Family updates

Harley the Hamster - We've had her for a while, but this is our favorite picture of her cute little face.

Hikaru

L has adopted some animals--a pair of albino gerbil brothers (Hikaru and Kaoru), a dwarf hamster (Excalibur), and a young male rat (because apparently Star, her largest female has become naughty and unmanageable since her brothers died, so Neil deGrasse Tyson will keep her from picking on her sisters.  He's currently separated while he recovers from his neutering, but will join Star in another week.  They were all essentially unadoptable, due to unpleasant dispositions and/or appearance issues, so she helped to clear some space at an overloaded shelter.

Kaoru

Excalibur the Fierce

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Przemek the Bald

We adopted Przemek, the button quail a few weeks ago. I got a call and went to get him, knowing little to nothing about button quails.  Someone found him outside wandering around on a cold, wintry day. After pick up, we went immediately to the vet, because he had a nasty head wound. As it turns out, that's not uncommon for them--it's due to head bonking, which is jumping straight up as they try to fly and repeatedly bashing their heads on the cage top. We treated that and it cleared up in a few weeks. He's still bald yet, but I think we'll see feathers in a few weeks now. He's free in general population now, but he prefers to hang out in either his food tray, his sand dish, or on top of his produce/water station.

Friday morning we went to pick up nine finches from rescue.  I have never had finches before.  There are at least three different varieties represented amongst the nine.  They are very entertaining, and I'm enjoying getting to know them. I have rearranged the bird room to accommodate them--they're currently in three different (decent sized) cages, based on who gets along.  I'm not really happy with this arrangement, but it will work for now. I've been trying to enrich their cages and get them comfortable with eating fresh produce as they get settled into their new environment.  In a few days, I will make some more changes in there, as I'm brainstorming on the best way to allow them cage-free lives, while still remaining safe. I'm not quite sure how things will end up, but we will be progressing toward the largest, most enriched environments that I can come up with.  I got all of the long, curly, very tiny toenails trimmed yesterday, so I need to get to Mounds soon and pick up some natural perches that will wear the nails down as they walk. I'd like to not have to cut their nails very often.

My bigger challenge right now appears to be names. I'm having a hard time coming up with names. I don't yet have a good sense for personalities, so I need 9 names, easy to remember and with a fairly simple means of associating each name with each bird.

One of the finches is in a cage alone, and the note that came with them indicates that he didn't get along with the others. It bothers me a lot that he's alone. He's within a few inches of the others, so he can see/hear them, but I'd really like him to not be alone--that's detrimental to birds.  He (she?  I guessed "he" because the bird is very vocal, and typically males are more vocal) is the most interested in interacting with me. He will repeat a call back and forth with me, and his vocalizations are quite different from the other finches.

We were heartbroken to lose our guinea pig Oona, Luna's mommy.  It was very traumatic for Luna. We noticed a small sore on Oona's belly on Monday, took her to the vet Tuesday, where they said she was healthy and gave her antibiotics for the small abscess. Weds. afternoon when I entered the room for afternoon chores/feedings, I knew something was wrong. Luna was staring out of her little hidey house with huge, frightened eyes. I started looking around and found her mommy in the hidey next to her, dead.  Oona was an old girl, so not shocking but still a nasty surprise! It was really hard to see poor Luna so tormented. She's never been without her mom, and I feel so bad for her!

Our possum siblings continue to come eat almost every night. Seeing them together has been one of the few joys of this horrible, long winter for me.

Duck

Today marks two full weeks that L has been gone.  She will be home this weekend.  Finally!  She's already prepared me for the fact that she has a tan, despite using sunscreen, so I would be less freaked out when I saw the actual sun damage.  She's had a lot of fun this week and spent time on the canoe, paddle boat, jet ski, and a pontoon, and has been on a turtle and fish finding mission.  Her rats will be happy to see her again, but her hamster, Harley, will be especially happy, because she does not like me very much.

Harley is a singleton right now, because that type of hamster will not share territory with another, and they will violently fight.  I suspect she may be happier though, with another hamster in another cage near her, so they can see and smell one another. I am looking further into this, because it's important that our animals are as happy as they can possibly be.

I've spent a great deal of time trying to win her over, but she does not get comfortable and relaxed when she's out with me like she does with L. She likes me to talk to her and is happy to take the food and treats I give her, but she just doesn't enjoy me handling her.  I won't force myself upon her, but it makes me feel really bad.  Animals (the non-human variety anyway) always love me. It's strange when they don't.

We ended up taking yet another unexpected trip to Madison last night to Four Lakes Wildlife Rehab Center.  We've made that trip many, many times in the last couple of weeks.  Fledgling season and the storms are rough for baby birds. Last night's passenger was a very young duckling--probably mallard, but possibly wood duck.  She still had her egg tooth, which was so adorable.  She was found alone in the road near Rotary Gardens, and there were no other duck families anywhere in the vicinity. Odd.  We had a snuggly car ride, and it was really hard to let her go.  I miss my Jemima duck and was having fantasies of keeping the baby for very selfish reasons.  There were other little ducks there for her to join and another singleton orphan that was being dropped off after our little one.  

