CLE day

So, I'm in Valpo today as moderator for a Family Law CLE.  Which means I had to hit play and make sure people sign in and I don't have to pay the $240-ish fee to attend (so many hours of CLE are required for licensed attorneys).  Anyway, the point is, everyone comes to these things and brings something else to do, myself included, so I have my netbook, planner, and all that fun stuff with me.  Hey, I can listen to it in the background and still pick it up, right?  In reality, we all get a binder with info about all of the (recorded) lectures, so I can always look over it later.  Will I?  Probably not, but I have it if I need it.

Onto chin stuff.  Yesterday was a pretty good day.  Without getting way more personal than necessary, I have an undiagnosed medical problem as of yet, and my specialist dr refused to give me pain meds, despite the fact that I couldn't sleep cause the pain kept waking me up, and I couldn't concentrate cause of the pain.  But my family doctor, who can see reason, squeezed me in yesterday and prescribed me a pain med, so I was actually able to function yesterday.  Always a plus.

So, I have this one order from someone I know on Facebook.  She wants a hidey house that can fit 5 chins, with some sort of food bowl on top.  Ok, so basically she wanted the hidey house to look like the cottage hidey house, only with an extra door on the opposite side of the normal door.  And she wanted the hidey house to be like 16 L x 10 D x 7.5 H.  So over the past few days I built that.  Then, she originally wanted a box with a circle cutout to hold a food bowl.  Well.... I only have two of those circle cutout drill attachments, and I paid like $35 for the larger one, and of course, that one was too large.  Since the attachments are a bit too expensive for me to just go buy the right size for a custom order (though, it's not a bad idea in this case), she said to just make a box for the food.  I had a picture of this wooden hay cube holder that I had custom-made for someone, and she liked that, so I went to building one of those.  But, I specifically made it the size where it can hold (relatively securely) the food bowl that she has.  So if she wants to use it with the bowl, she can.  If not, she can put the food directly into the box.  So, that was put together yesterday.  Still have to attach the food box to the top of the hidey house, and then I have to figure out how much this all is going to cost her, if she likes it.  What I usually do with custom orders is I put em next to one of our normal hidey houses and compare size, to get a general idea.  I've had custom houses go for $10 before, because they weren't very big or complicated.  I think this one currently will be bigger than even our Porthole Hidey House, but that'll be a starting point (we'll see how it compares) and we'll go from there.  I hope she likes it, I think it turned out pretty good. 

I had someone ask, a few day ago, if we offer boarding.  Well, I suppose we could.  I emailed her telling her as much.  Haven't heard back yet, I dunno if I will, but I put up a poll on the forum to get an idea of what the contract should say and what I should be charging and all that.  So we'll see.  Maybe I'll work on that contract today. 

Got an order on the 27th for a hidey house w/ hardware and two circular perches.  I have the stuff ready, just need to literally drill the holes for the hardware, attach the hardware to the circular perches, and go from there.  It's on my to-do list.

Currently working with two people to set up times for these people to come over and look at the rats, hoping those will get set soon.  Also hoping that Jim gets off his ass about coming to see/get the baby rats.  I try to be a tad less of an ass to our adoptive homes, but he said he was interested in these rats awhile back -- if he doesn't want them, surely someone else does, but he seems to not want to set a date.  He just keeps asking me what my availability is, and I tell him, then those days pass, and I email him again, and he asks what my availability is, and I tell him, and I never hear back.  And he's only about 30-45 mins from here.  We had someone come from Madison, WI, a 3+ hour drive, the other day.  Surely Jim can find the time to make the short drive and pick up his rats. Ok, so I looked up the email, I originally told him about the males on the 21st -- so I sent him an email saying that our 14 day hold (max) expires on September 4th, so if he hasn't come and adopted them by then, or hasn't given me a deposit to hold them, they will be back up for adoption.  Maybe that sounds a little mean and pushy, but I really feel like #1 - if he really wants them, he needs to make more of an effort to get here over simply asking what my schedule is and not getting back to me and #2 - I am getting sick of being stepped on and taken advantage of.  Most rescues won't hold anything without a deposit, so two weeks is like unheard of.  I'm being nice already, and people are dragging their feet.  I don't even mind if the pickup date is set for two months from now -- if it's set, then we're good, but no pickup date and no emails or anything, I can't hold em forever.

**update -- looked at my email right before I hit "publish" -- I have an email from Jim asking, "when are you available?"   *facepalm*  History is repeating itself.  Well, I did tell him though.  He's got til the 4th

So, as for yesterday... other than building the hidey house, it was cleaning & organizing time.  I went through my lidded basket that holds the stuff for the "other animals" -- the non-chin stuff.  Found a thing or two that can go into the "sale" pile.  Also went through everything under my supply table, that stuff all pretty much stays under there, so that part was ok.  Had to make up some more rat food.

The people who bought one of the baby rats yesterday bought 5 pounds of lab blocks, which pretty much cleared me out of those.  So I'll need to go pick some of those up.  They also bought this one wheel that we have had like forever, so that's one less thing for me to need to sell.  Still haven't gone through the water bottles or feed bowls boxes, but I need to actually clean all the excess food bowls and water bottles so I have all of them together to look through.  I also believe I have a box with some small animal wheels and shelves for some of the small animal cages and all that... need to find that and put that in the pile of stuff to be sold. 

Cleaned a ton of cages out yesterday.  Today was trash day, so Thursday is always a good time to clean cages.  Cleaned out the gp cage, cleaned all the runs, all the rat cages.  Jessie's eyes FINALLY look healthy, so she got her collar back on and went back into the run. 

Buddy and Juno appear fully healed and were listed up for adoption.  Marshmallow & Oreo also appear good to go.  I think we found out the problem with Marshmallow's biting -- she doesn't like people reaching down from above her.    For the most part, she's fine if you're trying to scoop her up with your hands around her belly, but picking her up from above?  Not a good idea.,

Also put up the ad for Psycho.  Mentioned no small kids, quiet home.  Hopefully find a good home for her.  It'll just take a little more time, as so many people have loud homes with kids.  Nothing wrong with that, but that's just not the home for her. 

Renewed and updated the other ads I have for the critters so those are all up to date.

Need to weigh the chins again for their bi-monthly weigh in.

My waiting list is really pissing me off right now.  If you want to be on it, at least have the decency to get back to me when I email you.  If you were added to the list 6 months ago, and you already got a chin, I totally understand.  But if I marked you on the list less than 60 days ago, I don't feel it's too much to ask for you to email me back and let me know that a) you already got a chin, b) you can't get a chin right now, c) you don't want the specific chin I've told you about, or d) whatever else.  It's an email.  Being put on the waiting list doesn't mean you have to buy/adopt the chin when I get to you, it just means that you have first crack at the chin you specify you want when I have that chin.  But to me, that also means that there should be the common courtesy that if I email and say, hey, got the chin you wanted!, you can at least email back and tell me "not right now" or whatever the case may be.

• I had someone on my list who wanted a 2-3 year old rescue.  Never heard back from the initial email.  
• Had someone who wanted two chins, preferably babies or younger chins.  She replied to my email, said she was interested and wanted the chins.  When I asked for the adoption form to be filled out, she said she already had.  Did not have it, so I told her so and asked her to email me with it.  5 days passed, I sent the 2-day notice, never heard back.
• Had someone who wanted a white male that was good with other chins.  Never heard back from the initial email.
• Had someone who wanted a baby white female.  Responded saying they are not currently in the position to get a chin, but they will let me know when they are.  <----------- this is the CORRECT result
• Currently emailed someone who said she was interested in a baby, preferably bv, but would take standard or mosaic.  Emailed a day or so ago... haven't heard back yet.  She still has time though. 

