Buttons

Had someone email about Buttons - it went to my junk mail folder of course.  But the actual junk mail?  Nope, that's in my inbox.  Makes perfect sense.  Anyway, they said they'd had dwarf rabbits before and missed them, so they were thinking Buttons would be great for them, so I was all set to email them back with the rabbit care packet and the rabbit adoption form... til I realized I didn't HAVE either of them.  Makes me wonder what I had the people fill out when we adopted out Felix last year.

*mom in background, looking over shoulder* - "You just talked with them on the phone for the longest time, you didn't have them fill out anything other than the pickup form which you had them agree to and sign."

Oh.  Ok, so today was the day.  Took the time, sat down, and wrote out and edited my rabbit care packet (the final version will come out after it's proofread another day).  And spent some time tweaking the adoption form so it was more rabbit-oriented.  THEN sent the email to the person with those attachments.  So I hope I hear back from her.

Oh, and since I said earlier that I'd post it, now that I'm home and have access to my files, here's the showbook ad that I sent to Mish for the MCBA Atlantic Chapter's Spring Show's show-book (got our ad in the book by donating a product [donated a chinny motorhome] to the show's raffle):

Hope no one needs to desperately get ahold of me....

So, I had a stupid moment today, and about, oh... 10 minutes after leaving the office realized that my phone... was still at the office.  So... I really hope no one's in any dire need to get ahold of me tonight or tomorrow until about 5 pm.  I'm hoping to call the office on a break at my other job and let them know I'm coming to pick it up, but I still won't have it between now and like 5 pm tomorrow (and god is that going to be a lot of wasted gas just to pick up a phone... but I sure can't wait until next Monday to get it!).  Ugh.  Course, it'll die in a few hours anyway, it was already well on its way, but that phone is like attached at the hip, so omg! 

But onto chin stuff.  Anyway, no responses to the bun bun ads.  My ad on craigslist for the pair of female chins for $150 keeps getting flagged.  Yet, no one's flagging the baby pink white chin in Lombard for $150.  What the heck?  Surely that's selling more so than two adult chins for $150... but I suppose people think they should be like $20 each, hence the flagging.  Oh well, I will just keep posting.  No interest whatsoever actually, it's been a quiet couple of days in terms of adopting out rescues. 

Getting some young volunteers in on Thursday - one of my previous adopters and her kid are coming over to help.  I'm sure I have some cages to clean or at least some litter pans to clean.  Finally got Mish the ad I promised her for the Atlantic Chapter Showbook.  Had a heck of a time doing it, because my regular laptop doesn't have Paint (the program that comes with the computer) so I had to download a drawing/photo editing program and it did not like me.  But I finally got it!  Will post it later if I think about it.  I would say I could send it to myself from my phone and go from there... but..... yeah.  No phone. 

Still have a chin order or two to get out... it's sad how much I rely on my phone, my entire to-do list is on there... like crud, what am I supposed to do today again?  Repost that one ad for sure, but what else?  I do actually hate being that dependent on that phone, but I love it to death.  Almost as much as I love chins and critters, but it's a different kind of love.  It keeps me organized.  Ah well, no organization for the next day or so..... but I bet you chin stuff will get done, cause I won't be playing with the phone, that's for sure!

Nationals and more rescues!

So, we went to Nationals!  Had fun, enjoyed the pool, had a nice dinner... wait, this is a chin blog.  My bad.  Groomed the chins the night before (well, again, that was not their first grooming) so that the following morning at the show wouldn't be as bad.  So show day, grooming was quick and we got to sit back and relax once we were finished while everyone else groomed!  Haha. 

So the show went on, lots of great animals.  My mom's chin was knocked off the table (no award) for having wavy fur... which I guess I did notice but somehow it never fazed me.  Oops.  We brought her, one of my 6Oakes females, and our own Myshkin.  The 6 Oakes female, Jessie, got a 4th.  I don't remember why off the top of my head, but it's in my showbook (too tired to look right now).  Myshkin, on the other hand, got a 1st!  And for him being a 3 year old, that is awesome!

