So, woke up today to a call from Jim asking if I was home so he could drop off the chin. So, he made it to pick up that Snickers-eating chin, and brought ahim here. So now we have a somewhat overweight male chin, named Scooby Doo.
So, from Scooby being brought by, and the two chins the other day, I still hadn't looked through all the stuff brought with them, so I finally dug through the boxes and sorted the stuff. The usual stuff found it's places, the dust went with the dust, the plastic items to be washed and sold went into the pile of to-be-washed items, and the treats... well, let's just say like 99.9% of all treats went into the rat-bin. Whooo boy. For Gulliver and Chunky, their previous owner sent along a decent amount of good wood chews (kudos), as well as one of those snack shack logs (hellllo rat heaven), and three containers of some banana & raisin mix. Ratties gonna be eatin good for awhile. They do get lab blocks, but I won't have to buy them treats for some time.
So, I put Scooby in his cage and was fishing the other things out of his carrier, and I came across what could only be described as a granola-bar looking thing, with what looked like chocolate chips on top. So I had this ooook moment, took it out and gave it to Dash [rat], who was like "awesome!!! I don't hate you and won't bite you for this one minute as thanks for this awesome load of calories and sweety goodness!!" And went back to digging through the tote and boxes.
Came across a bag that, had I been looking at someone's fanny pack that they brought along on a hike, wouldn't have surprised me. However, let's remember, this is chin food. So, came across saltines, some fun-size snickers bars, a protein bar still in package (so THAT's what that thing was), and some grapes. Oh and some dates. Uh... yeah. Let's not forget the Charlie Chinchilla food. Let's say that Scooby is a tad bit chubby. And anyone who knows me knows I don't think I've ever said before that we've gotten in a fat chin. But oh heck. Scooby could use to lose a few. He is very round.
So, the lady was kind enough (killing him with kindness) to go out and get me an extra bag of the charlie chinchilla, like an unopened one (in addition to the half full one that was coming with him). More rat food, awesome. Thankfully, he did have a half-eaten bag of some not-so-horrible chin food with him. Still not good, but not Charlie, so I mixed it with some Mazuri and now he has his container of mixed food to chow on. I actually was able to get a box and fill it with all the tasty things the rats will be enjoying over the next while. Oh, and I think another thing that was included (with the chins from a few days ago) was those balls that are like peanut butter that are rolled in sesame seeds? More rat treats. Lol.
I just want to clarify, because of the way this post is sounding, that I'm not killing my rescue rats with kindness either. But they really can eat just about anything, including chocolate. The main thing with snacky foods and things like chocolate is the high caloric intake, but done now and then it's no more harmful than you or me eating McDonalds once a week. And in all reality, the rats here eat their lab blocks and their dry mix, and get a treat now and then. All this stuff that I've accumulated over the past few days is going to last absolutely forever.
Which reminds me. With the chins a few days ago, there was a bag of hay with mango (which, btw, I hate those new hay types -- the only one that was "good" was the hay with mint, and of course, that's the one that was discontinued). So, I dumped the bag into an aquarium, fished out the hay and doled it out to the chins, and bagged up the mango for the rats and g-pigs.
So eventually I had all the stuff put where it goes, and I needed to get a move on some orders. So, I had a chinny mobile that had dried, so today I attached the wheels, so now that's sitting to dry. Had a standard hidey house with a bottom that needed the holes drilled for the bolts, so I did that, sanded that, put in the bolts. Had a cottage house that needed the rest of the roof & bottom glued on, so I did those and set it aside. Need to drill the holes in that as well. Started assembling the motorhome that goes with that order (it's a big order -- 2 hidey houses, motorhome, chinny mobile, and some other misc. stuff), but got sidetracked. Started working on the custom litterbox that someone wanted. It's all currently rubberbanded together, but in looking at it, one of my pieces of wood is warped, so I'm going to have to figure out how to work around that without having to rebuild the whole thing. Same person wanted a birthday cake for their chin, and wanted the pieces colored. They said it could be squares (thank god, because I still don't have a scroll saw, nor do I have room for one in my current setting), so I cut out some squares and then tried not to cut a finger off while trying to shape a 1/2" piece of wood into a flame-looking thing. See, this is why I need that scroll saw. Anyway, so I got those done and sanded, and went looking for my rubbing alcohol and of course I couldn't find any. Which made me remember the fun I had dyeing wood back when and used it all up. Joy.