So, I think in the future, to get on our waiting list, I'm going to require a phone number as well as email.  Because I know in the past, some of my emails have gone to spam and so people may not actually received them (I acknowledge that not everyone is like me and combs their spam folder for adoption emails), but if I can leave a message or talk with a person, I feel like that's more reliable.

So, I think that's it for now.  Only like 4-5 hours to go.

Free time

Got some free time as my schedule got all twisted around today, so I'm posting.

Already had a rat adopted today -- our last baby female rat went to her new home.

And in other news.... remember the male rat that was brought to us when someone found him outside?  He unfortunately passed away yesterday, after only being here seven days.  Though at least, he had a warm bed/hammock, all the food he could want, water, and love at the end.  We named him Rascal.  RIP Rascal.  Some pics of him:

Someone asked awhile back about the "salads" that we feed our fluffballs (the guinea pigs and rabbits, NOT the chins).

Those have romaine, kale, cilantro, and carrots.  Yum yum.

Got back two of the pans we had powdercoated a nice bright green.

...and in the cage:

Love how it looks.

Currently, I have the blue pans at the powdercoating place.  Have the cage all ready for those pans:

... and I think that's it for right now.

Good last few days

Its' been a good last few days.  Lots of adoptions.  This is going to be short cause I don't feel too super right now.

On 8/25, Honey went home.

On 8/26, Spots and Princess AND four baby rats went to their new home.

On 8/27, three baby rats went to their new home.

Also on 8/27, we had Morgan and Chris drive all the way here from Madison, WI, to pick up two female rat babies.

The "other news" stuff will be posted tomorrow.

Buddy and Juno

... and no, his wife would kill him if he got another cage.  So Buddy and Juno are going back up for adoption once Buddy's last little bit completely heals.  Go figure. 

Good day, but some people need their heads bashed in.

I know, contradictory title.

Good day for the rats, because we adopted out two female babies to one person and three female babies to another.  The people who got the two babies came all the way from Madison, WI!  That's like at least a three hour drive for $15 worth of rats.  Very nice people. 

Anyway, as for the idiots....  everyone on my waiting list right now is turning out to be flakes, and other people with my critters on hold are pissing me off.  Let me explain.  I have one person on my waiting list, been there since 7/15.  So, not very long.  Not like the people who've been on the list for 6 months and give up waiting.  So, she wanted a pair of females, young ones, ideally she said both babies, but one could be an older one (less than 1 year), the other could be a baby.  So, I had emailed her about this med. ebony female that we have that's about 3 months old, and a standard female we have that's about 9 months old.  They're caged together, get along great, both rescues so they're cheaper than if she was getting pedigreed chins of that age.  So, I emailed her on 8/20.  She emailed me back 8/21 and asked for pictures, so I sent those and told her I needed her to complete an adoption form.  So she emailed back saying that she already did.  Well, I looked in my chin email folder, no attachments on any of her previous emails, and then I looked in my actual manila file folder and no adoption form for her in their either.  I didn't think there would be, but just in case she was right and I was wrong (hey, it's happened before), I checked.  But no, I didn't have it.  So I told her I didn't have it, and I told her that even though she did it, I needed her to re-send it because I didn't have it.  So, of course, I don't hear from her for several days, so yesterday, 8/26, I email her saying, hey, it's been 5 days, this is your 2-day notice, if I don't hear back, you lose your hold on these chins and you lose your spot on our waiting list.  So, she has til the end of the day tomorrow (Tuesday) to email me back, or else these chins go back up for adoption or to the next person on the list.  I don't anticipate hearing back, but you never know.

So, then for the white male chin.  Didn't think that I'd hear back from that person, considering he couldn't even be bothered to email me back to tell me if he wanted an adult or a baby, but since I had told him I'd put him on the waiting list, I thought I'd email him.  Well, today was day 5 so I sent him the 2-day notice.  So he has til the end of the day on 8/29 (Wednesday) to get back to me, or else the boy goes to the next person on the waiting list. 

Then.  Ok, I didn't expect the first one to be flakey, I sort of expected the second one, but this next thing is what really got me p.o.'d.  So, our one adoptive home, someone who will remain nameless, but who has adopted several rats from us in the past, had put Juno and Buddy on hold for them.  However, they needed to be cured of their skin condition first, so this person was basically waiting for them to heal so that nothing would be spread to their rats.  Fair enough.  Well anyway, so they were on my waiting list for a blue dumbo rat (which I had sworn, we'd never get in).  Well, hell must've frozen over cause two of the babies we got in the other week were blue dumbos.  So, I emailed him and let him know.  Well, now I'm feeling like that was the stupid thing to do, because when I emailed him today asking when he wants to come look at the rats, I asked him if he's still interested in Buddy and Juno, and he was like "I'd much rather have the blue dumbos."  *yanks hair out*  Really?  Cause I have a gazillion people wanting to adopt a pair of year-old males, versus the babies which I can adopt out like candy, and he would "rather have the babies?"  Like I wanted to be like, "um excuse me?  you already put the adults on hold, and I wouldn't be holding them for you, and I wouldn't have TOLD YOU about the blue dumbos if I thought it meant you were sticking me with the adults."  Now, don't get me wrong, Buddy and Juno are very sweet.  But ugh.  Just pisses me off. 

So I said something to the tune of, when they're healthy, I'll put them back up for adoption.  So he then emailed me and said "Really hate to see Juno and Buddy go to someone else, I need more room!"  So... it's like ok, do you want them or not?  So I emailed him and asked him, well, what does he want to do with them?  Cause if it's a cage he needs, (and he's willing to drive faaaaaaar for cages), I linked him a critter nation in the South Bend area, but if he doesn't have room for another cage, then he needs to let me know, because I have too many critters on hold for people who aren't sure whether or not they want them.

AND this guy has been aggravating me lately.  Ok, the people from Madison were able to pick up and drive here today, and that's like a 3 hour+ drive.  He's like 30 minutes away and the stinker will tell me he wants to come one day, and says he'll call, and then never does, and then say maybe the weekend, and then never calls, and so on and so forth.  And when he doesn't call, if I don't email him to ask, ok, when next would you like to come? I wonder how long it would take him.  I mean, don't get me wrong, this guy is a great home for rats but he's wearing down my patience for him.

But let's end this on a positive note -- we have one remaining female baby.  The people who want to adopt her are hoping to come this Wed/Thurs morning to pick her up.  Then I will just have Gumdrop (mom) as the only female out of this most recent group to come in.  And Gumdrop is very likely pregnant so we will soon have MORE babies up for adoption.

Day 1 of the Re-arrange

So, today was the first day of re-arranging the set-up.  I've been talking about it forever but today I actually started.  So, I put all the shelving back in the pink zebra cage, and decided Toby can have it.  For anyone who knows my gay chin, it fits Toby perfectly.  He loves it.  So I did that, got that cage setup, put him in there. 

Then decided that since I have the pans ready for Winx's CN, I should do that next.  To avoid the problem I had with the other cage (which was forgetting where all the shelves went), I removed the chins and glued on the poo-guards while the shelves were still attached.  See, smart.  So Winx and his little buddy are cramped in a run right now, and so that Myshkin wouldn't get any ideas, I closed him in with one of his females.  So now I have two angry males.  Ah well.  The shelves need time to dry and when I go down there next, Winx and the baby can have their cage back.

I was going to start on my pink white fluffball's cage... I had actually closed of the top and was going to do the poo guards for the bottom shelves... but then I realized it was like almost 11 at night, and you can hear the saw outside the house, so it would probably have woken people up.  So that's for tomorrow. 

So, since I moved Toby into his FN, I was able to remove his double cage.  With that removed, I scooted down all the other cages and just moved one of the small ones to a side table and I was able to pull away one of the 8? 10? feet tables.  That table is my dad's and he is getting it back.  So in it's place went Winx's CN and Toby's FN, and next will go the other three FN's when I get them poo-guarded. 

