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. 

Sales Policy Update

We have amended our sales policy.  Due to potential adoptive homes** taking forever to get back to me, and then not getting back to me until I sent them an email asking if they're still interested, and dragging everything out, our sales policy regarding communications has been changed to state this:

(this is not verbatim from the website, this is cliff-notes version

If you have contacted us regarding adopting a pet and we have emailed you back -- you have five calendar days to get back to us.  If we don't hear from you in five days, we will send an email saying you have an additional two days to get back to us.  If you do not get back to us in those two days, the animal goes back up for adoption.

**I want to note that this does not apply to the several homes that we currently have that are waiting to pick-up or trying to coordinate pick-ups.  This applies to the people who email us asking if a pet is available, we email back... and they don't email back until 3 weeks later, and then are upset that we have adopted out the pet (even though we sent them emails asking if they were still interested, which they never responded to). 

This is the result of the fact that I often have several people interested in each adoptable pet, and by the time home #1 decides that they "really don't have time for the pet," four weeks later, homes #2-5 have already found themselves new family members. 

Our old policy was 7 days +2... it's been shortened because my patience level is shortening with the longer I do this. 

I want to note that I do understand people have lives outside of pets.  I have two jobs, graduate school, and the rescue to run, so I understand the concept of having to manage time.  However... I feel that if someone emails a rescue and says they are interested in a pet, they should at least be able to remember to follow up within the next few days.  I understand not checking email every single day, but I feel like once you inquire about an animal -- you simply cannot expect that that animal will be held for you while you wibble and wobble over whether you really want to fill out the adoption form or while you take 3 weeks to get back to me.

Most rescues aren't even this lenient.  I know several which won't even put a pet on hold without an adoption form -- as more time goes on, this is seeming like a better and better option.  I won't do that yet, but right now every stinkin rabbit is on hold, with people in line waiting for other people to back out... yet NO ONE except the most recent home (who has emailed me several times in the last hour, in response to my emails, kudos to her) has gotten back to me since Friday.  I understand it's the weekend, but people... consider MY time too. 

Today

Didn't get a ton done today, but did get the basement a tad more organized.  Moved three of the rats out of their regular cages and into the stacked cages, clearing off table 2 and part of table 3.  Moved Keisa's cage onto table 2, clearing off table 1.  Moved the rats from table 3 to table 2 -- clearing off table 3.  So, basically, I cleared off two tables.  And no, they're not really numbered -- for explanation it just was easier.

So then I had a crapload of supplies and stuff I needed to dig through originally on table 1 -- moved that stuff to table 3.

Cleaned out Juno's cage and put in the shredded bedding as well as Jessie's cage, with new bedding and added some toys and stuff.  Gave them their meds, which neither was crazy about.  Though Juno did lick some of the remaining med off of my finger when I was sticking him back in his cage.  Both of those cages are now on the table that's way off to the side, to keep them a bit away from the others.

Juno chowing down after I cleaned his cage and gave him more food -- you can see one of his skin wounds, poor thing (he has a bacterial skin infection with an unknown underlying cause)

My "to clean" pile has grown exponentially so I'll have to get to that eventually.  Plus, I never cleaned or went through the cages/supplies that Jim donated the last time he came here.  Need to do that.  Came to realize today that we have a LOT of stuff down there.  Looks like it's time again to go through everything and figure out what to sell and what to keep.  Cause surely I don't use every last thing we have.  Some stuff can probably be thrown away even.  So that'll be soon (looking through all of that).

So, back to the rat-stand for a moment.  Had a chance to go to Walmart today and bought a lot of rattie things.  Stuff I could live without, no doubt, but bought some things so I could deck out their new cages.  Also, initially, I was going to cable-tie the cages to the stand, but then I thought, well, if someone was here and wanted to see a rat in the bottom cage, I'd like to be able to just pull that cage off the stand and set it on a table..... so I made little wire contraptions that loop around the back corners of the cage and the back posts of the stand and snap together....so that'll be easy enough to unsnap if someone wants to see a lower-caged rat, but at the same time, it'll keep the cages on the stand.

Rat-stand with three cages.  Technically could add a fourth cage if I wanted to buy one, but I think it'd be slightly out of reach.  Cause you know, I'm a bit short.

