Eeper update

Well we had some sad news on the eeper front. After the arrivals on Tuesday, we had another batch of arrivals on Wednesday and then the third girl, Priya, showed signs of being in labour. On Thursday lunchtime we got home to find that she had given birth to two dead babies and wasn't looking too great herself. So we rushed her to the vets and on the way and while we were there she gave birth to four more dead babies :( The vet did an x-ray and thankfully that seemed to be all of them so she escaped having a hysterectomy and came home for nursing and observation. I'm pleased to say that she is now looking fine and seems none the worse for ordeal but I found it incredibly sad that the poor babies were so close to life but never got to experience it.

The other two girls have 9 babies each who are all doing well. These pics were taken yesterday

Eeeep eeeep

We have eepers!

One of the Might-Be's has finally popped. I got home from work this evening, went straight in to check on them and heard the tell tales eeps coming from the nest. I haven't seen them yet. Dave reported no eeping at lunchtime so they can only be a few hours old so I shall leave them alone a little longer much as I'm dying to have a peep and see how many we've got. I shall have to add another nest as well since Mum1 appears to be monopolising the igloo and there are still two more at least who look fit to burst!!

I'll update as soon as I've seen more!

Newbie Update & other news

Well the new rats (aka The Might-Be's) have turned out to be right handfuls. On Tuesday night I split the girls into two groups, separating any who looked pregnant into a suitable nursing cage. On Friday morning I went in to check on everyone and found the room is some disarray with several water bottles on the floor. The reason - a large hole in the nursing cage which the chompy little minxes had created! So I had to have a move around and they are now housed in a suitable all metal cage. There are four girls who look imminent - a couple look fit to explode in fact so I think we'll be hearing eeping within a few days.

In other news Big Bad Barney rat went for his neuter on Wednesday. He recovered fine despite my concerns about his age and rattly chest so now we just need to wait two weeks til he is safe to see how he reacts to some girls. It looks like Daniel, Miles and Reggie might also be getting visits from the testicle fairy as there has been quite a lot of scrapping going on in their cages.

The Mummy amongst the mice we took in a couple of weeks ago who are on foster with Katie has given birth again. Katie is leaving her alone for now but once I have numbers or pics I'll let you know.

Shadow wabbit seems a bit better I think but we'll find out for sure tomorrow when we go back to the vets and he is weighed.

Skip got bunged again and had to have an enema on Friday. Last time he had diarrhoea afterwards but he's still a bit bunged up now so we're keeping a close eye on him and giving him laxatives.

If you pootle over to the rats page you'll see that we have a new addition to the family as well :)

Influx and a smaller ...errr....outflux

Wow what a weekend! It was set to be a busy one anyway cos I was pretty behind on cleaning and stuff after a busy week. Then came the call on Saturday about an estimated 15 rats needing rescuing. Serena from Pet Rescue went to check out the situation and found 20 odd rats, 20 odd chinchillas plus cats, hamsters and degus all living in horrendous circumstances in this home. The things was we were full. But there was no way these animals could be left as they were. So we spent all weekend moving cages and animals around and making some extra room. Thankfully Furry Friends and NANA stepped in to offer help for a lot of the animals too. We have taken in two russian hamsters and 15 rats. One of the female rats was with the boys and the boys broke into the girls cage recently too so chances are some of them are going to be pregnant.

We also had a call this weekend about 35 rats needing homes. It just feels like what we're doing is a drop in the ocean at the moment :(

On a happier note Bennie and Roberto the rats, Bailey the gerbil, Kayla the syrian hamster and Lola, Lexi and Rodney the robos all went to their new homes today. This is really great news - Kayla and Bailey had been looking for nearly 3 months and neither were overly happy in rescue. The three robos weren't overly friendly so it'll do them good to be in a home and get some more attention.

Anyway, the new arrivals have been left to settle in after their long day. I'll get photos and update in the next few days :)

Shadow again

Although Shadow's skin is doing well I was still worried that he hadn't gained weight. So I attempted to weigh him tonight. I don't really have anything ideal to weigh him on and there's always a difference between our scales and the vets scales but it looks like he might actually have lost more weight :( He has also sneezed a few times recently and tonight I noticed the inside of his front paws is wet which suggests he has been cleaning away nasal discharge. So it's going to be back to the vets again for Shadow.

There a funny pair my wabbits. Kitkat is grumpy, Shadow can definitely take or leave people. But I love them so much and it's breaking my heart to see him like this. I was hoping to put him back outside this weekend but that doesn't look likely now :(

Madness

It has been a bit overwhelming the last week with the number of requests we've had to take animals in. A total of about 2o animals inside a week I think. Thankfully most have found places elsewhere because there really isn't any room at the inn at the moment. We have taken in a family of mice tonight as they were a bit of an urgent case. There are two adults who were missexed by a pet shop and the resulting babies. It's likely Mum is pregnant again too, hence the urgency to get them here and settled. Anyway, they're all very lovely. The babies are about 2 weeks old and just balls of fur with springs in their feet at the moment! I tried to get some pics but I had trouble keeping hold of them even with two hands so I gave up in the end. I'll get some once they're more settled.

