A Playplace for Small Pets

Our newest rat, Fiona, is really a rascal and we’ve been having trouble keeping her occupied and stimulated. I thought we had a pretty nice set up for our two rats, but it wasn’t enough for Fiona. The large three story cage sets on a long table that also supports a ten gallon glass tank, a large rat wheel and two smaller cages. When they’re let out of the large cage, the rats are allowed their freedom on this long table. Sugar rat has always stayed in the confines of this area and loves to run on the wheel, but Fiona is afraid of the wheel and seems to need more attention from us.

One day, I was trying to clean or something and Fiona was just too clingy so I set her down on a nearby craft dresser where she immediately started exploring. She was only free for about five minutes, but it was long enough for her to realize that exploring is awesome. After that day, we were never able to keep her on the table. We’d walk away and find she had somehow gotten down and was running around the basement. We moved everything away from the table so there was nothing for her to jump or climb down to, but she still found a way. It soon got to the point where we’d open the door to let the rats out and Fiona would be on the floor within 30 seconds. She just leans over the edge of the table and falls down to the cement floor and dashes away.

For a while, I was just letting her run around down there for ten minutes. She would always eventually try to get upstairs so we could catch her easily. Sometimes, we allow her free time in the upstairs living room, but if my husband is home, this is no good because he doesn’t understand our friendship with rats. Also, if Fiona came to a door or anything blocking her way, she would start gnawing or ripping up carpet and we just couldn’t have that. I had to keep the both of them locked up in their big cage more and more. We tried letting just Sugar out to run on her wheel, but she seemed confused as to why she wasn’t being allowed back in her cage. A couple times, we forgot about her and found her curled up sleeping in another cage, but still on the table like a good girl. This made us feel guilty.

My solution was to build a play place for them using cardboard boxes and tubes I’d collected at my workplace. The tubes are wide and made of sturdy cardboard so they were just crying out for me to do something with them. One of the boxes had dividers all through it which I found perfect for making a cardboard maze. I used that box and three others, attaching them all with the tubes using an Exacto knife and duct tape. For two boxes, I had a screen top that I presume once covered a huge, long aquarium.

I first decided to see what Fiona thought of one of the taller boxes. I dropped her in and was surprised to find she could jump out. This box is probably a good three feet tall and she was able to use one side to ricochet off of to get to the top. I was amazed by her stealth, but I think she was mostly motivated by fear. I still went forward with my building plan, but considered adding windows to the tall box so it wouldn’t be so dark in there. For this I borrowed some cage wire from a neighbor and simply duct taped it on.  So here’s how it turned out. I’ll let you know what the girls thought of it after they’ve had some time to try it out.  

 This is the tall box Fiona was able to jump out of. Each box is connected with a tube.

Three sides have a window like this one. Both rats jump up to it and grab the bars with their little hands, not unlike prisoners in jail.

The bottoms of these slats have holes carved in them so the girls can maneuver through.

Here's what the whole thing looks like. The box lids get closed and I put a gallon paint can on to keep them secured.

Another Tip for Cleaning Bird Cages

We used this one every day at the animal hospital. Instead of having to soak or scrub perches to remove bird poop, the technicians simply wrapped them with Vet Wrap. It’s a bandage material that self sticks as it wraps around something, like an animal’s leg. Once the perch is soiled, you just unwrap the Vet Wrap and throw it away.  The perch is ready to go after re-wrapping. Vet Wrap comes in a bunch of colors, but green or dark colors probably aren’t the best choice because they might make it harder to observe whether your bird’s droppings are normal or not. I prefer white. There are plenty of places to purchase Vet Wrap or similar knock offs. Here’s one of them:

http://www.amazon.com/Gifted-Horse-Vet-Wrap/dp/B0002V47L0

Robo dwarf hamsters

I found a good website for information about Roborovskii dwarf hamsters. They sound pretty cool and I just might have to get one someday. I've been a hamster hater since the one I had briefly chewed his way out and was gone within a week. The other ones I encountered always bit me so I decided they weren't the rodent for me.