Went through a lot of the stuff that was under the tables in the boxes.  Put some of it on the shelves under the cages.  Can't say I love the way that looks, but I lose all my under-the-table space by replacing the table'd cages with FN/CNs, so the stuff has to go somewhere.  The remaining stuff I semi-organized, but going through it all is for another day.  I went through everything on the bottom shelf of my run-stand and now there's different stuff there than there was before.  I need to go through my two plastic chests-of-drawers cause I know there's junk in those that can either be sold or that I don't need. 

Now that I'm actually moving all of this stuff... I don't know where I think my tables of cages are going to go.  The four FNs/CN are going to take up most of the wall, I doubt there'll be room for a 6' table (all mine are 6' -- the family is getting back all their tables) next to the 5... well, I guess this just means we will not be taking in a gazillion and one pets.  Not a bad thing, the less pets, the more time each gets, and we will still have spare cages, but I can definitely part with a few more once I get all the FNs up and running.  So far, only have three, the fourth is sitting on the side waiting for me to sit down (er, well...) and put the fleece accessories in, and the fifth has no shelves or anything so that'll be a whole project in itself.  Though at least for that one I will poo-guard the shelves BEFORE I put them in the cage. 

So the other liners we have... one is a tie dye blue, the other is zebra print.  I'm still waiting for my leopard print to come in (from February... hate to say it, but it's one excuse after another... "oh it'll be done this week..." when I don't get it "oh I was sick in bed all week."  The latest thing I've been told is that she had a stroke and was just getting back to using her body... now, don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that these things could be happening... but this is someone relatively around my age, who posts on her facebook page every couple of days.  So I'm a bit iffy.  And I really do want my leopard print set, but I figure I'll just have to keep bugging along.... this was $90 worth of stuff, I'm not just going to forget about it.

But anyway... so with the two pink cages, the powdercoating place only had this fleshy pink which I was not crazy about (it was an eww color) so those pans are black.  I got the pans for the tan/blue/green striped cage done in a bright grassy green.  For the blue liners, obviously a blue pan.  I'm debating what to do for the zebra cage though.  I mean, it's not costing me any more to get a pretty color versus black, so I may just pick a fun color and have the pans be like a neon orange or something.  I dunno.  Maybe I'll bring my mom with me so I don't pick something too nuts, but I like the color aspect of it, and with the liners being white and black, I think I can add some color to that cage. 

That may be it for now.  Tomorrow I'm hoping to move Winx and his buddy back into their cage, move miss-crabby-pants into that run, do the poo guards for her cage, and maybe get started on the one FN that has the shelves and just needs the fleece stuff put in.  We'll see what else goes on tomorrow, got two supply pickups.

Another good day

So I actually got stuff accomplished today.  I know, miracle right?  The streak has to end.  But not yet.

So, started out the day by calling the powdercoating place and nicely asking if my pans were done.  They had said Monday/Tuesday, I didn't get a call, and I'm impatient (to say the least).  So, they were done, I went and picked them up.  Dropped off two more pans that I'm getting done a nice green color.  Pans look good btw.  Like the guy said, you can see where the rust was on the one, cause it's not completely smooth, but oh well.

I got there, the guy was in a meeting, so he said this lady would do up my bill.  So she does up my bill and I ask her if there's something that I shouldn't use to wash the pans.  Total deer-in-the-headlights.  Went and got the guy, I felt so bad for dragging him out of the meeting, but he was real nice about it.  He said ammonia could be used, bleach could be used (but to rinse, because there could be a residue), so basically, I don't need to worry too much about cleaning them because I don't use anything nearly so abrasive.  And he told me to use a softer abrasive pad and he showed me this white pad and he said it's less abrasive than the green scrubber pads and then he had to go and so he gave me the pad for free!  :)  So that was nice.

So, I get home, put two of the pans in the pink zebra cage, put the liners in.  Got all the shelves and made poo guards for them, so those are drying on the table now.

Was going to do Winx's cage with poo guards, but then I realized I'd promised one of our adoptive homes that I'd work on a shelf/supply order for her to pickup Thursday/Friday.  So it's like a $200 order and has a cage, shelves, a hidey house, lots of stuff, so I built the hidey house first (so it could have the most time to dry) and then did the shelves and everything.  Didn't get the cage or the water bottle out, cause by that point I was effectively wheezing enough that I had to go upstairs, but those will only take a little bit.  Messaged her saying if she can pick up everything but the hidey house tomorrow but if she waits til Friday she can get it all (she's like 5 mins away so its possible she may come for everything but, I don't know).

So, for anyone wondering, 10 rats in a cage go through approx. a water bottle per day.  Holy cow.  And my lone male rat keeps digging out his feeder... so guess what?  He's just going to have to eat his spilled food cause I am not putting more in.

Unrelated to anything, but Toby had his tail sticking through the bars of his cage today and I SO wanted to pull it... lol... I resisted, but omg.  I was standing there laughing.

And then my pink white fluffball was sleeping on her pillow today.  So cute in sleep, so evil in real life.

So, in real life, this pretty princess sprays me just about daily.  So today, we worked on that a bit.  Played "spray or cheerio?"  Funny, I've never given her a cheerio before, but after the first spray (and she did get me, they have good aim), she decided the cheerios won out.  Need to break the habit before she gets too old (she's.... 4 months? 5 months?  I don't want it to become a bad habit the way Dreamz has an attitude problem).  She did pretty good today.  We'll see what she remembers tomorrow.

So, as for Honey... I never did hear back from the person who had her on hold and had emailed me the adoption form and everything, and, speak of the devil, the person next in line emailed me today asking what's going on with Honey, so I emailed her back letting her know Honey is now up for grabs.  So here's hoping that I hear back from her.

As for Lilly's babies... the female is still in with her and is doing fine, I put the male with Winx, and he has already figured his way around Winx's CN.  Such a tiny chin, such a huge cage.  And of course I see him and Winx sleeping but Winx is like impossible to get a pic of while sleeping.  It's like he hears me internally "squee" and wakes up.  Lol.  But anyway, both babies still have the mom-n-kit (dry) formula in their cages cause even though they're 8 weeks, they're still so tiny.  Once they hit maybe 225 I'll remove it (usually I do at 8 weeks, but usually they're a lot bigger than this at 8 weeks).  So Winx hasn't dumped it this time -- though, I can't prove he did last time -- last time he had two baby males in with him and it's very possible the two of them dumped it.  Anyway, it's currently upright and being eaten and Winx is leaving it alone (though, it wouldn't hurt him even if he ate it) and the baby's eating it and is still gaining.  So, I emailed the first person on my list wanting a white male.  Specifically, they wanted a white male that got along with other chins.  Well, this baby gets along with Winx, so I emailed this guy.

Course, this is someone who had been debating between a rescue and a baby, and I had emailed a few times asking if he had decided which he wanted (so I'd know what to email him about) -- never heard back regarding those emails.  So, I don't have high hopes in hearing back from him with this email, but as he is on my waiting list, I figured I'd give him a shout.  The baby male is just under 175 grams (I usually email at 175ish) so it's not like the baby's leaving tomorrow anyway.  I don't let them leave here until 250ish and they have to be gaining on their own away from mom.  In this case, we know he is cause he gained today and no mom (well, she has no milk anyway), but they also have to be gaining without the dry formula in with them.  Which I do think they are both still eating good amounts of, but that's ok cause they're still tiny.  They probably won't be leaving here til maybe 11-12 weeks, depending on when they hit the higher weight. 

The female's still in the 150-ish range so she still has a bit to go before I email the person on the list asking about her. 

