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You did what you could and gave them a new, better start. I'm sorry you didn't get to spend more time with the Doc 
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Dec 29, 2012 02:08
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Having some dominance issues. General humping and sometimes not letting the smaller pig eat. Two cage time or are there some tricks to help them get along? My wife is crushed because she got the little one because he was getting roughed up, and now the same thing is happening again.
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Dec 29, 2012 05:49
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Are hamsters capable of love. Serious post
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Dec 29, 2012 16:35
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Love of food or love of people? Because the answer to the former is yes and the answer to the latter is yes, if you have food.
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Dec 29, 2012 16:38
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Vital Signs posted:Having some dominance issues. General humping and sometimes not letting the smaller pig eat. Two cage time or are there some tricks to help them get along? My wife is crushed because she got the little one because he was getting roughed up, and now the same thing is happening again. How big is the cage? Do you have more than one food bowl/hidey house/toy/etc? Having two cages is a chore and pigs don't like to live by themselves. Unless they are fighting to the point of injury I really wouldn't separate them. They will work out their herd dominance sooner or later (it might take a while). The bigger the cage the better for this, and make sure there is two of everything so one pig cannot take over the food, water, house, etc. They'll mellow out eventually.
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Dec 29, 2012 16:51
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Sirotan posted:How big is the cage? Do you have more than one food bowl/hidey house/toy/etc? Having two cages is a chore and pigs don't like to live by themselves. Unless they are fighting to the point of injury I really wouldn't separate them. They will work out their herd dominance sooner or later (it might take a while). The bigger the cage the better for this, and make sure there is two of everything so one pig cannot take over the food, water, house, etc. They'll mellow out eventually.
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Dec 29, 2012 19:54
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Vital Signs posted:Yeah, they need a bigger cage and we need to make sure they are not having to share anything. I'll be picking up stuff to build them one of the wire type cages, and I'm wondering was I can find that will work as a basin of a 9 or 10 sq foot cage. I assume you have to use bedding or fleece(I think?), and that having some type of vinyl or linoleum isn't good enough. Maybe they make rubbermaids that big that I could line before putting bedding in? Here is a great how-to: http://www.guineapigcages.com/howto.htm This is pretty much how I build my cages, and use Coroplast as the lining. You can find it at sign shops in 8'x4' sheets in a variety of colors. I can usually get a sheet of it for ~$20 if I call around. The hardest part was just getting it home since you'd need a van or truck to move it without having to crease it. I also use hot glue to put it all together, works and looks better than packing tape. I use fleece and towels for my bedding that I sew together. I love it and the pigs do too, but you'll probably need to invest in a hand vac to sweep up poop everyday.
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Dec 29, 2012 20:06
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Sirotan posted:It doesn't sound like the owners of the shop you got the pigs at are the best resource on pig information so I'm not sure I'd advise you to go back to them re: sexing. I let her have a look. Since it seems like everyone agrees that the brown one is a girl we let her back in with the others. Now she's happy, but every time she smells the pups she runs off. I don't think she could've been the father anyway, since the pups have no brown in them, but I can't quite figure out guinea pig genetics. I'm a bit worried about the pups. They're white with pinkish eyes, and I found a video of a semi-blind pup that looks and acts just like them. They don't follow the mother when she goes off, they just sit there and squeak, or chew on some grass until she comes back. Should they be following her by now? How long does it take before pups start seeing properly? Apart from the eyes they seem healthy, they run around in and a little outside of their house, jump into the food dish, and one has started popcorning. They seem to nurse all right, and eat hay, but they haven't eaten any vegetables or pellets yet. How devoted are guinea pig mothers? She did a good job cleaning them after the birth, but she's a bit impatient when they nurse; she tends to step on them and run off when she gets bored, hungry or startled. She comes running back after a while, but not as quickly as when I rattle the food bag. I guess she expects them to tag along. I've been looking at different online resources, and if I understand this correctly only roans and dalmatians get lethal whites? She doesn't look like any of the roans I've seen pictures of. Here are some pictures of them, if anybody could help me identify the coloring, and if the pups look like lethals. They're a little blurry because I didn't want to flash them. The mother. Is she a roan? I can't tell.  The mother and her platonic female friend, a few days before the birth.  The pups.  We guinea-pig-proofed a decent floor space when we bought the first pair, set up some hiding places, and bought them a rug each to sleep on. She gave birth in a wooden crate and it seems like the pups like it there. One of them would much rather eat the rug than the hay though. After reading up I'm getting worried about the bedding we use too. They only have one type in both the pet stores here, and it only says "soft wood shavings". It doesn't smell of anything, so I don't think it's cedar. I'm guessing pine, but I don't know if it's dried. The box is mainly full of hay now.
