his way out in general. I got him the same time I got screamer, and he lasted...I want to say it's been a year since she passed, so he's had a pretty good go at it all things considered.
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Jan 21, 2020 07:17
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surfacelevelstudd posted:ok so 2 days later, and they've calmed down significantly! Crowley is still pretty terrified of my hand being anywhere near him, but Azzie tolerates me petting his head while he eats. progress! Good to hear. If they're actually brothers and have been familiar with each other at an early age that's generally better. My two guys are not related and different breeds(silver agouti//american shorthair) but I introduced them to each other in a neutral wide open space when they were both only around 2 months old. My cage is also gigantic(two 2x5 grids rigged together) so they have plenty of space if needed.
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Jan 23, 2020 04:59
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Captain Invictus posted:Alright, I'll try giving him a space that isn't made of his bedding and see how he likes it, he generally likes to use paper towel ive torn up as his man bedding so I'll try giving him lots more of that and see how it goes. His health has been declining in general since that post, in the "old hams getting frail before they die" way, so he may just be on his way out in general. http://www.cheeksandsqueakshamsters.com/supplemental-diet.html I swear this is the hamster fountain of youth.
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Jan 23, 2020 05:23
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbzeGBH9Pg4 Don't think he liked me waking him up.
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Jan 23, 2020 22:55
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Jan 25, 2020 18:14
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