Top cage.  Donated hammock, cause the rats will destroy it anyways, so I may as well start this cage off with one that I don't absolutely love.  Gravity feeder in the back right, coconut-hanging thing that I made right-front, bowl of lab blocks front left.  Cat-toy-ball is the pink thing in the middle.  The rat is all the way in the back right upper corner -- he's a fawn-hooded white.  Sweet rat.  Last male out of the 14 rats we got from AWL.

So, this cage got one of my actual "chin" hammocks.  Also gave the ratties a little ladder to help them get in the hammock.  Built them a little coconut thingie as well.  Don't have a gravity feeder for this one, so they just have a big bowl in the back with their food.  Got a perch in there, a hanging chew thingie, a hidey log, and their yellow cat-ball.  And, not shown, they now also have a bowl of lab blocks.  These rats are the last two females from the 14 from the AWL -- the one is a black hooded and the other is a light-fawn hooded.

Bottom cage.  Again, got one of my chin-hammocks.  Also got one of the bird perches, this one had never been used.  Made them another coconut thing.  I don't know what I think they're going to do with them, the rats are bigger than the coconuts, but maybe they can climb on them. Gave them a ladder, a little hidey tunnel, and there is a cat ball in there somewhere.  And a gravity feeder in back.  And, not shown, but they now have a bowl of lab blocks.  Have to say, I am thrilled to get these girls into a cage where they don't have access to shavings -- these girls would pile their food dishes and gravity feeder high with shavings -- as if they were trying to "hide" their food from others.  But it was a pain cause it was like they'd hide it and then not be able to "find" it later. Well, that can't happen here.  Oh, and they have one of those birdie foraging boxes (front left) so maybe they'll use their brains with that.  These rats are Spots (white with black hood) and Princess (white with fawn food).  They have been here for awhile, not much interest in them at all.

 Well, that's about it for today.  Not likely to get much done tomorrow cause I'll be out most of the day/night, but maybe something minor will get done. 

....wanted to not end the night on such a downer note...

So, this whole thing with Daisy is depressing so I thought we'd end the night on a happy note -- pictures of my evil little pink white.

"You can't see me!!"

love the expression here...

lookie those pawsies!  so tiny!

"huh? *snort* wha? 5 more minutes, k?"

zonked out

She loves that pillow.  You know, I almost feel bad she'll be moving cages in a bit (but pink and zebras is totally not Toby... wait.... no, no, she's getting the pink and zebras), cause she loves that pillow, but she'll have a pillow in the new cage too and she'll learn to love it.  That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

And no, she doesn't have a name yet. 

While not official, highly likely...

So, I haven't been able to find Daisy. 

That text that I sent last night in the wee hours of the morning had several reply texts when I crawled out of bed:

Me (last night):  Hey when you were here the other day and opened up that chin cage, did one of the chins get out or get dropped?  Cause there were two chins in that cage and now there's only one ... and the door was completely latched

Him (today):  No it did not but the kid who gave me a ride was just some kid that lives by me that I needed a ride from and I gave him gas money.  And we're not really friends because him and his gf are drug users so I do not associate with them.  But they were acting really weird and hurried to drop me off.  And I remember his girlfriend holding onto her purse the whole time and they were like "we gotta take you home."  I thought they were feining for drug money maybe but I dunno what coulda happened I don't think it would hop out and run away.  I will definitely get ahold of the girl first then her boyfriend."

Me:  Odd.  Well see if you find anything out.

Now, I honestly think this guy had nothing to do with this and was completely in the dark.  Looking back at this, we get the whole "hindsight is 20/20 thing" -- which I could totally see.  If someone was driving me somewhere and was like ok, we gotta go... I'd just think ok maybe they had somewhere to be, not that they probably stole something and needed to get out of there.

And come to think of it, I do think I remember the girl holding her purse out in front of her like in front of her chest... which was kind of an awkward look, but again, just pushed it aside thinking nothing of it.

So, I go down in the basement, check several times with the flashlight around every nook and corner, and I cannot find Daisy.  I still have not told her adoptive home.  And it is typical, TYPICAL that this would happen with a chin that's on hold for one of our adoptive homes.  This couldn't happen with a chin that's just sitting here waiting to be adopted, no.  Has to be one that I'm going to have to break the news to the people... but haven't gotten around to that yet.