Was looking for a beige or white (specifically, homo beige or pink white) female to take home.  By halfway through the show I was hoping for even a nice, high placing standard female to take home.  But no luck, there were hardly any females up for the auction, it was like 95% males and the females that were didn't do well enough for me to want them (or, there were like 2 of them that were all of 3 months old - not quite what I was looking for).

So, before we left, I talked to Dan Rolfe (the guy who brought the pelts to show) and ended up purchasing a pelt from him.  Odd, maybe, but for illustration purposes it could be good to have one.  Now that I got it home... I am trying my best to keep it as far away from the dog's reach as possible.  Knowing her, it would become the next chew toy.

So... while at Nationals, the emails and phone calls did not stop.  Those stop for nothing.  So, I got a call the day before Nationals (Friday) from someone wanting to drop off two chins, said his kids lost interest in them.  On Saturday, got two calls from the same person wanting to adopt our gerbils, got a call from someone else wanting to drop off chins cause their kid lost interest, and got two calls from someone in Delaware wanting to adopt one of our pairs of chins.  Called everyone back -- got ahold of the gerbil people, who said they found gerbils by them.  Sometimes, I swear, people need to give me a few hours to call them back before they go run out and get their pets elsewhere.  But anyway.  Got in touch with the second person about her wanting to surrender the chins - so she brought them over today, Moch and Mycha.  Called the first guy wanting to drop off chins - got an email back today, and he also called again today, so we talked on the phone and I later emailed him back.  I got a third call from the Delaware person about the chins today - called them pretty much right back, but only got voicemail - I left (on the message) that their call shows up as Delaware, and if they are really Delaware, well, we are Indiana, so.... so I haven't heard back.

While I was out, had someone pay for an order of chin food, so I need to get that out.  Had another put in an order for some hay and some food, so I will be working on that as well.  Also need to get cranking on getting Gigi's cage all ready to go, because she's ready to go to her new home... just as soon as I get the cage done!

Also had someone email about the gerbils - which, originally I emailed back saying hey, got someone else interested, I can let you know if they decide to not get them?  Never did hear back, but then when the person told me that they had found other gerbils, I emailed again saying that they are back up for adoption.  But... considering the same person called me twice from different numbers.. I'm half betting that email is from the same lady who already got gerbils.  So I don't have much hope riding on hearing back from her.

Had someone email about Storm as a pet for their three year old.  Someone who'd never had chins.  I'm not a huge fan of chinchillas as pets for kids that young and I told her I thought that a better pet might be a rabbit or something that might hold still a little better... haven't heard back, but I was honest.  But anyway, Storm is actually on hold for someone, seems like a good home, just got in the adoption form today.  :)

What else... hmm.. oh, one of the people who bought some dust, treats, and whatnot a few weeks ago emailed me to let me know that she got her package.  She was inquiring about adopting a chin to breed... so I informed her that she couldn't adopt a rescue and breed it, she'd need to purchase a pedigreed chin.  And went on to say that usually the only pedigreed chins we have for sale are babies and she would have to wait until the baby was old enough to breed before putting it in with her male.  I'm sure it's all in one ear out the other, but I can't help but help.  Anyway, she asked how old the pedigreed ones were, so REALLY in one ear out the other, and I told her, we typically sell babies at 2-3 months and that's pretty much the ONLY pedigreed ones we have for sale, hence the me telling her she'd have to wait maybe a year before breeding.  So we'll see.  Can't say she's giving off the best impression so far, but at the same time, we don't even have any pedigreed females to sell, so I'm not exactly worried.

And I think that might be it.....  got all the chins settled in the basement.  My dad was here to check on the chins and all, but it's not the way I would, so I changed out some litter pans, cleaned Shiloh's cage, filled all the food bowls... all the stuff I do every night normally, but it seemed to take a bit longer cause it was like it wasn't done the way I woulda done it for the past day or two.  But they all still had food and water so kudos to dad, they survived my absence.

As for the rescues we got in, Moch and Mycha.  Supposedly a mom/daughter pair. They are standard grey, and at least at first glance they look exactly the same, lol.  Came with one of those 24x24x41 cages that we sell.  Has some broken bars, a bit chewed up, the shelves are horrendous!  They can live in there until the next time I go down, and they will get moved to the empty FN.  I'll fix up the cage with some wooden shelves and send it home with the girls if their home is looking for a used cage, but man.  Hope that plastic was just chewed off and not ingested.