One thing that I've learned after over 30 years of working with animals is that despite their species (with very few exceptions), they want to be with others of their own kind more than anything else. They are just like us in that way. I do not believe any social animal (which includes all the animals kept as "pets"), even the most loved, desperately crave understanding from and communication with their own kind and no matter how loved and pampered they are, will never be happy as an "only". It's a universal need.  Having singleton species animals causes me great stress, as it seems really cruel to me, and I do my best to avoid whenever possible.

So the high point of leaving our duck at the clinic was when we left the DCHS grounds.  I love the location and the surrounding prairie there, but it was awesome last night at around 8:30 when we left. There were hundreds of rabbits along the  access drive eating contentedly.  I'm sure many of them were releases from Four Lakes.  We were driving very slowly so we could enjoy watching the buns eat, when we saw a beautiful female deer also eating in a very relaxed manner.  Seeing these animals so happy and peaceful really made my night.  It was very exciting!h b27wwwwwww  ( added by Trixie the rat, who refuses to respect my "No walking on the keyboard" rule.)

July Activities

L had her week of College for Kids this month.  She only has one year left of CfK.  Both girls have enjoyed CfK, and it will be strange to be completely done with it next year.  This year L took a Photoshop class and the Lego Mindstorms robotics class.  I really wanted to take that class, too!  She built and programmed several different robots.  Parents were invited in for the last class to see the 'Sumo match', in which they pitted the robots against each other to see which was would succeed in pushing the other bot(s) out of the ring.  It was a fun activity, but L decided she didn't want to participate in building a robot "that might get destroyed."  Okay. :-/

She also spent several days in IL with her grandparents, as her cousins were also there visiting from the east coast.  I missed her a lot, and as always, she was fine without us and had a blast with her cousins.  I wish that she had cousins that lived closer, as I did growing up. My cousins are still among my best friends today. She only gets to see them once a year or so, but they always have lots of fun together.  We joined them for the day when we went to pick her up on the Sunday before CfK started. 

We also recently adopted a sweet little girl hamster, Pancake.  She is so sweet, with the cutest little face.  She's quite entertaining and routinely shocks us with the massive quantities of food she is able to stuff into her cheek pouches.

She is living in Luciana's room, in a huge cage (unfortunately, it's the only safe option for her) with lots of enrichments.  She has a playground that she comes out to play in, and L changes the layout of it all the time to keep her from getting bored.

Though she cannot be introduced to another hamster at this point, we thought she may at least enjoy being in the room with the rats, where she can hear, see, and smell other rodents.

Our very lucky family grows again!

We had a semi-productive day with school work. L. is feeling a bit fiesty lately, so we didn't get all the way through history today. We will have to finish up history tomorrow in addition to our Friday work.

We took our new family member, Winnie, to the vet today for a checkup. Winnie is a male teddy bear hamster who we adopted from the Humane Society. As part of the adoption, we got a free vet checkup. It is such an unusual and awesome feeling to leave the vet's office with a receipt for $0. Winnie was brought into the Rock County Humane Society in May, and was not yet full grown. He had a runny left eye, which is the primary reason we took him to the vet. He seems to have vision in it, and it doesn't seem to be sore or sensitive. It just gets a little crusty and he tends not to keep it all the way open. The vet said he was fine--in good health, and thinks the eye may be just a result of having been in woodchips at the HS. Wood chips, especially cedar, should not be used for ANY small animals. We are using paper litter now, and hopefully will see his eye clear up soon. He weighs all of 1/2 ounce but has managed to make us all fall in love. He is very sweet and cuddly (as long as you don't wake him up!!) and is very entertaining. He lives in the bird room, and Scraps the naughty rabbit, is intrigued with him.

We also adopted the lone cockatiel there, who looked very sad and lonely. Her person got cancer, so she ended up at the HS. She (her person thought she was a girl, but I'm not certain that is the case) is very sweet and loves to have her cheeks, neck, and head scratched. We named her Willow. She can wolf whistle and is very human bonded, so it's awesome to have a 'pet' bird again. Despite all the birds we have, none of them are particularly enamored with humans. They were all adopted later in life and many had been used strictly as breeders. I talk to them and love them, and they are interested in me and like the attention but have no desire for affection or physical interaction. All of the human-bonded birds that I've had have died, so it's been a few years since I've had my birdy-bond fix, and it's wonderful! I'm working on a good picture of Willow, but birds are really tricky (for me anyway).

During history today, we were reading about the democratic government in ancient Athens. Our text mentioned Plato's views on democracy, which echo the most prevalent and scary thought that I've had lately in regards to our government's colossal failure in, well, every area possible. Plato said, in short, that a democracy can only succeed when the citizens are educated. You see the problem here in the U.S? We, as a nation, are becoming increasingly UNeducated and un- or misinformed. My fear is we have now, as a nation, become so damn stupid and uneducated that a democracy will never be effective. Just as Plato predicted, we, the uneducated nation, are now controlled by tyrants. I think the fact that there is even a close race between McCain/Palin and ANYBODY indicate the extent of our populace's ignorance. Why else would so many vote against their own self-interests? I can only attribute it to our ever-shrinking average IQ and understanding of economics and politics. I am inspired to re-read Plato, so we'll have to hit the library this weekend. I'm hoping that I can find a version that L. can enjoy reading and discussing with me.