Food time

Now, when the spoons are up and the bowl is filled, the hamsters come running. We recently got some CAT FOOD for our hamsters. It's 26% protein, and it's meant to make them fat.

Anyway, here's a video of Cotton who is eating in his food dish.

How cute!

A new litter, again

This morning, Gerby gave birth to 5 healthy pups, who immediately drank milk and filled their stomachs.

The only problem was, we did not witness any of the pups being born. Gerby managed to give birth to ALL the pups in about an hour. Not bad huh.

Here is Gerby two days before giving birth.

Fat right?

Here are the 5 healthy pups piled together.

And in this photo, Herby pokes his head into the picture.

That's quite cute Herby...

When Gerby gets startled, she'll jump forward, leaving the babies detached from her in a messy line. Something like this:

Sometimes, a stray baby may be left out too!

But don't worry, for she'll find it and move it back towards her.

And Gerby shrinks back after the whole thing is over.

We now have TEN gerbils (adult, young, and younger) in our tank!

Cookie bit Cream

Just tonight, Cookie bit Cream rather hard on her face, and Cream is running around in her own box, while the wound closes up. We hope that she heals soon, and we wonder why Cookie did it. Poor Cream =(

reintroduction

We reintroduced Cookie and Cream yesterday. Cream's behavior is just that of a bully. She takes pride in being able to flip Cookie over into a submissive wailing position. And we were so worried that Cookie would not be able to get any rest being chased around by Cream all day long. Or rather, all night long.

But this morning, we saw the both of them sleeping together in the house. Oh how cool is that! The reintroduction worked, and we hope that they will continue to be good friends as they were at the start =)

hey there fatty =)

Fatty, our only Syrian hamster, is pretty cool. And pretty too. Her coat is a nice spotted brown on white. I think we really got a nice hamster from pet lovers.

Here's a video of her as she stirs from her afternoon sleep! She is distracted by my hand just outside the cage bars and stands up to get a better view.

Presenting...Fatty!

i thought the gerbils didn't run their wheel

But I found it toppled when I returned just now. Lol. Wonder what they have been up to, and how puzzled they must have been as to WTF is the wheel lying on its side. Serves them right for running so fast. Haha. Anyway, Gerby is pretty awesome in that I still find her milking the babies now and then...they seem to find her pretty well, in fact they are darting all over the place when I open the top, and this is a video of them in their overturned box cover:

And this is a video of our only LIGHT COLOURED GERBIL =P yes, I am biased. Haha, but this just films her smelling the food and running all over, even on top of their log house.

Oh, the gerbils eat a healthy 30+ pellets every meal (twice a day). It's two big scoops of hamster delight, and they finish it all. Today I topped it up with the remaining mealworms (about 20+ pieces) for good measure. They have yet to bury their food =)

split pen failure

I regret putting Cotton and Pepper together in the split pen. Pepper jumped from my hand and they formed a fatal hammieball.

Cotton got injured; I gave him arnica, and now he's sleeping (albeit a little ruffled up and sigh....hurt).

He's less receptive to my hand now...shies away when I reach into his cage. So I just gave him a bit more fluff and one ikan bilis (he finished his previous once). I also gave him a wooden toy clipped to the side. But for now, he's just sleeping. Poor him.

Get well soon, cotton.

wheel runners

Herby and Gerby and their brood enjoy the wheel immensely. The babies can already run quite fast on the wheel, and they look so cute! Here is a video of them fighting over who gets the wheel.

Herby is pleasant; he lets the babies run and when they try to get on while he's on, he makes way.

Gerby, um, she just runs. And she flipped lighty out of the wheel several times already. Just watch!

Test post from Windows Live Writer

  I have stumbled upon this Windows Live Writer program included with messenger, and it seems to be fine. Let's try some features:

(1) A photo of our argente golden baby gerbil below:

(2) The second photo is the same photo, but with a backdrop shadow effect and a watermark, and a sepia tone applied, courtesy of WLW.

I think WLW is quite impressive, will use it in my next video post.