... and I see new products everyday.  Of course, they came with a plastic wheel, dandelion drops, and an igloo, but they also came with this Vitamin C treats which consisted of rosehips, dried cranberries, and dried kiwi.  Never seen anything like that before, hmmm.  Obviously the dried cranberries and kiwi aren't good but the rosehips would be fine.  Probably more of a g-pig treat than a chinny treat, but we've had a lot of people who think that chins may need that extra vitamin C in their diet as well, so maybe that was the case here.

Anyway, that was about it for the going-ons this week.  I put up ads for Buttons and Foofy tonight, so we'll see if there's any interest in them.  Still trying to figure out what's up with Caddy (Cadbury) so she can wait.  I even put on the ads something about "rabbits are not an easter present, they are a lifetime commitment" and a statement to the effect of, if you tell us you want the rabbit for your kid for easter, your application will be denied.  No doubt we'll still get some of that, but hopefully the good homes will come through.

Going to bed now.

Inquiries galore

So I get to work and see the first email being someone wanting to adopt Frito.  Course, I thought I took down all his ads, but it's not uncommon for people to somehow run across an ad that I took down that is still showing up for some reason.  But... not this time, no, I actually forgot to take down one.  So I emailed her saying that he'd already gone to his new home but that we had another chinchilla (Storm) up for adoption.  So we'll see.

Had several people today email about Ghost.  He's already on hold for someone who adopted some gerbils from us the other week - and I have him on hold on the website, but you know, people see an ad and immediately call.  Got one who said they wouldn't drive the 2 hours to come get him, so I told them we had another for adoption, but if they wouldn't drive... so I suppose I won't hear back from them, and then had someone call and say they were four hours away in Michigan and wanted to know if there was a way to get him transported up there... um, what?  Since when do you not have to go to the physical location of the Humane Society to adopt a dog?  You can't pull the "it's too far" and have them drive to you.  How is this any different?  Anyway, called them up and told them that he's on hold and that we had Storm available... but who knows.  I don't see them driving four hours to pick him up, but who am I to judge.  We've had people drive 6 hours to drop off a chin, so anything is possible.  But... the people who do that don't even question the drive... versus the ones who say there's "no way they can drive x hours" typically don't want to drive even 5 minutes.  And I'm sorry, but we don't meet and we won't deliver.  I have more than enough on my plate with two jobs, the chin rescue, and grad school to be driving to deliver a chin.  Cause it's not only 2 hours there, it's two hours back. 

And as for meeting... it's not that I don't want people to adopt chins or anything... but think about it.  Someone wants to meet to pick up a chin.  Where you going to meet?  The Walmart parking lot?  Cause that chin gets loose out there and you can forget ever seeing it again.  One gets loose in our basement, it may give us a heck of a chase, but we will catch it and you can still take it home. 

Hangin in there...

Well, Lilly is still hanging in there.  I hadn't gotten a chance to check on her this morning cause I was running late for work, but when I got home, she was still breathing and alive.  Not much of an improvement (if any) over last night.  If forced to move, she wobbles and shakes badly.  The shakes are like shivers that go through her entire body.  If she's just left to sit, she will move now and then... but mostly just sits in one spot with her eyes closed.  Her breathing is normal, so she's not struggling in that area.  I doubt she ate or drank anything over the course  of the night (though she did move to a different spot in the cage), so when I got home I injected her with sub-q fluids with electrolytes added.  This should help keep her hydrated in case she's not drinking right now.  It was sad to give her the injection - most chins will squeal or move away when you get them with the needle, but she just sat there.  I didn't even have to use my other hand (or another person - which is usually necessary) to hold her steady for the shot, I just lifted the fur pocket and gave her the shot with her sitting quietly on the table.  The poor girl. 