In 2010, I met a breeder of Russian dwarfs at Scott Smith's All Animal Expo and she had me convinced they might be worth another try. The one she let me hold just sat in my hand. Most recently, I had to write a fact filled article about Robo dwarfs and that piqued my curiosity. I love that they can be housed in a large, plastic storage container and that they love to run on the wheel. Wheel runners have always been an attraction to me. In fact, that's how our rat, Sugar, won me over in the pet store. She was just running away.

Here's the link for Robo dwarf hamsters:

http://roborovskihamsters.webs.com/

Note: This above website has apparently expired. The link will get you there, but it's hard to read. If anyone finds an appropriate link, feel free to post in a comment. I never did get a Russian hamster, but I think about it.

A Tip for Easier Cage Cleaning

Plenty of bird keepers use newspaper to cover the bottom of the cage. It can be used on the tray as well as on the grate above. There’s nothing wrong with this, though I’ve been told not to use colored paper (like that from ads and such) because it can be toxic if your bird ingests it.
I prefer to use a heavy white paper towel on my bird cage bottoms for a couple of reasons. One, I like the neat, bright look of it. I often clean before company comes and the white paper towels make the cages look less cluttered or busy. The second reason is that I can see my birds’ droppings better on the white background and thereby make sure I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary.

For the bigger birds like my Senegal parrot, I have to layer the paper towels two or three times and put an extra one where I usually find the most droppings. A neighbor gave me some of that gritty, sand paper cage liner she had left after her cockatiel died. I was always told sand paper perches or substrates were bad for birds so I wasn’t planning to use it, but then I discovered if I cut just a mid-sized rectangular piece, I could place it below where the bird most often sits and decrease my need to change paper s. I just cut a new piece and switch it out with the old when droppings start to crowd the area. Easy peasy.

I found I could also do the same thing with a product used for rabbits and guinea pigs. I had bought some absorbent cage liners to spread across the bottom of a small holding cage, but they never really did the trick. The animals would just scratch or pull them up. Not wanting to waste them, I started cutting them into rectangles to use in the same way as the sandpaper. These liners are soft like suede on one side and glossy and water proof on the other.  They work well for keeping the paper towels dry. I can just lift the soiled, cut piece out and replace it with a new, clean one rather than having to change all the papers.  

I found I could also do the same thing with a product used for rabbits and guinea pigs. I had bought some absorbent cage liners to spread across the bottom of a small holding cage, but they never really did the trick. The animals would just scratch or pull them up. Not wanting to waste them, I started cutting them into rectangles to use in the same way as the sandpaper. These liners are soft like suede on one side and glossy and water proof on the other.  They work well for keeping the paper towels dry. I can just lift the soiled, cut piece out and replace it with a new, clean one rather than having to change all the papers.  

My favorite paper towel brand is Bounty, but they’re kind of expensive to just use for turd collecting so I buy a generic form of Bounty at Wal-mart or Sam’s Club or wherever; anything that has that quilted thickness.

I hope you’ll give these products a try. Remember to just use the sandpaper in sections and don’t cover the whole bottom with it. It’s not good for your bird’s feet.  The cage liners I used have a rabbit on the box and are made by a company called LM AnimalFarms.

Circus Days (and the animals)

I was just perusing Facebook looking for some of the old gang from Circus World, where I worked from 1984 to mid 1986. My job as a clown was my first exposure to large animals other than visiting the zoo as a kid. I know I had my picture taken with a baby leopard, a baby elephant and standing next to a tiger separated by the performance cage. I can honestly say, I never saw an animal mistreated there. The trainer and the animals seemed to have an understanding. That's not to say I didn't hear a tiger roar out a complaint now and then as I'm sure they had their bad days.

One sad thing was the death of a female giraffe named Agnes. For some reason, they park decided to sell Agnes to a well known animal collector named Earl Tatum. The gal who took care of the giraffe and other livestock tried to tell the handlers that the procedure might be tricky. While I don't remember her name, I remember that she was quite angry about the whole situation.