So, unrelated to anything, but back when I was at the apartment, one of my friends got Winx to crawl out of the cage onto his hand for just a second... yeah needless to say I have never been able to get him to do that.  So today I tried luring him to put one paw on my hand for a cheerio.  The stinker wouldn't do it!  Patience not being my strong suit, but I tried and tried and tried. And he just ran around the cage and chirped at me and talked to me but didn't want that cheerio bad enough.  But if my friend could get him to come out, four paws on his hands.... before this chin croaks, he is going to do that for me.  You'd think after 9 years we'd have this down pat already, but we are going to do it now.  I want the chin that nicely comes out of the cage, rather than the one I have to chase like a nutzo.  See, all my chins need to be like Shimmy. I can reach right in and pet her and give her scritches and everything.  I need her mellow-ness to rub off on some of the others.

Going back to the evil-cuteness-princess.  She was hilarious today.  Somewhat.  Cause I was first just trying to put my hand in the cage to get her used to my hand cause she just always assumes the position and it's like jeez I didn't even try to grab her!  It's like when I had Wildwoman and had to move her to a run on the bottom to avoid walking by and getting hit by flying pee.  So I had my hand in there and she clearly thought it was food cause she was chewing away at my fingers like a freakin carnivore.  Little stinker started out softly nibbling and then eventually I had to start moving my hand cause it was like she actually wanted to eat my hand.  Weirdo.  But anyway, so when I started pushing her away from chewing on my fingers, and I pulled out the cheerios, that's when she became hilarious.  Because it was like I'm holding a cheerio... and she'd come up and bark... and assume the position... then slowly start to come closer for the cheerio... then assume the position... then run away..... and she's a very outgoing chin, like she'd go to the bottom of the cage and come back up right away cause she wanted that cheerio... so she'd keep coming back... and then assume the position... and then creep up to my hand.... maybe you had to be there.  But she was cracking me up.

Well, I think that's it for today.  With any luck, I'll get the pink zebra cage assembled (shelves in) tomorrow sometime and get her moved to that cage.  Once that's done, I think Winx and his little buddy can go to her cage for a day or so while I poo-guard the shelves in their cage.  And then eventually Toby will get the cage that this girl's in.  Maybe.  He might just like a pink zebra cage.  Anyway, we will see....

Day-- gone

So, I don't know where the day went.  Like I feel like I woke up and bam! 2 am.  Except I know it didn't happen like that.

Cleaned up a bit downstairs, got a call from someone wanting to drop off a ton (and I mean a ton, like 20) baby rats.  Ok, so got ready two 20g tanks for them and got them dropped off.

Packaged up the order that I'd been dilly dally-ing on for awhile, sent the email saying what shipping would be, and received an e-check.  So once that clears, her order will go out.  Did not package up the food order that I got today (?) but I guess I will tomorrow.  Emailed back someone who was asking how they could pay (the wanted a hammock) -- haven't heard back yet.

Hadn't heard back from someone on my waiting list (had emailed them about a pair of young females), so I sent them another email -- did hear back.  Told them they had to read our care packet, fill out adoption form, yadda yadda yadda.  They said they had filled out the adoption form.  So, I go through my "wanting chins" folder in my email -- none of their emails (which I have ALL of) have an attachment, and I go through my physical chin folder, again, no adoption form.  So I nicely ask her to re-email it to me and send her pictures.  So here's hoping she gets back to me.

Gave Juno and Buddy a bath today.  Can't say they enjoyed it, but they did enjoy the attention.  Dried them well and looked them over, they seem to be healing nicely.

Noticed that two of the baby rats are blue dumbos, which Jim had wanted to know if we ever got in any blue dumbos, so I emailed him with pics.

Decided today was a good day to make a stand for the fridge.  So I did.

It looks like it's floating cause it's on casters.

where it is now (will be under a different table eventually, but needed it to be mobile)

with my magnets that had previously been on the garage fridge, where no one could see em

So after that, decided I could clean out the one FN that had been in use until recently.  So took the pans out, scrubbed those down, put those on the side for when the powdercoating place calls (they had said Monday or Tuesday -- here it is Tuesday night... ah well).  Then vacuumed out the cage again and cleaned it up a bit.  Put it back off to the side.

Then... on my to-do list I have had "FN - pan" as one of the items like FOREVER, cause I have this one really rusted pan that I did not want to wash.  I had started awhile back but never finished.  Well, guess what, I finished it!  It still doesn't look great, I mean, the rust isn't just going to come off, but I used like probably 1/3 gallon of white vinegar and scrubbed to death and it's halfway decent now.  aka -- it's as good as I'm going to get it before taking it to get it powdercoated.

Separated Lilly's babies.  Well, put the male baby with Winx, kept female with mom.  Cause despite their tiny tiny bodies... they are still 8 weeks old and can still get mom pregnant.  They are getting closer to 175 grams though, so once they do, I will have two people from my waiting list contacted to see if they want to get these cuties... if not, there's more people than that on the waiting list...

Got an adorable picture of Toby sleeping:

Oh, and added two pages to my printed-out products-for-sale book, the two pages have the rosebuds, hawthorn berries, and our healthy treat mix jar.  That was also on my list forever.

I probably did other things too, but right now I can't really remember.  I do remember crossing a decent amount of things off my list though so that's always a plus.

Oh, faxed in the rest of the forms for the Chicago Pet Show thing so we're set to go for that in October.  

*scoffs* People.

So, my patience has lately been wearing a little thin.

As I'm sure I posted earlier, that one person on my waiting list never emailed me back about the chin I emailed her about, sent her the 2-day notice and she still didn't email back, so she's off the waiting list.

Then, I had this one person email about Honey.  The first person to email me about Honey back on August 11th.  Well, heard back from her on the 14th and sent her the adoption forms per her request.  Received the adoption form on the 16th.... which was 5 days ago.  So, on the 16th, I had sent her an email asking when she'd like to come adopt Honey.  Haven't heard back, so last night was 5 days so I sent her the 2-day notice.  Haven't heard back yet, she has until end of the day Wednesday to get back to me.  Or else, the next person on the list gets the rabbit, and the next person is super-good about getting back to me asap.  So... if the first person doesn't hurry it up, she's probably going to lose our on her chance to get the rabbit.

Then... had someone email me asking about the young female rats that we have on the 15th.  Didn't hear from them, so sent an email asking if they'd received the forms and all, and on the 20th, received an email back saying they had and would get the form back when they could. 

Now, I realize to the average person 5 days may not seem like a lot... but my feelings on this are that if you really want the pet, you'd be a little more gung-ho than waiting almost a week between emailing the person about the pet.  But that's just me.

Anyway, back to the annoying people.  So, I have this person email about Delilah back on August 11th.   Emails again on the 12th asking a variety of questions, so that's all good.  On the 15th asks for a fax number to fax over the adoption form, so I give her ours... and no faxes come through.  So I get another email that day asking how expensive the vet can be.  So I go into the whole thing of, well, say it's $50 to walk in the door, then if it's a respiratory infection, it could be this price, if it's a broken bone, it could be this much, and so on and so forth, while stressing that chins are pretty hardy and don't get sick all that often.  So, since I didn't get the adoption form, I'm thinking maybe something was wrong with the fax, so I email her and ask if she had faxed it, and she said no, but she would tomorrow.  Ok.  So then I don't hear from her for 5 days, and I send the 2-day notice.  Get an email back: 

Thank you for your email. I am pretty sure i wont be able to take deliliah after all. After reading the care information i was unaware that theyvwere so fragile. I am terrified that my daughter will accidently hurt her.
My duaghter thinks she is adorable but she is not all that careful. I really want deliliah but i have to put her safety before my wants.

Ok, well I appreciate her putting the chin's safety first.... but what was the difficulty in telling me that, oh, say... 5 days ago?  I understand people take time to think about getting a pet, and I greatly appreciate that, but she said after she read the care packet... so back on the 12th, she knew that they were delicate... yet waited until the 20th to tell me?  See, this is why it takes so long for pets to be adopted out.  