Still changing out the chin-chillers, but I think after tonight's change, we're good.  I'm still going to keep them in the cage, but she's definitely cooled off by now, and the damage is done.  It's looking like she's got neurological damage as a result of the heatstroke.  If she lives through the next few days, time will tell if the neurological damage is permanent or not.  Some chins can live through heatstroke, even with neuro-damage, and just need to be kept in a one-level cage for the rest of their lives.  But... she has to eat and drink on her own for that to occur.  I can give her more sub-q shots of fluid and I can feed her CC if needed... but if she's going to stay this bad off and not eat/drink on her own, we'd do a disservice to her to keep her here and keep her suffering.  But... time will tell how things go.  I wish I was more hopeful, but it's sad to put her back in her cage and pet her a few times and watch her close her eyes and just sit there.  You get used to chins hopping off your hands to get back in their cages as quick as they can, and to have one that you can just place down and have it stay there... it's sad.  And I remember these girls bouncing around like little fuzzballs. 

They were only 6 months old when they came to the rescue with Shiloh (our now-resident prairie dog).  One of the owner's children had developed some sort of seizure disorder (not epilepsy) that was puzzling the doctors.  It had nothing to do with the pets, but because of the time spent on the kids, they needed to rehome the pets.  So we got two chins (Tic and Tac - now Lulu and Lilly) and a prairie dog (Shiloh).  Initially, Tic and Tac were adopted out to a family in Indy.  When we adopted them out was right around the time we first had our adoption form, and the family swindled their way out of filling it out, and we realized too late that they never had actually given us a completed form.  They seemed like a good home, but I guess hard times came upon them, because I saw the chins on craigslist later on.  Now, had they filled out our adoption form, they would have signed that the chins had to be returned to us... but since they didn't, they refused to talk to me and said that only if I paid them could I get the chins back to the rescue.  Well, through the help of some friends, we drove down to Indy (about 2.5-3 hours from here) one weekend to pick them up.  I did pay for them, because it was important to me that they come back to the rescue and not be sold to the first person out there with some cash.  They were at the rescue about four months before they were adopted by their most recent adoptive home.  Great adoptive home, great family.  Unfortunately, the chins kept her up at night and with starting college, she needed her sleep, so she told us that she would be bringing them back to us... this was about 6 months after they were adopted.  And so she did, on an uncharacteristically hot day (86 degrees - Indiana weather, go figure) in March -- a day or so ago.  Lulu passed shortly after being dropped off (she'll always be "Tic" to us), and Lilly ("Tac") isn't faring much better, though she is still hanging on.       

They're so much bigger than I remember them.  I suppose I still think of them as the little 6-month-olds I got in while living in Indy.  They're grown up, and I'm sad to say that I have down that they were born in March 2010 - barely 2 years old.  The sad part is that this was preventable.  No one thought it would be that hot the other day - heck, most years it's still snowing here in March - it's no one's fault.  But I remember when we adopted out Whisky - her adoptive mom (who's an angel, btw - and has always shown up with treats for our dog, or something for the chins) wanted to come on a day that was about 85 degrees out.  She wanted to come late at night, like 9 pm, but the low for the day was around 80, and it still hadn't even cooled down to that temperature by 8 pm.  I remember her saying something about how her car didn't have air conditioning, and I told her, as nicely as I could, that I couldn't be responsible for what might happen to the chin if she took Whisky out in the 80+ degree heat for the 45+ minute drive to Valpo.  Thank god, she was able to beg/borrow a suv which had air.  Whisky's in her new home doing fine.  But this just goes to show what can happen if the air stops working... and it doesn't even take long for a chin to get heatstroke.  That fur holds in a lot of heat and can toast them up pretty quickly.  All our cars have working air conditioning, thankfully, but I can't imagine what I'd do if they didn't and we needed to take them to the vet or something.  This is horrible to watch, and it makes me glad that I have the question "do you have air conditioning" as one of the questions on the adoption form.  We have had people before that have never had air in their homes in their lives go out and buy an air conditioning unit because we have denied their applications (I think that's the only thing we've ever denied applications for).  This is why.  Without air... well, depending on the actual temp, the chin may simply be uncomfortable rather than get heatstroke, but with high enough temps, they can get heatstroke and die.  Even if they don't die, the effects of heatstroke are usually neurological damage, with the damage being more severe if the heatstroke is more severe.  Some chins don't recover.  Some chins recover enough to live in a one-level cage for the rest of their lives.  But the sad fact is, heatstroke is almost always preventable - just make sure there's working air and you're safe.

We'll see how Lilly is tomorrow. 

.... on a less positive note...