So, it was still early, (like, 9ish?) so I went to Meijer and picked up some rubbing alcohol and some of those foam brushes that I keep managing to lose. I swear one day I'm going to find them all and I'm going to have 4000 of them cause they're going to have started breeding. Lol. But right now I dunno what I did with them, and for .99, I got 3 more. Only really wanted the small sized one, but the pack of several of the small sized ones was like $4.99, and I try to keep prices down for ya'll, so I went with the .99 set of 3 different sizes. So, I was thinking that I was really going to kick myself for agreeing to color this birthday cake if this didn't work out, because I absolutely hate dyeing wood. Like it soaks and soaks and never quite gets a nice bright color and I always just want it to be over. But I thought, well, I will just try to paint it on like I see people do. And I was like ok I'm not going to mix up too much more than I need, cause I don't want to have a ton of extra dye left. So, I got my easter egg coloring cups and did like a few drops of food coloring, splash of rubbing alcohol, stir with the foam brush and omg. It brushed on so pretty! I am totally coloring everything this way from now on. And like I only had mixed up what I needed, so I didn't need to worry about storing extra dye or anything. And like I don't have the color orange in food dye, but I figured I'd try to make it, so a few drops of yellow, a drop of red. Omg. I got the brightest nicest sunset orange color. Will be perfect for halloween. If I ever remember, by that point in time, how I mixed it up. But a gorgeous orange color. And I do have black food coloring (really! I found it somewhere), so come halloween I will have fun colored toys. And back to painting on the color, I imagine that significantly speeds up drying time as well cause it's probably not soaking all the way through. Not like I don't have other things to occupy my time while the first order dries, but still.
I called the guy who wanted an order last week... he had called on like the 1st and had said what he wanted, so I got everything ready, and actually figured out that it would be cheaper to go flat rate on his items than shipping it regular mail... well, I'd called him on the 1st and left him the message for how much it was going to be, and he hadn't called back, so I called him again today and left another message. Shipping was like $12-13 or around there, so it wasn't like nothing, but his order had like 5 pounds of food, a glass water bottle, like 4 toys, a ceramic food dish -- like point being, it wasn't a light order, and it was going to NY. And he'd said (when I talked to him, originally), that he realized that the 5 pounds of food was going to cost a bit to ship. Well, yeah. I mean, like one pound can be like $7. So $13ish for 5+ pounds plus another 2-3 pounds of additional stuff, doesn't seem too bad. But, who knows, maybe he thought it'd be cheaper in general. I'll probably call one last time in a few days if I don't hear back, but I really wish these people would just have the courtesy to say, you know, that's too much for me. I had someone ask about a chin and a cage the other day and ask how much it'd be and I said, even going with the cheapest chin and cheapest cage, we'd probably be around $150, and they said that's too much. Fine, I'm perfectly fine with that, because I'm not strung along and that way, since I know it's too much for them, I'm not hanging onto it for them. Cause let's take the baby guinea pigs for example. I had someone email the other day asking about the personality of the one male. So I told her, he's more outgoing than his brother, though he's still shy, but can be lured with veggies, and so on. She had asked for the form, so I emailed it to her. Had another person email asking if either of the males were left, and I emailed her back saying that someone was asking about the one, but for sure the American was still available. Haven't heard back from either. Now, it's only been a day, but here's the question -- if someone else emails about them -- are they available? Are these people wanting them? And like in situations like this, typically since I don't have any adoption forms actually filled out, if someone else was to email, I'd give them the info, and whoever gets back first. Cause I can't wait forever, and some people literally will wait months to get back to me, and then get upset when the animal's not still here.
So, got an email from the people who have the mini rex's on hold. She said her roommate has a list of the items they want to get from me. Now, they asked what I had in terms of used rabbit items, and I told them, but I clarified that most of those items are not clean and I would need to know they want them before I take the time to clean those items and then have them sit here and collect dust. Like for example, the cage they were asking about has animals in it. I can move the animals to another cage.... but I wouldn't do that if they don't want the cage, you know? So I emailed asking if she could pass along the list of items, so that if they do want the cage (and anything else), I know exactly what they want so I can wash it and get it ready and all that. Cause like I know, just as an example, I told her that one of my friend has some rabbits and they love the muncher's delight toys. I don't have any made, and I can't particularly say that I will have any made before Sunday, as I've got orders to deal with before making toys/houses just to stock the store. But if they want some, I would make some. So here's hoping they email me the list.
Which reminds me, I am on my last piece of wood, and I have no remaining corner shelves. I should probably go pick some of those up tomorrow. I should also clean cages tomorrow. I should make a list.
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