Agnes was apparently overweight as a result of having little space to run or get much exercise. A veterinarian was not called to be on hand for the transport. He was only called when she collapsed. I was able to retrieve a news article about this on the Internet. The vet said that her heart wasn't in the best condition and, after she collapsed, it was a mistake to try to get her to stand up again. He added that it would have been wiser to have attempted the move earlier in the day or later in the evening rather than in the afternoon heat of a Florida September day. Unfortunately, there were many spectators, on their way to the big Circus performance, that stopped to watch and became witnesses to the sad event.

Other than that one event, the animals appeared to be well cared for. The elephant barn was open and airy with large viewing areas where the public could look in as they walked by. I know there are folks who are totally against the restraint or training of any exotic animal, but I will always be a circus fan and the animals are a big part of that. There were a few animal acts, however, that I felt just didn't belong. I've never like to see bears in the circus, for one, and Circus World had a chimpanzee act for a short time that I just felt was wrong for the place. It just didn't seem right to see primates wearing collars, and bears too, for that matter. None of our other acts, even some dog acts, required the animals to wear collars.

I hope to dig up some pictures of my circus days so I can scan them to the computer. Until then, May All Your Days be Circus Days!

Carrie was a Good Pet

Sorry that it’s been over a month since I’ve posted. It was a busy time during which I was back at the veterinarian twice; the last visit was to finally put Carolina rat to sleep. After Sugar had her dental incident, I found a lump under Carolina’s jaw. Thinking this was surely a tumor, I made an appointment to have the vet look at her with the likelihood she would be euthanized. If you recall, I had done the same thing a few weeks prior and what I thought was a tumor was a very treatable ear infection.

Once again, this “tumor” turned out to actually be an abscess. We suspected she got it from being bitten by the new, young rat I picked up at the Bird Expo. We named her Fiona after a character on one of our favorite TV shows, Burn Notice. Little Fiona was chosen from a group of about 20 young rats held in a 10 gallon aquarium. She hadn’t learned any manners yet and was rather food aggressive. I had kept her separated from my two rats for only a few days when I probably should have quarantined her longer. Regardless, her sharp little teeth must have punctured Carrie’s skin when they were fed together and the wound festered on the inside and got infected.

The plan was to put her on antibiotics again and allow the abscess to drain. It was a busy Saturday morning at the vet, so I had to wait about an hour for the doctor to numb the area and then open the abscess with a small incision. I was sent home with instructions to use a warm compress on the wound two to three times a day. I knew this was not something I had time for, but I didn’t want to euthanize this rat when she still had so much spirit left. I took her home and put her in a separate cage where she wouldn’t have to climb and could eat unchallenged. She still came out to visit with the other rats, but had to be supervised.

When we treated her abscess, we took her to the kitchen in a little, soft, dog house designed for a stuffed animal. Carrie seemed to really like it in there and would just curl up stay put. What she didn’t like was the warm compresses. This rat weighs less than a pound so I was surprised at how she could push my hand away with her little four-fingered paw. After the compress, her cheek would be wet and she’d want to clean it, but that kind of irritated the area and opened the doctor’s incision up more. It was a long two weeks, but I stuck with the daily compresses and meds and eventually the area healed, but developed a hard, round, pebble size lump. The vet said that was where the abscess had walled itself off and the only way to treat that was surgically. This was not an option for Carolina because she was just too old. She was still eating and alert, but she was losing control of her back legs and wasn’t able to climb up or down very well.

We kept her separated from the other two and gave her as much attention as possible. Sometimes, we would put her in the little dog house and let her sit with us while we watched TV. I don’t normally allow the rats to hang out upstairs with us because they just want to explore, but Carrie just stayed in her little house. She tried her best to groom herself, but she would lose balance and have a hard time. She had also lost a lot of hair at this point and just looked kind of raggedy. As she slept in her cage, we could hear squeaky breathing noises. We finally took her in for euthanasia in early June. She was just short of three years which is the length of a rat’s lifespan. She was a good and gentle rat. As with all of our pets, we took her home and buried her in the yard.