Busy busy bee

Well, let's just start out by saying my day started very early, like, let's go back to 12 midnight.  I'm downstairs making sure everyone has food/water for the night.  As I go to each cage, I'm also weighing all the critters for their bi-monthly weigh in.

I notice that Pixie (guinea pig) is hunched over what appears to be a dead baby guinea pig.  I reach in and gently push her until she moves, and sure as anything, stillborn baby.  But I don't see anymore, so I leave it and weight.  Second baby is born, also stillborn.  And standing there and waiting and third and fourth babies are born.  One is clearly moving, the other is still in the sack, and Pixie has walked away and left the babies.  So, I grab the one in the sack, try to get it out.  You'd be surprised how thick those sacks are, had to get scizzors and finally got the baby out.  But.... it did sort of a "heave" motion twice and passed.

But, there was the living baby that was clearly moving.  Pulled it out of the cage, dried it off.  Went upstairs and rinsed it off, continued drying it off.  So, I notice it can't right itself up.  Like it can clearly move all its legs and everything, but it sure can't stand up.  And it's getting cold.  So out comes the heating pad, some pieces of towel (so it's not directly on the heating pad) and rub rub rub.  So, somewhere in all of this, it's now 2 am and I am holding a squirming baby gp that is almost dry but cannot right itself. 

I ended up putting Pixie and the baby in a 10g tank so that she couldn't get far from the baby during the night.  I would never normally put a guinea pig in a fish tank, but this was just for a few hours.  So, when I left, Pixie was munching on her greens and pellets and baby was still struggling to get up, but was partially under mom, so I was thinking ok good she'll at least keep him warm.

... let's fast forward to this morning.  I go down there... Pixie's in the cage.  As well as some "part" of the baby that I cannot make out what part I'm looking at (other than it had an arm/leg attached).  So... she ate it.  So, Pixie went back to her usual cage, I cleaned out the tank, and that was the official start of today.

So, I decided, I have all of this shredded paper, I should maybe clean ALL the cages and swap out everything (cause I tell you, with the humidity, even "relatively clean" smells).  So, I did that.  All the cages on the table and all the runs now have shredded paper.  And the rat stack has new shredded paper.  On the rat stack -- it looked dry to me, but boy did it smell.  And since the paper's free... so I swapped those out too.

Started clearing off my workstation table, which had become a catch-all for everything under the sun that made it's way downstairs but hadn't been put away.  Made up a new batch of rat chow.  Put a LOT of stuff away.  Realized that many of the cages I'd set up as temporary cages didn't have name plates on them, so got out the card holders and cable ties, and now they do.  Realized that all our spare cages and our one cage for sale were really taking up a crapload of room, so those all got pushed against the wall.  Still need to tackle the pile of cage donations that Jim brought awhile back, but that's probably not happening today.

Replaced some waterbottles, as two of them (one on a chin cage, one on a rat cage) had a hole chewed in them.  Had to re-hook a water bottle several times to the one rat cage cause they kept knocking it over.

Folded up the rabbit playpen, cleaned out the litter pans, and swept up the mess.  Until Honey comes back, anyway.

Made some more hay rolls, but didn't distribute, cause I just gave everyone their usual hay today.

Somewhere amid all of this, I got a phone call from someone on my waiting list.  See, I had realized that I had a very vague "what they wanted" -- it said "cagemate for tripod."  Well, that doesn't say much in terms of what she wanted regarding age, sex, color, etc, so I had messaged her yesterday on facebook and she had called this morning, when I was out.  So, when she did get ahold of me, she told me that in the foreseeable future she will not be adopting any chins.  Turns out, her mom asked her to watch this kitten for her for several days.  Well.... the kitten had coccidia, and despite her washing her hands and not having any contact between the kitten and the chins... two of the chins caught the coccidia.  To put it in a nutshell, this happened on a weekend, she was calling every vet within 3 hours of her, she got seen by several idiot vets, and finally a good vet at the end... but by that point, it was too late.  So, both of those chins (she has four total) passed, the kitten passed, and her mom tried to play off the chins' deaths as if it had nothing to do with the kitten.  But, the vet said that if the kitten had it, then somehow the chins had gotten it from that, whether it was airborne or whatever.  So, she's completely ripping up the carpets in the rooms the cat/chins were in, has the chins now getting playtime in an area with linoleum flooring (can be sterilized a lot easier than carpet) and is taking her remaining chins into the vet just to check once again that they're ok.  Those two tested negative for coccidia, but she wanted to be certain.

So, I suppose the short answer to my question was, "when I'm ready for a chin, I'll call you."    But that's horrible what happened to her chins.  Without really going into it, the vets she dealt with were complete idiots, giving her waay too high a dosage of some meds, refusing to give sub-q fluids to severely dehydrated chins, wanting to give a completely limp/lethargic chin gas to put it under for x-rays (even though the chin wasn't so much as twitching -- but was breathing).  Complete idiots.

And another person on my waiting list went bye-bye today.  I had someone on the list looking for a 0-3 year old rescue, which I have, and I had asked her about it.  Wasn't sure if she'd be the home for that chin, but thought it couldn't hurt to ask.  But she didn't get back to me and so I sent the 2 day notice and told her, not only would she not adopt the chin, she'd lose her spot on our waiting list, but here it is Friday night and she didn't respond, so she's gone too.  That's ok, makes the wait quicker for other people hoping for a chin.

So, back to the basement.  Our dehumidifier.... the plug had somehow fallen into the tank, so I had it sitting out drying for most of the day.  When I was sure it was sufficiently dry, I prayed... and plugged it in.  And it still works!  So then came the task of emptying the tank, which had had hay fall in it and had turned the water a nice murky, spider-y brown color.  Ick.  So, took that outside, dumped it, back inside, cleaned it, and turned the dehumidifier back on.  Oh it was miserable down there, 72 degrees and 66% humidity.  Ugg.  Even my temp/humidity monitor said the humidity was "high."  So, with the dehumidifier running for several hours, brought it down to 51% humidity, which my monitor says is "ok."  I would still prefer lower, so right before I went upstairs for the night, I emptied the tank again and set it out on high.  So hopefully running all night will get some more humidity out of the air.

So then came the task of taking everything downstairs that had piled up upstairs.  That included 36 feet of lumber, some bagged stuff (like in store plastic bags), four large bags of the shredded paper bedding (don't doubt that cause it's shredded paper that it's light, it weighs a freakin TON), 125 pounds of Mazuri, two bags full of waterbottles/food dishes (that had been washed and were waiting to be taken back down)... and the occasional oddball thing.

So, took that all down, amid some nice huffing and puffing and wheezing and puffs on the inhaler.  Actually got the four bags of paper shavings to stack on top of each other to help conserve room.  Put away the water bottles/food dishes... put up this plastic hideout thing for rats in one of the cages...then realized it would be good with one of the corner hammocks Jean sent for the rescues, so I put that up in one of the cages.  So now there's a small pile on my workstation table, versus the overflowing table (I shoulda taken a pic) with stuff stacked 2' high on the table.

So, one thing I came across in all those bags of stuff to be taken down was the screws for the last FN.  So, I put that together.  And it's sticky.  Granted, I didn't take it outside to wash, I just sprayed it down with vinegar/simple green, but ah well.  Will have to clean it again and get those door hinges working a little better before anything goes in that cage.  But at least everything's there.  In fact... I have two extra... I don't know what they're called, but they're these little black things that help connect the stand to the bottom level and the bottom level to the top level.  So... the assumption the whole time was that they had three of these cages and I had wrong parts/missing  parts cause they were with their third cage and I was given the wrong part (like the one metal piece which was supposed to have holes which didn't, so I had to drill holes....I bet they have an extra one with holes).  Well, here's the thing.  I have these metal connectors... and I hate to be an ass, but I can't help but laugh and be like (evil) "hehe."  Cause man, these cages cost me such a fortune with the missing parts and pans and screws and everything, so now it pleases me that they're missing two pieces for their last cage.  Mind you, these pieces are all of like 4" long and they're probably easily ordered from the company (though, maybe not, as those pieces aren't used in the new model 182), but I'm enjoying the fact they don't have two pieces they need.  Cause they cost me an additional like $65-70 cause of pieces I was missing.