General Updates

Sorry for being a bit useless with the updates of late. This week has been pretty hellish. Not animals (for a change) but personal things. First of all a friend of mine, Sally, who had been fighting cancer for 9 years, finally lost her battle last weekend. She was only early 40's and so full of life and fun. It wasn't a shock as such but devastating nonetheless. Secondly Dave's Dad was taken to hospital by ambulance on Tuesday with chest pains. Turns out to be nothing to worry about but we had a few days of worry so things are even more chaotic than normal.

This weekend we've been doing some reorganising. We got some storage units which we've set up in the bathroom (which is actually bigger than the second bedroom where the rodents live) to make things a bit tidier. We also had the 5 bales of cardboard bedding we'd ordered delivered and Emma has recently passed about 10 bin bags of shredded paper our way so between everything in the bathroom and rodent room being pulled out and sorted and 15 bales and bags of bedding waiting to be put away you can imagine the chaos!! It's only a diddy little house and we've barely been able to move in it the last few days. Anyway, we're pretty much there now although we've found that the cardboard bales won't fit in the loft as planned so there are random bales of cardboard dotted about the place at the moment!!

So I thought I'd take the opportunity to update the blog while I get my breath back from lugging bedding about.

Homings - none since my last update I think. Sylvia is doing a transport run next weekend so hopefully we should have a bit of a clear out then!

Arrivals - 9 utterly delicious little baby degus. The three boys have gone to Furry Friends and the six girls are with us to find a home. I'll get some pics soon. We may also have some rats arriving in the next few days. Not quite sure where I'm going to put them yet but they're urgent cases so we'll work something out.

Shadow - is on the mend! He has now had his second mite treatment and his skin is healing up well. They're still indoors but mainly cos we had snow this weekend, otherwise I had planned to put them back out. Friday we scrubbed the bunny house down with veterinary disinfectant to make sure there were no lurking nasties. The plan is just to put them out during the day, at least for the time being. Shadow still seems a bit thin to me so I want to be able to keep a close eye on him.

Chins and Degus - Fudge and Erika went to the vets a couple of weeks ago. Both were found to have some dental disease but nothing too terrible. The specialist certainly thinks it should be manageable so that's great news. Hans seems pretty much recovered from whatever was going on with him. He still seems a bit slim to me too but he's much brighter and happier in himself. Skye had a sore eye too but nothing that we couldn't fix with a few days of eye drops.

Juliette and Naomi - the two baby girl degus who were up for homing. The plan was that the six new baby girls would go in with them and it should have been a very simple introduction. However, they turned out to be complete thugs and beat the poor babies up. So I thought I'd teach them some manners by letting them meet our 4 girls. It actually went pretty well. They held their own and all got on quite well. They met the chins without any problems too. So, since we had the space and our four are getting on a bit, I thought it made sense for them to stay really. They've settled in so well! The first day was really cute. Fudge wanted to make sure they knew who was boss so was giving them a little bit of hassle. The new girls kept going up to Hans and hiding behind or underneath him. When Fudge came to bother them, Hans huddled over them and swore gently at Fudge. Then he was washing the new girls too. It was the sweetest thing to watch and had me quite tearful. It wasn't that long ago that Hans was all alone. The degus all seem to be drawn to him and he's rarely without a degu snuggled up to him.

Rats - I'm a bit saddened by the lack of interest in the adult rats we have here at the moment. There's Daniel and Miles two year old boys, the group of 4 slater girls, and Frank and Ronnie. None of them have had any interest in the few weeks they have been here. I'm particularly fond of Frank, who has a head tilt. He decided to scare the poop out of us one night this week. When we were feeding Dave found him pretty much collapsed on the shelf in their cage. He was breathing really fast, his chest was noisy and he was quite limp and dehydrated looking. I gave him some medicine and offered him some liquid food. It was only really his enthusiasm for that that stopped me calling the emergency vet, I was that worried about him. Next morning he was fine and he has been fine since. I can only assume he got stuck on the shelf and got into a panic. He has a ladder now to make sure he can get down, bless him!

Amongst our own rats, Edwina is settling in brilliantly. She has come out of her shell a lot and is getting on great with the others. Maisie isn't looking so good sadly. I think she'll have to have another mite treatment as her scabs are coming back :( Her daughter Keeya, also felt I needed a scare last night. She pulled a toe nail. It's amazing how much they can bleed when that happens. We went in to feed and their cage was covered in blood! Thankfully we traced it to one tiny toe nail but it looked like something terrible had happened in there!

Phew well my wrist really hurts now! I think thats everything for now. We took some pics of the dogs in the snow earlier so I'll try to put them up later too.