So, while I'd have loved to have spent the day looking for Daisy, with the pending likelihood that she wasn't even down there, I put together a chin order that was from weeks ago (I'm sure the person is wondering where it is -- I will have to get it mailed out tomorrow with an apology). 

Took a drive to the vet (just went to Munster, I like Dr. Foster) took in Jessie (our chin) and Juno (one of our rescue rats).  Well Jessie's been having some eye issues for quite some time now, and Dr. Foster's been seeing her.  Well, he gave her more eye drops, Tobramycin I believe, as well as TMS as an oral antiobiotic.  So, hopefully targeting this from all angles.  He said her eyes look swollen (poor thing!).

Onto Juno... one of our (rat) adoptive homes, Jim and his wife, they were here the day that the boys were here and took Daisy (they were here at the same time actually, that's what kept me from having my attention fully on the boys), Jim/wife noticed that Juno had some sort of cyst or scab sort thing on his back.  So, since we have so many rats and I sure as heck can't afford to treat them all, he went into the vet.  Looks like one of the cysts (or whatever?) actually had broken open by the time I got to the vet.   Poor Juno.  So, Dr. Foster said that it's clearly a bacterial skin infection and he gave me some clavamox to give.  Said to put some neosporin on the actual wounds.  But... basically Dr. Foster said that the problem isn't the bacterial skin infection, it's what caused it.  He said this could be due to a compromised immune system from something else.... and if these meds don't fix it, we can try another thing or two, but then we're looking at putting him down, partly for the sake of the other rats (the idea being that if it's taking us too long to figure this out, it could be contagious and we could infect the whole rat colony to try to save one rat).  So, fingers crossed (as well as fingers crossed of the receptionists who wanted to know what the Dr said) that the clavamox and neosporin helps Juno.  He's a very sweet rat and he would do awesome if Jim and his wife adopted him, he would have the lap of luxury, so I hope he pulls through this.

Well, and I hope Jessie pulls through her eye infection too... still not at Baytril, but I suppose that would be the next strongest.  TMS is good, it's a little less problematic as far as side effects, so it's preferred, but we'll see how it works for her.  Maybe this'll be it.

So, I currently have that side table covered with the new GP cage, but I'm thinking I'm going to have to move it and move the sick rat and the chin over there.  The doctor asked about them being on shavings and I replied that I can use shredded paper bedding, and he said try that in case we have a respiratory infection going on in Jessie.  Can't change her cage over yet, cause it's late at night, but first thing in the morning.

Oh, on that note, I should explain.  Jim was the one that donated four cages last time he was here, and he told me about this place by him that has loads of shredded paper, and I remember telling him that would be awesome to get that and use in some of the cages.  Well, but he never like told me the name of the place or anything, and really, shavings aren't expensive, so I didn't think much of it.  Until he showed up the other day to look at Juno and Buddy with three HUGE bags of shredded paper.  AWESOME.  Love him.

So currently, our GP's are on the shredded paper, Lola & Ally's cage has been changed over to shredded paper, Buddy was put in a cage with shredded paper (so Juno could go in the cage that's already "contaminated" with his stuff and Buddy could go in a "sterile" cage).  It looks nice.  We'll see what I think once it starts getting wet.

So, had someone call about putting in an order for some shelves and stuff.  Told her I would check on S&H and get back to her... haven't had a chance yet.  Should put that on my to-do list.  Ok, done.

So then, found this stacked birdcage on craigslist for make-an-offer.  Offered, and went out to Roselle, IL today to get it.  The lady was amused that I'd drive quite that far (it's like 102 miles round trip) to get the stack cage, but dude I'd been looking for one forever.  I told her every time I'd see one, I'd email and the people would either have already sold it, or they'd want like $200 for it.  And it's like dude, if I can get one new that's either the same size or slightly bigger for $240... why would I want to pay $200 for it used?   I mean it would have to be like never-used condition for me to pay $200.  Even my used cages are discounted more than that.  Anyway, but this one was reasonable.  The drive out to Roselle... not so much.  I left the house at 5... with the traffic and delays... I wasn't home until like 8:15-8:30.  Holy hell.  And I did talk with the lady, she was very nice, but it's not like we talked for an hour! 

So, here's the picture of the cage I was going off of.  It's actually a stack of three bird cages with a stand.  The cages are 24 x 16 x 16.  Would have preferred the larger 30 x 18 x 18, but can't be picky when buying things used off craiglist.  Seeing it, I'm happy with it and with what I paid.

