Cleaning...

Spent a lot of the day cleaning (once I got home, that is).  After I told someone they could come tomorrow for supplies, realized the basement is nowhere near the level of organization it should be.  And with as many critters as we have right now, can't let it get messy or it's too hard to clean up.  So, cleaned the rat cages, cleaned the tables.  FOUND the source of my gnat problem and fixed that problem.  Fed the babies, nice round bellies today. 

It smells much better down there after cleaning the rat cages and scrubbing down the tables.  Pulled Shiloh's barn out of his cage... entire thing soaking wet, he must be peeing in it.  Vacuumed it out cause it had all sorts of food that he'd dragged into it and set it aside to dry.  He can have it back after it dries out.  He seems to be ignoring some of the treat stick things I threw in his cage, so if he doesn't pick up on them soon, the rats are going to enjoy them and he's going to miss out. 

Speaking of the rats... I'm so use to vacuuming chin cages with the chins IN them I'm not so conscious of the fact that rats aren't nearly as big as chins.  So, I'm vacuuming out Juno and Buddy's cage, and Juno is having a mini heart attack and runs past the hose, out of the cage, to the end of the table, leaps like a freaking flying squirrel to the ground below and takes off.  Course, I leave the cage open and go after him.  Now, Juno is a sweet rat, but he totally looks like your average sewer rat that crawled out of the Chicago sewer, just a bit smaller.  So here I am chasing this sewer-looking rat around the basement.... I'm typing this and it doesn't seem funny now but at the time all I could think of was how Cindy (secretary at the law office) was saying this is why I could never rent with the rescues cause I'd have something get loose, and it'd be even worse if it looked like a wild rat.  Lol.  Ah well, I caught him.  And petted him and he was all bruxing and grooming/licking me.  So cute.  So sweet.  I am not keeping rats though.  Too messy.  They're somewhere between chins and degus on the messy-ness scale, but closer to degus.  I couldn't deal with the degus, which is why we don't have them anymore.  Couldn't stand the constant stickiness of the entire cage.  The rats aren't quite that bad, and people do potty train them... but I haven't had luck with that....

Oh, cleaned the guinea pig cages today, mom cut up some carrots and I gave them some of the romaine that Cindy donated last week (is it technically donating to the rescue if you say it's for the guinea pigs and they're my personal pets?  well, I gave the rabbits some too, and they are rescues).  Still have some left and dad must have picked up another head of romaine so I'm stocked for awhile.  Need to give the rabbits some more tomorrow, didn't bring down as much as I should have for four gp's and four rabbits.  But enough that they all did get some.  The gp's are never satisfied though.  The baby gp is getting big.  The person interested in him asked for more pics the other day, which I sent.  Then asked if his eyes were red... I responded.  Haven't heard back since.  Or from the person that said she decided she wants Delilah (that was back on Sat.).  Patience, I know, but it's been a tad stressful lately. 

Psycho is really stressing me out.  She's got the chin (in the run next to her) learning to make a run for it and jump out when I open the door.  BAD influence.  Cute, but evil.  I can see the horns now.  Thankfully, if I can ever get my butt out to Portage (is it Portage? it's somewhere around there) she will have a foster home for a bit to hopefully work that out of her.  We shall see.