fatty update

Poor fatty, having such a name.

But, she's our first Syrian hamster. Syrians are a cool breed; they live best alone. The pet shop people kept two syrians together but they were only 5 weeks old. At the 6th week, they will have to be separated, so we did not feel very xin tong when separating Fatty from her black mottled sibling.

In fact, we bought Fatty just 5 minutes before the shop closed.

And boy, did she give us trouble. Not the same kind of trouble like a biting Cotton or a scrambling Cookie-Cream pair or a pair of robos who think they can fly. But a really bad stinky trouble.

Now she's stabilised though, after we stabilised her food (pellets, not the best, but what we bought for her so she has no choice but to eat it) and drink (probiotics water to rid her body of the smell. We use the same dose, I realise as cotton gets, but he's so much smaller! Wonder if we increasing the dose would help?)

And she does not stink as much. Latest update is that she stands up and responds to her name being called. Clever Fatty!

a day in the life of a gerbil

The gerbils' tank keeps changing, like a couple of renovators permanently digging and landscaping around.

From left to right: the gerbil's filled-up wooden house, the secret underground passage, more of the secret underground passage, the secret burrow.

With Herby and Gerby sleeping soundly. Actually, Herby seems to have been woken up by us!

Gerby stirs too, and they move through their secret passage.

They move, exploring their secret network of tunnels in the dark.

Herby sniffs the soil. "Gerby," he asks, "have you been digging around recently?"

Apparently she has. Herby discovers a tunnel leading to the back of the tank.

He stretches his head in to scout the tunnel.

Meanwhile Gerby squeezes through the tunnel to the surface.

Watch her head pop out from the hole in the ground!

At the surface, Gerby tries to hide from the camera.

She explores the food dish. "Grr, no food. Tricked again" she frowns.

Oops, Gerby is caught on film!

Curiously, she goes up close, and looks out of the tank.

OH NO IT'S THEM! I don't want to go out please mummy please please. *darts away*

After a long time of coaxing and spooking, we finally managed to get the gerbils out for their playtime =)

the burrow

Herby and Gerby have extended their underground network to include an entire basement 2 made out of soil. Seems like they have gotten the better of us, being able to hide where we cannot reach or see them. And we have no choice but to feed them and watch them come out of their burrow to get their food and run back to eat it.

BAD HABITS Gherby!

Next two weeks, if they still refuse to show face or give us face, NO FOOD for 24 hrs. See if they don't come begging. I hope I haven't fed them too much such that they have their secret food store to tide through the famine, and hope they are sensible and do the RIGHT THING.

death

Peanut passed away during the day yesterday.

In memory of this cute little peanut, here are some photos...

Frazzled peanut, fur damp from my hand. Wiping himself frantically!

Peering out of my grasp =)

And peering more intently!

the gerbil's den

Herby and gerby have dug into their boxes and set up a neat tunnel system. Before I get pictures up (not sure how I'm going to) let me try to describe.

They have two boxes stacked on top of each other, with a hole linking both. They first dug downwards into the top box (entrance #1) and dug through the hole linking the two boxes and they chewed around the hole to enlarge it. Then they dug backwards through basement 2 to exit from the back of the box (near the back of the tank), and they dug upwards, creating another tunnel entrance from the back of the tank going straight to basement 2.

Rocks huh =)