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Dec 29, 2012 20:28
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Yeah she looks like she has roaning on her butt. Get them all to a pig savvy vet who can determine if they're lethals. If they are, the extent of their disability may force you to decide if you want to care for special needs pigs for 3-5 years, or just euthanize them now.
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Dec 29, 2012 23:38
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So here is a pretty weird question, but just here me out. So, is it possible that gerbils can give people pimples? I'm not really pimple prone, but recently (since I've gotten my gerbs) I've been getting pimples on places where I let my gerbils climb on me, like my forearm, upper shoulder and neck. My theory is that their sharp (and most likely dirty) little claws scratch and very very slightly pierce the skin leaving dirt in the pores or something. Am I on to something or am I just crazy? On another note, how long is too long for gerbil nails?
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Dec 30, 2012 11:15
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I bought the chins a bag of food while I was visiting my parents since I forgot to order some before I left and they were almost out. I had to leave some of my stuff behind to fit their food in my luggage so they could have it as soon as I got back. I hope the little jerks appreciate what I do for them.
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Dec 30, 2012 13:06
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alucinor posted:Yeah she looks like she has roaning on her butt. Get them all to a pig savvy vet who can determine if they're lethals. If they are, the extent of their disability may force you to decide if you want to care for special needs pigs for 3-5 years, or just euthanize them now. Ditto this. Guinea pigs aren't terribly devoted mothers, in general. The pups can eat solid food as soon as they're born, and they don't tend to coddle and nuzzle and snuggle with them as much as you'd see from species like rats and such. In general, they tend to just wander off and assume the babies are following them. Do you have a small flashlight? Shine it at the babies' eyes to try and get a reflection. Pigs that are blind will reflect silver instead of red.
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Dec 30, 2012 19:19
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Rodent Mortician posted:Do you have a small flashlight? Shine it at the babies' eyes to try and get a reflection. Pigs that are blind will reflect silver instead of red. Thank you, I'll try that. She seems to sit still so the pups can nurse some more now. She does a good job. I think she's figured out that the pups can't follow her, so if one wanders off and starts crying she'll nudge it back to the crate with her nose. One of the two seems to eat hay fine, but the other one has tiny incisors, so it just gums the grass. I got them to eat some adult food soaked in orange juice. They seemed to like it. Is juice ok for them, or should I soak it in water? In any case, for now they seem to do all right nursing. I ordered some alfalfa pellets online for them, since the local stores don't have any pup food. Apparently the old ones should have some too, they're barely four months old. Oxbow is a good brand, right?
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Dec 31, 2012 13:38
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Luftvaffel posted:the other one has tiny incisors, so it just gums the grass Almost certainly a lethal. Vet, ASAP. Poor little bugger. Yes, oxbow is great. OJ is fine on the short term - the sugars are bad for digestion, but they may need the extra vitamin C till you can get some good food for them. Don't forget to get extra copies of your vet receipts and submit them to the pet store with a reimbursement request. They'll almost certainly ignore you but since it's the holidays someone may feel guilty enough to give you a store credit or something.
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Dec 31, 2012 20:44
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Ok, here's my last but and more serious than my last post question for a while. I like to listen to music in my room, which is also where my gerbils are stationed. The problem is, I like to listen to my music really loud. It's not like I have a super bass speakers that shake everything when I use them, but a part of me tells me my gerbils wouldn't appreciate the music like I do, so I've toned it down since I've gotten them. Should I continue doing this or can I listen to my music to my hearts content like I use to. Most of my other animals didn't seem to mind my music blasting before I got the gerbils, like my cats and dog would still sleep in my room whether I was playing music or not.
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Jan 1, 2013 05:22
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Reintroduced my hamsters in the playpen and they haven't fought, other than what looked like a little slapping fight. Now they are snuggled in the burrow box I bought. Might put them back together in the cage I just bought and see if they get along without any serious scrapping. Then I might get a Syrian to keep to. 
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Jan 1, 2013 15:50
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I think it's foolish and risking both their lives by putting them in the same cage to live together again after they already had previous altercations. They will get along exactly until the point that they don't, and one day you'll check on them and find half a hamster and another, much fatter hamster. Certain hamster types are extremely solitary animals and tend to fight to the death on a whim when put together in a confined space as they can't just chase one out of their territory, they're constantly stuck in the same space nearby. Syrians do, and I bet Roborovskis do too. Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jan 1, 2013 |
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Jan 1, 2013 17:09
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Robos definitely do, coming from a Petco employee. They have to have their own cage because the mortality rates of keeping them together is ridiculous. Not sure why we house our mice together but keep robos separate though.