Cheers =)

 

EDIT: video support is not as integrated as I would like it to be...ask me for tips on how to use WLW and upload videos (requires several more clicks).

splits and divides

Cookie and Cream split cage:

We swap their sides once every day, in order to get them to be used to the other's smell. This arrangement has been going on for 2 weeks already, but Cream is still aggressive towards Cookie, and Cookie keeps screaming when she sees Cream.

Cotton and Pepper temporary split playpen:

I placed the both of them on either side, and observed them. Pepper made aggressive noises like Cream, but Cotton was unfazed. This behaviour is unlike Cookie's cower-and-run tactic. Perhaps Cotton has more man in him than we thought he had! The video shows the both of them standing down each other for 2+ minutes. Observing the other. Weighing their chances. They probably know that they cannot get at each other through the bars (before this, they were jumping and squeaking and boxing through the split!).

I hope to build the split tank (shall go take measurements now) soon, and as soon as salt gives birth (probably anytime soon), I'll move Pepper and Cotton into the split tank.

I am optimistic about that arrangement, and I hope that the split tank will be of great use in future.

active babies

The gerbil babies, they are actively running all over the place. Climbing over the loghouse, chewing on the loghouse, biting mummy's yoghurt, nibbling on a big piece of carrot. Everything to keep themselves entertained.

Naughty gerby escaped again last night by chewing through one of the holes in my make-shift cover. I think I should go to the hardware store to find a solution. SOON.

Cool babies.

stupid gerby

She escaped last night, and the babies were left huddling by themselves under the wooden house. Herby probably put them there.

Fortunately, I caught her after about 10 minutes of searching, and after a small nip of the web between my thumb and index finger -.- stroked her and put her back.

I turned around to get a cardboard box to fashion into a makeshift cover by stabbing holes through them, and turned back to see gerby jumping up and clinging to the side of the tank at the top.

Naughty gerby!

For the babies sake, I hope she does not pull off that stunt again. But it's not easy for her to escape now...the cover I made is a cardboard box inverted and pulled tightly over the top of the tank. Fits quite snugly, so for her sake, and the babies, Gerby you better stay in there!

gerbil babies, gerbies?

Can we call gerbil babies 'GERBIES'? Gerby would be thoroughly confused.

Anyway, here are some cool shots of the babies:

Day 11

Today, the babies are supposed to be already zooming around the tank with their eyes closed. To get a nice shot of them lining up is not easy, and they don't understand english =(

To the left are the 5 babies on top of each other, all over. To the right are the same 5 babies, being good kids now. They are...lining up! =) well, except the light-coloured one...

Day 17

Today, the pups are supposed to start opening their eyes. If not, they will probably be able to see by day 20. Well, one upside of them not opening their eyes yet is that it's easier to catch them. They can't see the hand coming. Only thing is that they hop a lot. I mean, a lot. With their tails outstretched and all. Cool gerbies!

The curious pup peers over my hand. Yikes. I mean, she tries to peer. Eyes are still shut

She tries to bury her nose through my fingers, just like Herby and Gerby when they were younger.

Mr Dark Coloured stares into the darkness.

Don't fall over, pup!

big move to new house

Here goes: the BIG move to a new cage!

Why the move?

People were adopting our babies (litter #2), and we planned to give away our small blue alex cage with the 2 male whities (see Our Babies) to aunty's friend. Therefore, Salt and Pepper (current residents of the small blue cage) had to move. Into cream's big pink cage! With 3 storeys (though we removed a storey, so it's only double decker now). A big change for aunty Cora's babies.

As of last saturday, aunty's friend has successfully adopted the 2 whities. Left alone in her medium-sized tank is blackie (only a pet name!).

Enough talk. Here are the photos =)

I could not find many photos of Salt and Pepper running around their new cage, because the first thing they did was to run the wheel in tandem!

Meanwhile, we moved Cookie and Cream together into a split cage. We have been switching their positions (left and right) up to twice a day, hoping that they will get used to each others smell. Hopefully it works, if not we are faced with a logistic nightmare.

See the beautiful cage? Their floor space is not much, but decent at least. They have one wheel each, one bottle, one food dish, one nest. Till today, Cookie still keeps screaming when Cream comes near. Only consolation is that Cream has stopped hissing near Cookie. Hope the split works! =)

Meanwhile, since we are on the topic of houses, Herby and Gerby's big new tank is pretty cool.