But anyway, that's together, almost all the pets have newly cleaned cages, and it's not too much of a mess down there, so all's good.  Still upset that we lost the four gp babies, but what can you do.  It was a productive day nonetheless.  Hopefully tomorrow will have a little more relaxation thrown in there.  But it's hard to say, cause I really need to make some poo-guards for some ledges.  But one thing at a time.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Lexi and Honey

So, today has been all about two critters -- Lexi and Honey.

Lexi was a chin we adopted out with her sister Jordyn and mom Willow.  Adopted out to a wonderful family in Wisconsin.  Got an email at the crack of dawn saying that Lexi had been found at the bottom of her cage, lethargic, they'd contacted the vet, did everything they could, but she passed anyway.  :(  RIP Lexi.

As for Honey, I swear it's like either no one is interested or 20 people are.  Ok, so in total I've had maybe 5 people email me about Honey.  Well, the one person emailed several days ago, and I emailed them back.  Didn't hear from them for several days, so then this other person emailed me, we'll call her AK.  So, I recognized AK's name and I searched my emails, and it turns out, this person was interested in a chin a bit ago, but had "fallen off the face of the earth" as I like to call it, and my last email to her was the one saying "I haven't heard from you in a bit, are you still interested?"  Of course, this person never bothered to email me back.  So, she emailed about Honey, asking if there was a different adoption form for rabbits, and I told her there was, but that we already had someone interested in Honey.  So then I had someone email yesterday about Honey and, in response to the emails, I took down her ads and the ads I left up (like PetFinder and our website) I listed her as adoption pending.  And I told that person that emailed that she was on hold.  So, somewhere amid this, AK emails me again and says "We would be able to come tomorrow if it doesn't work. I knew I should have asked sooner but if it is meant to be it will all work out."  Ok, so I tell her, it's not going to be that fast.  The first person hasn't even gotten me the adoption form yet (I'm telling AK this) and anyway, the person has so many days to get back to me and so on.  But I tell her, it's not going to be that quick.  She says ok, let me know.  So I say I will.  So then when I'm taking down the ads and all, I changed the website and took off the other rabbits (since they were adopted yesterday) and I marked Honey on hold.  So I come home to an email from AK, "I saw that Honey is on hold so does that mean the people are going to take her?Should I move on more than likely? Thanks."  Honest to god.  Maybe it's me, but patience???  Omg.  I told her, no, she was on hold before, I just hadn't had a chance to update the website yet.  And I told her, if she wants to get a rabbit like, now, she should move on, cause our adoptions usually take a little while.

This is just like yesterday, I had one of our adoptive homes email me asking about Delilah, who is on hold.  I told them she's on hold and they said, well, let me know if she ends up not getting adopted.  Later in the day, I saw them facebook post saying they'd gone to the humane society and adopted a chin.  Um, again, does anyone have any patience anymore?  People don't email me on Monday and have all forms done and come to pickup by Tuesday (maybe 3 Tuesdays later, but surely not the next day).  I sometimes wish that was how it worked, but it's NOT and it's not going to be like that anytime soon.   '

So I'm slightly peeved at people at the moment over not having any patience.  

... and on that note, I believe about 5 days ago I said something about how I emailed that one home that was on our waiting list and I thought they wouldn't get back to me?  Yeah, it's day 5, they're getting a 2-day email.   

Short today

Going to be short today, cause I'm tired.

We adopted out three rabbits today -- Carney, Fuzzball, and Thumper.  They went to a great home that has an 8'x8' pen for them and is just going to love them to death.  Very happy with the home.

The people who adopted the rabbits brought us one of those little plastic igloos as a donation for the rats/guinea pigs.  How nice, eh?  So they're up on the donations page, along with Meredith (who I finally got around to putting on there).

Had enough interest in Honey in the last few days that I took down the ads, put her on hold (for who? I dunno) and marked her as "adoption pending" on PetFinder.  So hopefully she'll be adopted soon as well. 

Didn't do anything to speak of on the supply orders.  I know, bad.  But I swear, the rabbit people left with the rabbits, I took a nap, got woken up a bit later, sat here and worked on revising ads and doing school stuff, and here it is time to go to bed again.

That may be it.  If it isn't, I'll write it tomorrow.

Last few days

So, over the last few days, had a good few days, for the most part.

On the 11th, Tallie and Lilly went to their new home.  Well, they were already there on trial run, but they came back for pictures and then officially went to their new home.  Very happy.  I was told that Lilly has stopped biting, which is awesome.  A lot of times it just takes some working with them and it's good to hear that's how it was in this case.  Very happy that these girls went to such a great home.

 And then on the 12th, Frederico and Georgie went to their new home.  I think this was the quickest we've ever had a pair adopted out.  Usually it's 3 months for a pair, but for these guys, they actually left a day prior to their month evaluation being done, because they were already on hold probably halfway through.  Very sweet pair.

Then got a text saying someone wanted to come pick up food.  So, they came and got 5 pounds of food.  For the life of me... I could not tell you if it was one of my adoptive homes or not, or if it was someone who'd purchased before or not...  Not that it matters, but I would think I would know!  But whoever it was, their chin now has 5 pounds of tasty Mazuri.

Then, got an email from Jim asking if maybe I wanted the address of the place he gets the shredded paper, to save him the trip from Lake Station to our house.... or he wanted to trade for hammocks.  Well, the shredded paper is ok, but I can't vacuum it up when it's super wet I just have to dump the tray, so it's not something I'd want to pay for... so I asked for the address, and he gave it to me.  It's right on route 30, so I should be able to pick up the paper on Mon/Tue/Wed when I'm already out in that direction, so yay!  Cause if it was really out of the way, it wouldn't be worth it either, but if it's FREE and I'm already out in that direction....

Then got some more random emails about chins/rabbits for adoption.  Had someone call the other day asking about Delilah and asking about chin care, and I told her the basics and I told her I'd email her our care packet and adoption form and she could read that and then get back to me with more questions.  Which she did.  The one thing she asked was if the chin could get up to 74 degrees in the summer because she "can't have it 70 or below like sheet says."  And like, my response was that yeah, they can, our basement gets up to 73 in the summer... but I told her, that's the hottest it gets, then the air kicks on and drops it back down.  So I told her, 74 is one thing... but if the air doesn't kick on til 78.... then you've got a problem.  If it's 74 and the air is running constantly to keep it at that temperature, that's one thing....  that wasn't her only question but that was the main one that would make everything iffy, so we'll have to see how her temperature is set up.  Cause if it the air kicks on at 78, she's looking at a very real chance of heatstroke, and no one would want that.

So then, the other day, I emailed one of the people on my waiting list.  We have this one chin, "Psycho," (who really is a sweetie, despite the name), and I had someone on my waiting list who wanted a rescue that was 2-3 years old or younger.  Well, Psycho is about 9-10 months old now, so definitely fits the bill, and so I emailed this person on the 10th.  Haven't heard back yet, but the new sales policy will be in effect here as well, though it will have an added caveat.  If I don't hear from her in 5 days, she will have an additional two days to get back to me.  If she does not, not only will the chin go back up for adoption (or to the next person on the list, whatever the case may be), this person will also lose their spot on the waiting list.  I can't have my time wasted by people who can't even be bothered to email me back.  It's fine if this isn't the chin she wants or isn't the chin she's looking for, but I told her (in the email) to please email me back either way so I know whether or not she's interested.  If I don't hear back after the 5+2 days, I will simply have one less person on our waiting list.

