Today

So today was a busy day.  Spent most of the day just cleaning up random stuff around the rescue.

Washed tons of random rescue stuff, until I ran out of soap.  Had to go upstairs to get more soap, but came back down without soap several times.

Cleaned the rat cages.  Gave the rats food, their cereal mix, and some yogurt drops.

Was going to just spot clean the guinea pig cage until I got a good whiff of it, so I changed the entire cage.  So now he has clean fluff in the cage, and I had a lot of partially-full carefresh bags that I was able to use for that cage, so now I have marginally more room in storage.  Yay.

Cleaned out the bottom FN that had the two pink white boys in it.  Put in a new liner and moved over Salt.  Removed all the stuff from the cage she was in, and put more stuff in the wash pile.

Fed everyone.  Supplemented everyone.

Scooped the wet spots in the rabbit cage where the rabbit didn't quite make it to the litter box (but he seems to be doing well!), dried that.  Gave him more food and hay.

Noticed when putting away stuff that my blue pocket folder (which has all the forms and docs used at the rescue) is awfully thin and light.  Took it upstairs and reprinted multiple copies of all the forms.  Well, at least until the printer started running out of ink.  Then I cancelled all the remaining print jobs and figured I'd wait at least an hour to try to print a thing or two again.  I will get every last drop out of these cartridges.

Decided I should take some time to look at emails.  Well, there's one person who had emailed me about adopting.  But they didn't know when they'd be able to adopt.  Well, then they decided, they wanted to finish decking out their cage and everything before they adopted any more.  Which is fine, by all means.  And then they say something about, well maybe they're going to breed and their breeder is going to set them up with some chins to breed.  Ok.  Well, then I post the thing saying we're full, and I get an email, ok they want to adopt, but in the event their family (who I assume they live with) isn't ok with an additional chin (because they weren't thrilled with this person getting the original ones... can only imagine how that family would feel about this person breeding), they would give the chin they adopt to the breeder.  Um... no.  I know who the breeder is, no problems there, they're a nice person and I'd trust they'd take just fine care of the chin.  But I told this person, if the family isn't on the same page with the current chin, I'm not comfortable adopting them any more, especially considering, they'd have to sign the adoption contract which states that the critter needs to come back to US if they can't keep it.  Well, here's the problem with that.  With as full as we are right now, the second a cage opens up, I will call someone and they will bring their critter and the cage will be full again.  Well, then what happens when two days later, the family says that adopter can't keep the chin and they're gonna bring it back?   Well, then I gotta find somewhere to put it, and god knows right now, I have a million guinea pig cages (because everyone and their brother who has dropped off chins lately has had them in a 25 x 12 x 12 type cage) that could hold a chin no problem, but I'd rather not start stacking cages upon cages because people aren't including their families wishes in the decision to adopt.  No thank you.

Added someone to the waiting list.

Had another person email who is supposed to drop off their chins, and say they will contact me when they're ready, need to get some things in order first.  Wouldn't mind if that's another few days.

Had an email about an order from one of my adoptive homes.  Marked down what they want, totalled it up, and emailed them.  Have everything here and (for the most part) ready, except for a perch shelf, so we'll see when they want to come by.

Realized, due to an email inquiry, that I still have ads up for chins that aren't here any longer.  Opened up all my classified ads, website, and facebook, and took down ones that aren't relevant anymore.

Had someone email asking about one of the chins that won't be ready for a few weeks, and asking about pairing him with one of our other chins.  Unfortunately, no way to know, and I want to have them email me back before I put the chins together and then never hear from them again.  So I emailed them back and we shall see.

Had someone ask again about where their order is.  I apparently need to bold, underline, 40 point font, and highlight the portion on the webstore (when you go to pay) that says "Please be aware that I work a full time job in addition to running the rescue and the supply store.  Orders are typically worked on during weekends and during limited free time during the week.  If you are not able to wait potentially two weeks or longer for your order, please contact me to see if I can get your order out quicker."  Cause no one reads.