Here's Carrie in her little Coconut house. Coconut is a little white dog that goes with the American Girl Dolls. One of our previous old rats liked to sit in this house when my daughter would take the rats into her bedroom. Carrie did the very same thing and it became her little refuge where she could be out of her cage, but still feel secure.

Another Veterinary Visit

I noticed our rat, Sugar, acting off one day. She was still interested in us and coming out, but she would sit in a hunched fashion and kept pawing at her mouth. It really looked like she was just grooming around her mouth, but this was more than usual and I wondered if she had something stuck in her teeth or what.  Of course, it was a Saturday night and no veterinarians would be available to call until Monday. I wasn’t even sure there was anything wrong since she was so active and eating.

Well, that’s not true. It worried me that she was grinding her teeth. Birds grind their beaks to soothe themselves, often right before they go to sleep. Rabbits, guinea pigs and rodents grind when they’re in pain. I decided to give her a tiny dose of Metacam that I had leftover from another pet. This pain medication seemed to help as she slept soundly that Sunday and came out to visit when we approached later. I only gave the one dose and Monday morning she was still acting off, but I had to go to work. 

I started thinking about what the problem could be. Just two days before I had witnessed her falling off the table on which our rat complex is arranged. She has escaped from the table before so this certainly wasn’t her first time dropping three feet, but since Carolina’s aged and been sick, Sugar has been doing more eating. Maybe since she gained a little weight, the fall was more traumatic or maybe she just hit her head or mouth just right. When she was still a little hunched and grinding the next morning, I made a vet appointment since it was my day off.

While Sugar was investigating the counter top in the exam room, with all its glass jars and the can of Cheez Whiz (probably for ferrets), I stressed to the technician, who always comes in to get the lowdown before the doctor enters, that they might think I'm crazy because this rat certainly didn’t look sick at first glance. I think it took Dr. Katie less than a minute to look in Sugar’s mouth and determine she’d broken her two top incisors. “Oh no,” I said, because I know rat incisors grow continuously and grind each other down. Without the top to grind the bottom, what would happen?

Dr. Katie said I could give her more Metacam as needed and to just watch to see if those lower teeth become overgrown. If the top teeth don’t grow in fast enough, she may have to come back for a tooth trim which must be done under sedation. All I heard was $$$$. While I didn’t like the news, it felt good to know that I wasn’t crazy and there really was something amiss as suspected. It kind of reassured me, as a pet owner, that I still have a clue as to what I’m doing. I didn’t take any meds home and only had to pay the exam fee so it wasn’t too bad. I noticed two little nubs of Sugar’s top incisors coming in within a week so there would be no need for a tooth trim. It later occurred to me how she might have broken her teeth if it wasn’t from falling off the table.

Every morning, I give the two rats a snack as soon as I go to the basement and turn on the low lights. They come out and take their portion and run to wherever. With Carrie slowing down and not feeling well at this time (see previous post), Sugar quickly grabbed two portions. I saw this and said, “No way, you’re not getting both,” and quickly grabbed her up and tugged at the food in her mouth. She’s a gentle rat so I wasn’t worried about getting bit, but I was quite surprised at the strength she had to hang on. Once I retrieved the extra piece, she ran off and ate the one she had. I can’t remember if she squeaked when I grabbed that food or not, but I’m pretty sure that was the moment she broke her teeth because that particular food object was something hard, like a nut or nugget.

Whatever happened, all’s well that ends well. It was another hard lesson learned on my part. I think I mentioned early on in this blog that mistakes have been made. This time it only cost me $45 and some guilt.

Here's our girl having some popcorn. What a face. Sugar is a Dumbo rat so her ears lie sideways rather than pointing up. She's about a year and four months old here, not quite halfway through her life.