... on a more somber note in fact... Lulu and Lilly (formerly Tic and Tac) have returned to the rescue.  Unfortunately, their owners had some problems with air conditioning in their vehicle... and honestly, come on, who would think you'd even need air conditioning in March to keep the car cooler than the forecasted 86 degrees?  But that's Indiana weather for you. 

Well, their owners did the best they could, taking the chins out of the carrier and holding them while trying to have the air on and keep the chins as cool as possible... but the chins came here not looking the best from the get-go.  Their owners said maybe they were just tired, and I'd have liked to believe that, but even they acknowledged that they hoped the heat wasn't too much for them.

The chins were put in a cage and immediately put on chilled chin-chillers.  Lilly was sitting up, but Lulu would only lay down for us.  Within a short time, Lulu passed.  The chin-chillers were replaced with newly chilled ones, Lulu was removed, and Lilly was placed atop the chilled chin-chillers.  Still not sure if she's going to make it, but if she is, there's definitely neurological damage.  When I left her, she was moving really slowly and sort of wobbling around, rather than hopping. 

The chins were in the top of a FN142, but once Lulu passed (and I came to my senses), I took a tile and blocked off the hole so that Lilly cannot fall to the bottom of the cage.  We'll see how she is in the morning. 

Frito has left the building!

So, today, Frito went to his new home!  Yaaaay!!!  Erin and her boyfriend(?) came here today and were looking at Frito.  They had him out of his cage and were holding him, between the two of them, for a good hour.  He was sitting so nicely for them for most of the time!  And of course squirming for the rest, but being a good boy.  He did nip a few times, which had turned some people off from him in the past, but these two didn't seem fazed a bit.  They said they really liked him, and they ended up taking him home!  And so they have a cage with wooden shelves for him and they picked out a chew toy for him and he was sent home with a checkered flag hammock, cause he's always loved his hammocks.  So I'm so happy he's finally gone home!  I hope these people take awesome care of him.  I think they will, they seemed like great people and like they really liked him, so I'm happy for him.  :)  <3 Frito.

3/14/12 morning

Woke up and realized that the people wanting to adopt Kona and Pompeii and pick up this Fri/Sat still haven't emailed me back with a time or responded to my last email at all... so I emailed them again.

Never did receive a response from that girl who emailed me back at Ryersons about their chins.  Emailed Hummel Chins yesterday, we'll see if they're gracious enough to respond to my email.  I feel like the least they could do is say, no, we don't have what you're looking for, but that apparently seems a lot to ask these days.

Frito, they love and leave you

Well, unsurprisingly, the person that said they'd call the next day (Monday) about coming to see Frito... never did.  And two people who emailed me asking for the care packet and forms... never got back to me and it's been awhile now on both of them.  But hope is not lost!  Got a new email today about someone wanting Frito.  Someone emailed saying they saw his pics and fell in love with him.  Of course they wanted more pics - I hate to be an ass, but there's 5 pics on his ad, that's more than I put up for most chins... but I did send them more pics.  Don't know if they saw the part about the adoption form or not cause they didn't mention it, but I emailed it to them along with the pics.  Said they'd "stop by" this weekend or next... leading me to say that we have hours by appointment only.  I think I may need to put that on our website, as we get a lot of people who want to tell me they'll "stop by" later and it's like well hold on, I may not be home later if I don't know someone's coming.

As for the chins, cleaned the runs yesterday with the bag of fluffy shavings that someone brought here.  The chins are loving it, I'm sure, cause it's so much softer... but the darn stuff sucks up wetness like a dehydrated horse (it gets wet and stinky really quick) so I'll have to change those quicker than usual, but in the meantime, the chins will enjoy nice fluffyness.

Need to work on some chins ads and stuff... but at the moment I just need to work on getting my sleep schedule back on track, and that'll never happen with me staying up all hours to write chin ads.  It can wait until tomorrow, it's already after 11.  Will need to put up ads for Ghost and Storm soon... and I believe we are getting back Lulu and Lola (Tic and Tac) this weekend so that will be something as well.  But we'll see, nothing final yet.

No emails on the last gerbil pair yet, but now that they're actually "ready" to go home, I will update the ads saying so and we'll see if that doesn't drum up some business.

days fly by

I don't actually know what I did all day, but man did today fly by. 