I feel like the same thing may happen for the second person on our waiting list -- someone wanting a white male that gets along with other males.  Previously, we had been talking about this and he had not told me whether he wanted a baby or a rescue.  He had said he'd get back to me on that, never did, and I eventually emailed him and asked if he had decided.  Never replied.  Regardless, I left him on the list because I told him that I would tell him when we got one or the other in.  Well, once those babies grow a bit more, I will be emailing him and letting him know that we have a white baby mosaic for sale if he wants... but we'll see if I hear back this time.  If not, I have other people on the list who will gladly snatch him up.

Didn't really get much done today other than this stuff.  Was working on the paper like a nutzo, trying to finish this week's section and make corrections to the previous sections which the professor had emailed comments about.

Thanks to my dad coming home early due to odd circumstances, I was able to go to the farmer's market today (not like I couldn't have gone without him, but we always go together and take the dog).  Got two nice bunches of kale, some romaine, and 5 green peppers.  I realized, upon getting home, that we had little carrots, so my mom chopped up some of those for the rabbits, I chopped up some of the green peppers for the g-pigs and cut up the rest of the cantaloupe from back when.  So now the fridge is full of goodies.

Oh.  One pet peeve for any of you hand-writing something out for me.  I need to be able to read it without scrutinizing it for 20 minutes.  Case in point -- I was attempting to email one of the people who dropped off their pet here, to let them know it was adopted, I came across their email written on the surrender form.  The email part was legible, but the @_________ -- not so much.  It's .edu, I got that part, but at first glance it looks like SLVE.  But there is no SLVE.edu, so moving on.  Thought SIVE, as another I in the email isn't dotted.  Nope.  Was sure that the V was a V, as there is a U in .edu and the V didn't look like the U in edu.  THEN finally realized it was SIUC, even though there's a loop on the C which makes it look like a lowercase "e", but not as big a loop as on the "e" in edu.  And there is an siuc.edu. 

Now, in this case, I was able to figure it out, because there is a Southern Illinois University website.  But if one of you gives me an email with an @ website that I can't figure out... sorry but you will never be hearing from me again if all I had was a phone call from you and that number didn't happen to get written down anywhere.  And I will say -- I do not usually write down phone numbers for people who surrender their pets.  Not because I don't want to call them, but because I usually want to be able to email them and send them pictures of their pets while they're here... which means if your email is illegible, I likely don't have your phone number, so short of you contacting me (which some of you do, to ask how the pet is doing), I am not have a way to contact you.  And looking you up on facebook only goes so far if your name is written illegibly as well.

Some people frustrate me.

Good things did happen in the last day or so and I'll post about those, but first I just HAVE to post about a recent email.

So, I had some people email about Honey, one of the rabbits we have up for adoption.  So, this afternoon, about 1:30, I get an email from this lady asking for me to call her about Honey.  I told her I was busy at the moment and couldn't call, but I could answer any questions she had by email (my class papers are due Sunday night, so short of appointments made ahead of time, I'm not really "free" on Sundays).  So, I emailed her saying that if she was looking to adopt, we had a care packet and adoption form she'd need to look at, and asked if she wanted me to email them to her.  So she said sure, send them!!  So I did.  So all of this was all together in about 15 minutes around 1:30-1:45ish.  So, don't hear from her, and I'm really not thinking about it cause I am working on my paper (recently finished) and then I get on the computer again and look at my email and she says:

I thank you for sending me the application. I have found exactly what i needed from a breeder, i just couldn't say no. I hope honey finds another great home, she seems lovely!!! :)

So... exactly what was the point of me doing that?  Like if she wanted the care packet she could have just asked for it, but like what was the point of saying oooh I like your rabbit I want to adopt it, and then running to a breeder?  Like I just don't get it.  And she "found exactly what she needed"?  This isn't tax preparation software, it's a rabbit.  Omg.  Just frustrated right now with people like this.

Will post again in a bit once I get some of my papers and files in order.

8/10/12

So, I didn't post yesterday, so here's my post about yesterday.

So, did the usual chin stuff, checked on the chins.  The baby that I thought was going to pass -- she did.  RIP little sweetie.  :(

On a positive note, the mother is feeding the other two babies, and they are gaining weight.  Hallelujah.  (considering Lilly still has no milk for her own, this would have been a disaster).

So I got weights (the prior day) on the babies, mom, and the two "juvenile  males" -- which were a male and a female.  So I didn't re-weigh all the others, but the babies (the living ones) did gain, so that's positive.  Considering the one is TINY tiny that's really good.

Then, Meredith came over to help with some stuff.  We cut wood and cut out the holes and put together 4 houses.  Then, I had a whole (small) bucket and a gallon sized bag of the scrap wood that I'd cut up for toys, so we went through ALL of that and sanded the edges and drilled holes in the pieces.  Let me tell you, that doesn't sound like much, but that is the most dull, time consuming, mind-dulling part of making toys, sanding down all the toy parts.  So I was very happy we got that part done.  So, we had time to make some of the pumice and triangle toys, one of the fun chewies toys, and we got one of the critter's delight toys done before Meredith had to go. 

A big thanks to Meredith to coming over and helping with all of that!!

So, once she was gone, I made some more of the critter's delight toys, made some of the muncher's delight toys (which are horrible!  I'm allergic to hay and drilling through hay and creating hay dust -- omg I need a respirator).  Anyway, so I made quite a few of those, and then made quite a few of the anything goes toys.  Filled up all the toy drawers so I'm very happy with that.

Still planning on making some new toys, I just need to come up with some ideas (and somewhere to PUT them), but I do have some vine hearts so those will definitely get incorporated into some toys.  So we will see.  But very happy that I was able to cross off "make toys" off of the to-do list.

And now I have at least a few hidey houses.  I mean, they have to set and dry, but I have a few.  I know how many fit on each shelf (I bought this steel shelving unit on clearance for $25 at Home Depot this past winter) and so I have marked down to make enough to fill that thing.  Then I can cross off making hidey houses. I think I will also make some chinny-mobiles and chinny motorhomes, maybe like one of each.  They're not "in demand" but as anything, if I have it and can show it to someone, more likely to buy it than if it's "well, I can make this if you want to come back..." but we will see.

So that was about it for yesterday.

Rabbits

Forgot in the last post, but this is good news, so I wanted to share. 

The people who came last night to look at the buns are going to take all three!  So Carney, Thumper, and Fuzzball get to stay together!  How awesome is that.  :D  And they're going to have an 8x8 pen to stay in.  :D

...more chins

So, got in some more chins today. 

Didn't do a ton, chin-wise today.  Bought some wood, bought some mini-casters for when I build the rolling stand for the fridge. 

Met up with T to get some chins.  Turns out it's two "juvenile males" (as the shelter called them) -- otherwise known as 3-4 month old male and 3-4 month old female, and an adult female (say... probably a year) with three babies (had four, one escaped at the shelter).  Sad to say, one of the babies is already on death's door.  She's not that small, 42 grams, which means there's probably something else wrong with her.  The other two.... can't say I remember the weight of the biggest, but the smallest was 30.  So when I weigh tomorrow, we'll see if she's gained (the babies are all girls) or not, and if she has... well, even if she has... we may warm up some milk for them.  But I'm betting there will only be two in the morning.

Other than that, gave the rats their meds, gave the chin her meds.  I don't know where today went but I didn't do much chin stuff.  Mainly worked on my papers.

Just some pics of the new editions:

ex. dark ebony male

med. ebony female

dark eb. female (mom)

babies (looks to be two x-darks and one med) -- the med. is the one not doing well

....at work

So, I decided to stay in the office at lunch.  Closed my office door, though my boss keeps popping in and I have to keep reminding him that while I will answer the phone if he doesn't pick it up by the 2nd ring, I am on lunch and whatever he wants other than that can wait until 1:30. 