Somewhere in here, I went to get hay.  As is typical, it was dry the entire way there, and when I got there, started to downpour.  I only got two bales (I normally get 4-5), because they're cutting this year's hay this week and will have it ready within another week.  Well, I won't get that until I'm done with these two bales, but that way, with these two bales, I can get hay for the people who've been wanting hay, and have some hay for myself for a bit of time, and then I can pick up fresh hay in another month or two or three, and have fresh hay over the winter.  Not that this is bad hay, by any means, it's just last year's cutting (which is exactly the same cutting as I sold out of, a few weeks ago).  I'm glad I got it when I did, though, because I got home, backed the back end of the blazer into the garage so I could get the hay out without it getting wet, and got it down in the basement.  Well, now it's downpouring.  So... good timing. 

I finally did remember to take soap downstairs, and ended up putting away a bucket of clean items.  I apparently don't say that too much, but since a few people have asked... since a lot of what I wash is heavier or bulky (think, food bowls, glass water bottles), I can't carry all that much of it in my arms, so I have a 5 gallon bucket that I'll fill with stuff to put away and then cart that around to put everything away.  So when I say, I put away a bucket, not a literal bucket.  Like a bucket of random crap.  Anyway, so that gave me room to wash two more drying racks worth of stuff, so I washed more stuff.

Then I realized, I still have some of the new breeder chins in their carrier, and I had to get water bottles on the new runs to put them away.  Well, that was sure fun.  The common runs that the average breeder buys are meant for water bottles, but the huge breeders use water systems with edstrom tubing.  And yep, that's how these were, not intended for water bottles.  I did get bottles on them, but it took almost 2 hours to get 24 holders on.  Not counting, of course, getting the glass tube in the stopper, actually filling and putting on the water bottles...  Ick.  On my other runs, the water bottle holders are removable.  Not for these, I attached these and clamped them on, so I never have to attach them again.

Oh and then I dyed more loofah.  Now we have some purple loofah as well.  Sold my second bag of colored loofah yesterday, just need to work on getting it up on the website.

Cleaned all the original runs and cleaned the holding cages.  Put shavings in allllllll of the new runs, so as I get in the chins for those, those cages are ready.  Put more water bottle tubes and stoppers together, still need to do at least another 10 of those just to take care of what I'll need here (much less what I need to have ready for customers, because I sell those).

Had some people come by to pick up supplies... they had been possibly interested in the one critter I was going to get in.  And then like 5 minutes before they came in, I got an email from the original home that someone else was going to take the pet.  Which is actually super right now, because it saves me space.

Can't think of what all else I did, but the rescue looks a lot better and more organized.  Of course, I got the new breeders out of their carriers and got them settled in the new runs.

I shared these photos on facebook, but since some people who read this are not on facebook, and vice versa, here we go...

Bentley -- dark / extra dark standard grey male -- phase champion at Atlantic Chapter Show 2015

Bessie -- light / medium standard grey female

Dixon -- mosaic male

Hanna -- standard grey female

Jazzy -- hetero beige female

Jersey -- homo beige female

Love these new chins.  So far they all seem to have nice personalities, I only got barked at a few times by Jazzy, but no bites.  Bentley is just the sweetest thing.  A little on the small side for males that I like, but his fur is what Jim calls a "barn burner" and he'll get super females to improve that size.  I'd have to look, but one of these standard females (I think Hanna) is actually a half sister to him and she's huge.  Needed a large collar.  Dixon is a very nice boy.  Nice fur, but not the classic huge show bunny because there was a problem with his water tubing and he wasn't getting water, and it was a bit before anyone realized (and yet another reason I like my bottles, as much as I complain), so his growth was a bit stunted.  Hanna is just the sweetest thing.  Like I was able to put on a collar on her with her just chilling on my rolling cart, she loves to be petted.  Super super calm.  Which, naturally, means she'll either die next week or never have a baby.  Really, she's an awesome chin with awesome fur that I'd love to have some babies out of... so fingers crossed!  She will actually be going with a super nice standard grey Hendryx male (Nova) that's been chilling here for a while with no girls.  And then Jersey is a bit of a loon.  My last homo beige was as well... hopped out of the cage several times while I was trying to take pics (hence, you see the pic I got of her).  Super energetic female.  And the rest are nice as well, these are just the notable ones. 

Well, I need to go do more chin stuff, get more chins ready to be listed....