Started out the day with an 11 am visit from some people looking for a pigeon and some rats.  It had actually turned out that before I ever got in the pigeon, I put up an ad on craigslist looking for a cage that would be suitable for a pigeon.  Of course, no one responded, but I did have someone text me asking if I was going to adopt out the pigeon (must have said I was a rescue in the listing somewhere).  I told them yes I would and got their email.  Well, maybe a week or so ago, I tried emailing these people and the email came back undeliverable.  No big deal, so I went and texted them.  First, a bit late at night, and no reply.  So I thought, ok, I'll try again during the day.  So I did and still no reply.  So I was feeling a bit bad thinking well, I had no way to get in contact with these people that really wanted the pigeon... and so I listed the pigeon saying she'd be ready on such and such day.  Well, got a text the next day, from those same people, saying they'd changed their email and phone number (what timing, you know?) but that they saw the pigeon ad and contacted me! 

So they filled out the forms for the pigeon, and the lady asked me if we had rats too.  Now, we hadn't had much interest with the rats short of the person who was supposed to adopt the rats... and ended up bringing us the pigeon instead.  So I told her, yeah, we have the trio of rats, have to go together, $20 adoption fee.  So she wanted the form for them as well so I sent her the care packet and form.  Turns out, she said it was her daughter's birthday today (3/11) and she wanted to get her the rats as a birthday present.  Now normally I'm not super crazy about that kind of thing, but apparently this daughter had been wanting to get rats again (she'd had them when she was younger) for awhile, and this was just the perfect time.  And she wasn't a kid either, I believe she was in college, so old enough for me to not worry (as much) about her getting a pet as a b-day gift

So they came today, and let me tell you, she was so happy to hear she would be getting all three!  And of course, me, I was excited they'd all be going home!  The family seemed like they'd all be a great home, so no worries about the b-day gift, she was just so excited to have rats again.  :)  So they adopted the pigeon and the rats.  :)

 

So that was this morning.  Then, I was supposed to have someone come on their way home from IUN to look at the gerbils.  They came and brought their adoption form with them - looked good - and they were holding the gerbils.  They decided they wanted the two males - Obi and Yoda - and they are scheduled to come back on Wednesday to pick them up.  Very nice people.  The gerbils really seemed to like them - the son (can't remember his name) was sitting down by their cage and putting his hand in, and Obi kept running up his hand and up his shoulder onto his back - it was cute!  So they really liked the gerbils, and will be returning for them.  They wanted to make sure they get the cage set up and everything ready ahead of time.

After that... well, before those previous people even came, I got a call from my third person of the day saying they were already in town (originally I was supposed to call them and let them know what time to come) and they asked if they could come now.  Well, my first gerbil people hadn't come yet, so they ended up stopping at a park to play for a bit, and by some magical timing, the first people had picked out their gerbils and were on their way out when the second gerbil people showed up.  Very nice people, very helpful.  Through slippery hands and squirmy gerbils, the mom must have gotten away from us like 5 times.  And everyone in the family got down on the floor to help catch her.  Little stinker, I tell you, but we got her! 

So those people got the choice between Darth (the mom - black) and Luna (lilac) and the two black girls (Hannah and Anna).  They ended up deciding on the two black girls, and ended up taking them home today.  Very nice family.  These gerbils are being adopted out with the notion that the new families will keep in touch with the original owner, so I emailed both the original owner and the new family the contact info of each other, so hopefully they'll get to that soon.  I'm sure they will, they seemed very nice and like they'd be a very good family for the gerbs.

So then somewhere amid all these people, I received a phone call asking about Frito and wanting to come see him.  Well, I told her I'd call her after all the people left, so I did, and she originally said she'd be here in about an hour... but that hour passed and I didn't see her, and I finally checked my phone - had a voicemail.  She'd called about 30 mins after we talked saying something had come up and she couldn't come out today, but would give me a call tomorrow.  So we will see if she does.  Seemed nice and all, so we'll see.

Hmm what else.  Cleaned up the basement a bit.  Since the rats were gone and the bird was gone, cleaned those cages and put those in the stack of clean ready-to-go cages.  Moved some cages around now that one of the gerbil tanks was empty.  Washed some stuff in my ever-increasing "to-be-washed" pile. 