So... yesterday.  Did a pretty good clean-up downstairs.  It'd gotten a bit messy, as the day that I'd moved all the cages around I hadn't vacuumed up the mess that resulted, so I did that.  The rabbits absolutely shredded the "bottom" of the pen they were in, so badly that I just threw it away.  Vacuumed up all the little pieces that they had chewed up, gave them and the g-pigs their veggies. 

Medicated Jessie and put the drops in her eyes and medicated the rats.  Now Buddy has developed the same sort of skin sore that Juno has.  They were cagemates, so that would make sense that if one caught something, the other would as well, but I guess the incubation period took longer in Buddy.  His sore hasn't broken open yet, so fingers crossed that it doesn't.  Regardless though, I love giving rats medicine.  It is just so easy.  Squirt the liquid on my palm and put the rat's head there and they will just lick it up like it's candy!  Versus Jessie (chin) where it's like I need 6 hands to restrain her, one of those hands to hold her little paws down to keep her from pushing the syringe away.... and even MORE hands to give her the eye drops, cause she knows what's coming, so I have to hold her eyes open while doing the drops or else the second I get her "in the position" she shuts her eyes real tight.  Just like a kid.

Anyway, was supposed to have someone come yesterday to look at Fuzzball (rabbit) but they ended up emailing me and canceling.  Turned out that the person's niece stays with her several times and month and the niece is allergic to rabbits.  So, moving on, I let the person know -- the one who's interested in all three.  She wanted to come yesterday, but I was napping at the time she called.... and I didn't get up until like 8:30 pm, so needless to say she didn't come yesterday.  She is coming tonight, so here's hoping she likes them.   I would love to adopt all three out to the same person.

Got an email from my contact at the Animal Welfare League (AWL) -- he said they got in some chins and asked if we could take em.  So now, we're just trying to coordinate the transfer between them to him, and him to me, so we'll see how that goes.

Got ahold of the powdercoating place that Jim told me about.  It's caled Perfect Finish Powder Coating out in Gary -- 219-938-3331 -- they say that, short of having a huge cleaning job ahead of them, to powder coat a Bass pan (for FNs/CNs), is $10 or around there.  That is AWESOME.  So I will be taking our pans there.  Probably in two batches, cause some of those pans need to be cleaned and some are being used.  And all that.

Hmmm.  That may be it.  I was very happy to get ahold of the powder coating place, I've been calling them for several days leaving messages.  So it was nice to get through to someone.  I think the problem was that I kept calling after work, and they'd already be gone for the day.

Oh, ok, I did do more than that yesterday.  I had one person call a few days ago with an order wanting to get a shipping quote and then send a check and I'd mail the order.  Well, I finally put hers together and wrote down the weight and size of the box. I need to input it into the shipping calculator and call her when I get home.

Then, I have another person who emailed me with the remainder of their order, put that together and wrote down the weight and all, need to figure out shipping and email them tonight.

Then, the people adopting Frederico & Georgie emailed asking how their cage is coming along, cause I told them I'd add some extra shelves and stuff to the cage, which I hadn't gotten around to, so I stuck in two shelves and their hammock and then I started making a ramp-shelf, with the little speedbumps on it so the chin doesn't slide off.  So I put in the other two shelves and was going to put in that one, but the glue had to dry to hold those pieces of wood for the bumps on, so today I will put bolts on that shelf and attach it and I think their cage will be good to go. 

There is one more order... someone emailed about dropping off a chin... and was actually set to come today... but she texted me yesterday letting me know that she had someone potentially interested in adopting the chin, so she said she'd give em a few days to decide and get back to me.  But, regardless, she wanted to get like $35 worth of supplies.  Cause she'd had two chins and they got in a fight and she had to separate and didn't have room for two cages (hence, us getting the one chin).  So I told her to keep me updated about the chin and let me know when she wanted to come pick up her supplies.  Didn't get a chance to get those ready, though I believe all of her stuff was pretty minor stuff, like I don't think any shelves, just some treats and chews and stuff.  So I should be getting that together today.

And then, I actually got my pile of chin-papers organized.  I'd taken them all upstairs to sort through and put in the correct folders in my file safe and I finally got around to sorting them by type and by date and putting them away. 

... on a less crabby note... mid-year-ly report

On a more neutral note, all accounts are balanced, the chin account's doing alright, and vet fees haven't been through the roof this year.  There really is no mid-yearly report, just some statistics for those who wonder how it all goes down, moneywise.

• We really should own stock in Home Depot.  Already spent almost $500 there this year.
• Same with the postal service ~ $500.  Though this year we are doing better with not under-charging for shipping and screwing ourselves.  We currently are only at about a $5 undercharge.  
• We have purchased over 750 pounds of Mazuri.
• This year we had to buy a new table saw for roughly $150... only to get our old one fixed for $15 several months later (but it can't hurt to have two!).
• Our biggest expense is supplies, which includes treats, shavings, chew toys, a few fleece accessories -- so far we are just over $1650.  This does not include the FN's-from-hell expenses which totaled over $600 for two used cages.
•  Our total expenses thus far are just shy of $7000.  This seems a bit high, considering 2011's TOTAL expenses -- $7500.
• The only "notable" sale item is that we have sold over 320 pounds of Mazuri.  With the exception of that, sales have been scattered across the board.
• The more unusual pets dropped off included some gerbils and a pigeon.
• Our most common drop-off animal this year has been rats (25) -- though this number is unusually high because we helped out an AWL rescuer and took in 14 rats at one point.  Next common is chinchillas (22) and then rabbits (7).
• We had 35 chinchillas purchased/adopted thus far -- five have been returned (some re-adopted).
• We have had 15 rats adopted thus far -- two of which have been returned (and re-adopted).
• We have really cleared out our used cages -- sold 15 of them... only to have an adoptive home show up with more!  Lol (though we really do appreciate any and all donations).  

So, all that said, we have a positive amount in the rescue bank account, mostly healthy rescues, and even the ones that aren't haven't been sucking us dry lately, knock on wood.

We have quite the waiting list at the moment.  The person who's been on the list the longest is someone from January, who is looking for a baby white female.  If our two current babies ever decide to gain some weight, we might just fill that request.  The next person wants a white male -- again, once the babies cooperate...  As usual, there's more of a demand for whites.  This year though, we actually have people on our list for rescues (rather than just babies).

Assuming everything goes through without a hitch *knocks on wood*, Frederico & Georgie will be the quickest pair we have ever adopted out, as they already have a deposit on them and they're not even ready to be adopted yet.

That's about it for updates. 

I currently have several people who may be reading this thinking "get off the computer and email me about my order," ---->  for those of you that this applies to* -- since it's late, and there are other people living here... I cannot run the table saw at night, so... you will just have to wait.  My sincerest apologies.  If you'd like to pay for me to move to my own place, by all means, your order will get done significantly quicker.  Until then (and even then), this isn't Petco.  Stuff is custom-made and custom-cut here.  Please understand that that if you want an order that contains stuff I have to physically put together (and if your stuff needs to be glued, your order automatically takes 2 days longer), I have to put it all together, find a box, get it all packed in there, figure out shipping, and call/email you. And the reason I prefer email -- for those of you I have to call -- you wouldn't want to get phone calls at midnight, though that's often when I'm figuring out shipping.  This stuff all must get fit in my schedule with my two jobs, grad school, cleaning/caring for the pets/rescues, and actually leaving the basement every now and then.  So it may take a day or two. 

*this does not apply to people who have emailed/called once or twice, or who space out their calls/emails.  You are more than welcome to ask how your order's coming along.  But start calling/emailing several times every day after only giving me a day or two to potentially work on your order (assuming, of course, that there are no orders ahead of yours), and I'm sorry, but your order goes to the bottom of my to-do list, not the top.  I'm human -- you aggravate me, I'll do it even slower, and move onto the orders that aren't causing my phone to buzz across the table.