Just a quick update

We're still not really fully functional here I'm afraid. My Grandma came home from hospital last week but my Grandpa is still in and will be over Christmas - for the second year running :( We've also both been ill again with a rotten cold and chest infection although we're more or less over that now. So we're slowly starting to get back into things but we still have a lot of catching up to do with cleaning, answering emails etc.

Happily last weekend saw four rats go off to new homes - Angel and Daisy went to keep new friend Poppet company and T'Pol and Hoshi went to live with Reggie, a wild ratty girl who had been rescued as a baby. Introductions are still going on there as Reggie has never seen another rat but I hope to have some lovely pics of their happy ending before too long.

Four mousey ladies are booked to go to their new home on Boxing Day and the four degu girls have also been offered a new home, living with some other degus adopted from us.

A little sad news to report though in that Smokey degu passed away yesterday :( Smokey was one of the goos who came from the house in Essex which was overrun with degus living in awful conditions. He arrived in January 07 in a pretty bad way and clearly quite elderly then. Others from his group went to a new home and then the other two, also elderly, passed away so Smokey was introduced to two younger boys, Dre and Eminem. He got on great with them and it gave him a new lease of life really. A few days ago I thought he suddenly looked his age again although I checked him over and there was nothing obvious. And then last night when I went in to feed everyone Dre and Eminem were acting strangely and hadn't eaten all their breakfast. I checked the nest box and darling Smokey had passed in his sleep. He was a real character and will be greatly missed. I'm sad for him that he never did find a new home but I know for sure that he was very happy here for his last two years so I don't think he really knew the difference. We certainly loved him like one of our own.

One last thing - if you come to this blog via Sprogpages.co.uk you'll notice something odd. Sprogpages now redirects to starlighttrust.org.uk! We're having a bit of a reorg there and sprogpages will become a subdomain of starlighttrust. So fear not it will be back - I'll update again once this has happened. If you email me using a sprogpages address I should still receive it but if you don't hear back then please resend it replacing @sprogpages.co.uk with @starlighttrust.org.uk instead.

Can we also take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy christmas and a lovely new year.

Much love

Sarah & Dave

Apologies again

Everytime we think there's light at the end of the tunnel something else happens.

Just as we were getting over our run of bad luck we both got flu. As we were getting over that the big mouse rescue happened. As we were getting on top of that, on Friday night, both of my grandparents were taken to hospital by ambulance. My Grandpa is ok but my Grandma had a heart attack and had to be resuscitated. Her long term prognosis is not yet known :(

So continued apologies to all those waiting for replies to emails, phone calls etc. Our priorities at the moment have to be keeping the animals cared for and visiting my Grandparents so it's unlikely that you'll hear back from us in the next week realistically.

Thank you for your continued patience.

S&D

Eeepy, eeep, eep

We have a mini baby boom here tonight!

In the green duna, where I first heard squeaking Wednesday night there appears to be three babies. They're starting to get their colouring through now and look pretty sturdy 

In the red duna, where the original litter of 10 were that didn't make it, I found one single baby. He looks like he was probably born yesterday I think.

And in the larger of the two tanks someone has gifted me a litter of 6 pink little wigglers. They look like they've been born today 

Everything crossed for them!

Escapee mouse (now known as Rodent Boy) is still evading capture. But I think I know where he is and have set the trap accordingly. Hopefully tonight's the night!!

Fireworks Rant

OOOOOOh I HATE this time of year. This evening instead of being able to clean out cages, attempt mouse captures etc I'm spending it trying to comfort hysterical dogs. It drives me MAD that inconsiderate, selfish people can put my poor babies through such absolute torture for a bit of fun. We as a nation condemn the abuse of animals for fun when its in the form of fox hunting or bull fighting yet we think nothing of ruining the lives of millions of dogs each winter for a bit of fun. We dont bother even trying to walk our lot in the evenings this time of year..it's hard enough to even get them to go in the garden after dark they're so scared. When we have been out with them and fireworks have gone off they've panicked and I've been worried about them running off. Literally from October to mid January every year their lives are seriously impeded by their fear of bangs when they're going off and other nights too cos they're pemanently worried about them going off. It's just totally unacceptable and the wretched fireworks need banning now!

Mouse Update

Well having almost given up on our escapee we spotted him this morning. Despite two attempts to catch him he has so far comprehensively outwitted us! But at least we know he is ok.

The litter of babies who arrived Sunday sadly did not make it. I checked their cage this evening and there is no sign of any babies. Another doe who was heavily pregnant in there is also looking slimmer so it seems likely she has either reabsorbed her babies or they have also been eaten :(

On a happier note the cage next door to them is eeping away happily so everything crossed for more luck in there.

The mouses have arrived

Phew, what a weekend. Yesterday disappeared in a mousey whirlwind although our weekend was nothing compared to Emma at Furry Friends who drove to North Wales at half six Saturday morning collecting I don't know how many hundreds of mice and then sexing them all, medicating the injured ones and finally falling into bed at half past three only to be up again in time for us to collect ours at 9am!!

So we came away with 20 girls and 23 boys plus a litter of 10 pinkies altogether. 8 boys have gone to Kelly and 4 girls went to Vicky, one of our lovely foster carers. Amongst our boys was one very poorly little lad who we called Conner. There was nothing obviously wrong with him, I suspect all the stress was just too much. I spent hours Sunday cuddling him, warming him and syringe feeding him and trying to tell him his ordeal was over and he had a wonderful life to look forward to. Sadly it wasn't enough and he passed away :(

We have a couple of other battered boys but nothing too serious thankfully. And, one has managed to escape so we've had to set a humane mouse trap for him this evening. Unfortunately these mice are used to living rough so he's not about to let himself get found!

I don't hold out a great deal of hope for the 10 pinkies. They must have been born Saturday night and it's unlikely that the mother will care for them after so much disruption. Plus I had no way of knowing who the Mum was and no cage big enough to house all 20 girls! So I had to guess based on the one who appeared to be sitting on them. The babies have disappeared from the place I left them in the cage and the girls in that cage have been busy nesting. Maybe they have taken them into the nest, or maybe they have eaten them :( The best I can do now is leave them alone and keep everything crossed. But resisting having a peek is near killing me!!

Anyway I have 60 unanswered emails to tend to! Sorry everyone!! So I'll leave you with a couple more pics

Mousey preparations

Today we've been getting ready for the mousey influx. Emma has collected them and is on her way back from Wales as I type. So we'll be collecting our batch bright and early tomorrow morning - about 50 of them. Gulp!

So this morning I was preparing all the mouse accessories

Including some hi-tech, very expensive things!!

and getting cages ready - 8 in all (some mice are going to foster homes tomorrow)

I've just updated the stats ----->

Which show that we've taken in 120 animals so far this year. Which basically means tomorrow almost half of the animals we've taken in over the last 9 months will be arriving in one day! Eeep!