Weighed the mosaic boys... they're almost ready to go home, but now they just need a few days of weight gain.  I can tell you that their new owner is chomping at the bit to get them home.. but gotta make sure they're gaining and doing well before they leave.  Well, yesterday was the first day they were separated from mom.  And they gained weight then, but today they lost weight.  So the 3 days starts over.  So I gave them some hay today.  I don't give all the chins hay daily because most of them won't finish what I give them in a day, but with babies, sometimes the hay will help with weight gain right at the beginning.  Maybe they like it more than the pellets? I dunno.  But I gave them hay and I will continue to give them hay daily and we'll see if they start gaining.  They're getting big (already both around 350g at 8 weeks!) and definitely would be ready to go home... just need that weight gain. 

3/10/12

Got some more inquiries today...  another person interested in the gerbils.  Gave me a little background info on themselves and their family, so I emailed back saying I could send them the forms and everything..  Hopefully I'll hear back from them.

The person who called a few days ago about Kona and Pompeii emailed me back today with a list of the things they want and some questions... emailed them back...

 ... and then.  Well, I just recently added adoptapet.com as one of the websites we list our pets on... and today I got an inquiry about Frito!  Really short email, just said they wanted to start the adoption process to adopt Frito, but who knows!  So I sent them the forms and stuff.  Hopefully I'll hear back.

More rabbits!

So, last night I got an email from someone wanting to drop off two rabbits.  So today, we became the proud new owners (er, temporary caregivers) of two lionhead bunnies.  A black female and a gray male.  Very nice buns.

Today... man I don't even know what took me so long but I was down in the basement with the rescues for hours.  One of our adoptive homes (soon to purchase two more fluffballs from us) wants some custom shelves (cut at angles) and some hidey houses and stuff, so I was putting those together today.  Table saw chucked some wood at me, so that was fun times.  Just got my hand, but man that wood went sailing across the room.  Luckily there's nothing breakable in that area.

So, I was really stressing out that I had all the empty chinchilla cages cause my rescue area was looking crowded but several cages had nothing in them... so I cleared out a spot over by my parents' stuff (shh! don't tell them) and completely cleaned out 4-5 unused cages and stuck them over there.  So that's my current spot for cages that are "ready" to be used, like have shelves in them and hammocks and all.  I still have a few other spots for cages - one spot for the smaller cages and another for the cages that still need to be cleaned from their old homes and have shelves added and prepped and all that... who knows when I'll get around to that, but since I moved those other cages, I was able to re-organize the cages I currently have pets in, and I don't feel as stressed now.

Finally gave up trying to litter train Caddy (Cadbury).  Poor girl would poo in the litterbox and pee everywhere else, and every day I'd have to dry her off and clean the cage.  I finally just put shavings over the entire bottom and took the litter box out.  She'll still probably pee only in that one corner, so I can spot clean every day or every other day but the litter box is clearly out.  That's plenty of time she's had and not catching on any more than she was the first day.  And man does she pee!  I forgot how much water rabbits drink! 

Finally got my order in with my cuddlecups and gerbil food and kabobs and... whatever else I ordered, I don't even remember.  Gave Shiloh another cuddlecup on a higher level.  Hasn't gone in it yet, but he DID start going into the cat condo I got him.  I don't know if that's what it's called but I got him something like this --> http://www.meijer.com/s/beatrise-pet-products-cat-condo/_/R-33503 (his is more beige-y but you get the idea) and for a few days he left it alone but now he's been going in it.  It just BARELY fit in the largest door of his cage.  And of course not up a ramp or anything, so it's on the bottom level.  Today I saw him snoozing in it!  He's such an awesome pet, love him to death.

What else... lots of emails today.  Got sent three adoption forms - one for the rats, one for the pigeon, and one for Kona & Pompeii (I think - I asked them to verify that's the pair they want).  Also got an email about one of the gerbil pairs, I think they're going to come Sunday to check them out. 

Also got an email about a possible shelf order, will need to check on shipping for that, and I started packaging up an order from last week today. It's going to fit in a small box so I should be able to refund a decent amount of shipping.