It is actually on casters, one of which is ready to fall out, so I think I'm going to lay the whole thing down and hammer the one part a bit to make the fit a little tighter.  Very happy it's on casters, don't have to make a wheeled stand for it like I thought I might have to.

So, for anyone who's like, surely that's too small for a chin -- yes, it definitely is.  Well, I take that back.   It would be ok as a "quarantine" cage or to separate a sick chin... except that these are bird cages so they have bird-cage sized doors, so getting a chin out might be difficult.  Though, if anyone wants to donate a stack of bass equipment's stacked rabbit cages with doors that open outward (I know, I'm picky, right? lol) so I can have a stack of quarantine chin cages, I would not object.  Haha. 

But no, these are for the rats.  In case anyone has noticed, we have had rats take over three of our tables right now and that's a LOT of space that is not being able to be used for chins.  So, these cages are going to be cleaned up, have hammocks strung in them, other goodies put in them, and they're going to hold some of our rats.  After, of course, I take white cable ties and cable tie the cages to the stand.  I'm just too iffy about that kinda thing and I'm not the most graceful person at times, so better they all be held together.

So some of the rats will be getting new homes in a few days.  And my mom wanted some bags for her vacuum cleaner from Amazon, so I ordered some rat goodies to push the order over $25 and get us all free shipping.

So, having finally gotten home from Roselle, I texted the rat guy again. 

Me:  Any luck?  Find out anything?

Him:  Neither of them responded to my text when I brought it up and then they didn't answer my calls either.  So I dunno, I need to get a hold of them somehow.

Me:  Ok, sounds suspicious on their part.  Thanks for trying.

Him:  Yeah the only way I know the guy is because he sells marijuana to my little brother and I desperately asked him for a ride, then later on he was interested in a rat and then didn't seem interested in buying him and then just starts saying lets go.  He said his mom wanted him home.  I can try to find out the full names for you.

Me:  I'm not sure if that'd do any good, but it can't hurt.

Ok, I would say that definitely sounds suspicious that they're not responding to his texts or phone calls.  Right?  So... I'm thinking I'm going to have to email that adoptive home... who is surely not going to be thrilled with the situation... but what can I do?

Oh, and we had like four people email us today about rabbits.  Course, everyone wants the same few, and no one was interested in Carney.  The first person was interested in Fuzzball, the second wanted Fuzzball and Thumper.  Well, I told the second that Fuzzball was on hold, so only Thumper was available at the moment, and she said she wanted a bonded pair.  So I told her, well Thumper and Carney are like best buds, they always sleep together and everything, and I asked her if she might be interested in that pair... no response.  Go figure.  Anyway, third person was interested in Thumper, and the second person wanted him, so.... everyone's playing a waiting game right now.

Well, I think that's it for the day.  Gotta go give the critters their evening meds and go get some neosporin (or whatever look-alike I have) for poor Juno and then take some crap downstairs and all.  Been organizing down there a bit.  Still want to re-do the cage setup, but I have to have all the FN's ready and done for that, and that hasn't happened yet.  And Jim was telling me he found a place to powder coat his FN pans for $10/each, so I may have to ask him about that.... but that's it for today.

Missing a chin...

We are missing a chin. Daisy.

When I think back to the last time the cage was opened....it was when I had several people over for rats at once, including one disrespectful teenager who wanted to pet a lot of the animals. I remember him opening Daisy and Delilah's cage and I said something about them being hard to catch, but something took my attention away from that. Next time I looked the cage was closed.

Well today, down there feeding and I realize Daisy is missing. Looked quickly for her, but it's after 3 in the morning, I'm looking in the actual daytime.

Here's the thing though -- if she got out, if he picked her up and dropped her -- TELL ME. Don't make me wait 2 days to find I'm missing a chin or I will be super pissed that you didn't tell me.

I texted the guy, asked if the chin got out or if she was dropped or what. Cause the door was securely closed so there's no other way she could have gotten out. It's a QC- those latches are difficult for me sometimes.  Nothing yet, but it is 3 am.

One thing worries me. They all really wanted a black rat. Daisy wasn't black, but she was a med ebony and looks darker than she is cause of the poor lighting. I hope they somehow didn't sneak her out. I hope that we find her down there in the morning.