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.

transfer

I moved the gerbils over to my place yesterday. The transfer was just a little shy of disastrous.

When my cab got to my place, the first thing the skies did was to rain.

Baby gerbils got a little wet. And one of them was not moving. He was curled fetal and I thought he was dead.

But after blowing on them with a hairdryer for a while, they started moving.

That was last night. As of now, they are happily zooming around. And to quote a website (http://www.gerbilbreeding.com/develop.htm), the pups are "motoring along very fast". All over the tank.

I sexed them this morning and out of the 4 dark coloured ones, we have 1 boy and 3 girls. The light coloured one is a girl. Gerby has made this pretty cool nest to place them in. After I took the babies out for sexing, I placed them back in, and gerby seemed to be fine with it. Previously she would go all crazy and shift the nest somewhere else. The only gripe I have with the nest is that it is directly below their bottle. Hope it does not drip or they will get wet!

gerbil babies

Our gerbils, their babies are 4 dark coloured and 1 light coloured. I think the light coloured one is a very light brown, yellowish. While the other 4 are probably cinnamon coloured like herby and gerby.

babies playing

Babies' new (smaller) tank

The big swap took place today. Herby and Gerby and babies were moved to the bigger tank, while the 3 hamster babies were moved to the smaller tank.

Some news about the 3 hammie babies:
1) blackie (female) is the largest of them all now. I put some worms in their tank and she took most of them. Greedy blackie!
2) both whities are male. Don't ask me how I know. Just go google "sexing baby hamsters".
3) their fur usually explodes when I hold them. Like fuzzly and all.

Enough said. Now let the pictures do the work =)

Butt to butt: blackie and one whitie. "Where are we? Oh no...we have no more tank!"

What's this huge thing? Another hamster? No, it's round...and it rolls!

Teehee! Having lots of fun!

Blackie joins in the fun.

But when the ball rolls away, they change their focus to the toilet roll tube.

I wonder what whitie is running from...maybe the tube is chasing him.

Here he goes again, with the ball. Blackie and the other whitie rush towards him.

Here is whitie on my hand with a peanut, no it's the DOG BONE!! next to him =)

The massacred dog bone, with the bone part bitten off by the three rascals.

Whitie comes back to play with the ball.

But eventually decides that blackie is nicer to chase instead.

squirmy is gone

Squirmy is believed to have died, as he wasn't getting ANY milk at all. He never suckled and was always left out.

And the mommy and daddy probably ate up the remains of the dead pup.

So now we are down to five pups. Go gerby =)

PUSHHHHHHHHHHHH gerbs!

Early this morning, a small squeak alerted us to the arrival of the first of Gerby's litter of 6! After the birth of the first, the rest came at intervals ranging from 5 mins to half an hour...

All of them were born purple, but quickly pinked up after being given the lick-wash by mummy or daddy. Only no. 3, whom we nicknamed Squirmy (because he is sooo tiny compared to his siblings and didnt have enough energy to do anything except lie there and occasionally squirm like a worm), was born almost black, not moving and we thought he (arbitrarily assigned sex) was dead. he lay there, a dark heap of deadness, and gerby even gave up on licking him and chucked him aside..

TEN minutes

Here are some photos of the first TWO pups which popped out =) The second was born within 10 minutes of the first.

In the first, Herby and Gerby share their parenting duties and clean the pups. The second picture shows the first 2 pups wiggling about in the soft paper bedding.



FORTY minutes

After about another 30 minutes, another 2 pups were born. Right now, we have a total count of FOUR pups. The 3rd one, as mentioned earlier, was still lying there, not moving, even as Gerby went into labour for the 5th one.


SIXTY minutes

Gerby is still in labour. The time between delivering is increasing greatly. Pup number 5 comes out a healthy purple. Yes, that means that the pup has yet to take its first breath. But at least purple is a better colour than black, which the 3rd pup was. Gerby licked the pup till it started to turn a healthy pink. Herby meanwhile relegated himself to a corner and fell asleep. Through the past 50 minutes, he had attempted to mate with Gerby several times, but clever Gerby turned him down.

Here we see Gerby feeding the pups milk, in the midst of labour.


TWO hours

Finally, all 6 pups are out! I bet that Gerby would have 8 because she still looked big. But I lost the bet to hammiemummy =P

Gerby gave birth to 6 pups with tails! More awesome than hamster babies! Haha. Below you can see the 6 healthy pups (photo is a little blur) wiggling about and below...Herby and Gerby taking care of the bouncy babies!

mummy, i am hungry

This post is dedicated to Salt, our beloved winter white, and her food dish, our beloved turquoise food dish.

Hey hey! Let me dig in this treasure chest!

Ah shucks. I can't reach the bottom!

Finally! Ha, found some treasure. Yum yum.

Yummy yummy yum yum!

Ah man. Let me search some more...

Hmm..what's that to the right? Is that...a white speck? A nut!

A nut!!! YUM.

broccoli!

Broccoli is a healthy vegetable which most children are picky about. But not our babies. In fact, they love it.

Presenting...

Herby!


Fatty!


Cotton! He looks half asleep.


Butter!


Salt and Pepper! Umm...I think they have finished eating...


Cookie!


Cream!


They are fed fresh food (broccoli, carrot) once every few days. And they sure look forward to it each time! Well..apart from cream, who only ate one small piece today. She turned her nose at the other pieces. Pepper, on the other hand, grabbed two pieces from me. Salt got another piece, but she ate less.

Herby and Gerby wasted theirs today. Ate half and threw it on the floor. I picked up the stalk and put it in their food dish.

Let's hope they are not getting sick of it already!

cookie gave birth

She gave birth to 3 pups! They shall have no name, as they will be given away when they are ripe mature.

cookie is pregnant!

And we have moved her into a tank so that she will have her own space to give birth. Here are some photos of her in her new home.

Cookie running the wheel! It's a new pink wheel which we bought such that we can have enough wheels for all of them.

Here she goes, eating in her food dish. She takes up the whole dish =P a dish that both Salt and Pepper could fit into.

After exploring around, and satisfied that we weren't abandoning her, as she still can find food and wheel and water, she sits down and sleeps.