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Jan 1, 2013 17:13
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A Sloth posted:Reintroduced my hamsters in the playpen and they haven't fought, other than what looked like a little slapping fight. Now they are snuggled in the burrow box I bought. Might put them back together in the cage I just bought and see if they get along without any serious scrapping. Then I might get a Syrian to keep to. I hope you like risking your pets' lives if you put them back together!  Pew! Pew! posted:Robos definitely do, coming from a Petco employee. They have to have their own cage because the mortality rates of keeping them together is ridiculous. If you're talking about male mice, especially if they're littermates, they are USUALLY fine until something like four-five months. Some will be fine for months (or even a year+) and others will try to kill cagemates younger. Mice 
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Jan 1, 2013 17:26
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What's the point of trying to house them together, exactly? They don't get any real benefit out of it, other than warmth when they cuddle up I guess, and it stresses them out. Not to mention the whole possibly shredding each other's faces thing. If you have two cages already, just house them separately. Animals that aren't social by nature really don't need to be housed in groups, and maintaining two separate cages isn't really much more work than a single cage.
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Jan 1, 2013 17:30
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Fraction posted:If you're talking about male mice, especially if they're littermates, they are USUALLY fine until something like four-five months. Some will be fine for months (or even a year+) and others will try to kill cagemates younger. To be fair there's only be two instances of cannibalism in the mice since I've been working there (a few months) and it was always that one rear end in a top hat mouse who bit everything and tried to shove other mice around that got eaten. Hubris is bad for animals in groups, apparently.
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Jan 1, 2013 17:42
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Are they all fairly young mice?
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Jan 1, 2013 17:50
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Yeah, none are over a year old. We normally get batches of litters, separate by sex, and put them in respective tanks according to sex. e: I'm not sure how old but I'd like to say barely weaned, going by the size of f/t weaned mice. I am not the mice person because they bite too much 
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Jan 1, 2013 17:59
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That's why they don't fight  Few males will tolerate each other after a couple of months, but rarely some do fight as early as (iirc) ~10 weeks. It's why breeders generally--and correctly--tell buyers not to house males together (no matter what rat ladies think.
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Jan 1, 2013 18:28
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They where two winter whites or some sort of hybrid... I think they where meant to be siblings but I don't know about that. I thought they where meant to be sociable and burrow in groups? One is a lot bigger and is of pearl colouration, the smaller one sapphire wit a few white patches on his topside. They started fighting a little after I'd bought them, but before that they where fine... they never drew blood either. I took the risk of putting them in a playpen together and they got on without incident. I've just been watching them like a hawk since I put them in the cage together anyway... small one got territorial again so back separate they are.
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Jan 1, 2013 18:28
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If one is consistently being aggressive/territorial and trying to provoke fights please don't put them together again. Many hamsters are social until they aren't.
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Jan 1, 2013 18:52
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Yes. You will be responsible for the death of at least one of them if you continue putting them together. Please don't think you can fix them or they're some special case, and take the advice of this thread to never put them together again.
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Jan 1, 2013 19:01
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Pew! Pew! posted:Robos definitely do, coming from a Petco employee. They have to have their own cage because the mortality rates of keeping them together is ridiculous. Interesting, the two Petcos I shop at separate robos by sex, but house them together and even have little plaques that say they're social and should be housed in pairs. The clerks told me the same thing when I bought my pair, and when I took one of them back less than 24 hours later because one was being extremely aggressive, the clerk gave me a whole spiel about how I should pick out a second robo from the same litter to bring home so the one I had left didn't get lonely. He actually chastised me for deciding to keep a solitary Robo. I'm glad I didn't take their advice at face value and checked this thread and some other resources, but it's not surprising that people think they should be housed together with the way those stores were selling them. e: Since the separation I have been pampering the tiny hamster with toys and fun environments. I couldn't bear the thought of the bigger one hurting or possibly even killing him, and their brief 24 hours together has taught me to never attempt to house two robos again, and to trust only reliable sources of information coming from reputable organizations, rather than pet store facts and the million hamster fansites out there that are positively insistent that they can and should be paired up. I think the main source of confusion is that the reputable animal care organizations like the ASPCA recommend keeping dwarf hamsters in pairs, but don't go so far as to distinguish between robo dwarfs and campbell's dwarfs. Sumac fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jan 1, 2013 |
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Jan 1, 2013 19:54
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Petco and other big name pet stores are probably the worst places to buy pets from or solicit information about animal care. They routinely sell animals that are in poor health, and in those rare occasions I have to enter one, I can't even bring myself to look at the tiny tiny cages they house the rodents in, especially the guinea pigs. It just breaks my heart. The people that work there probably mean well but I don't think they are trained particularly extensively. tl;dr Don't give them your money and don't use them as an information resource on animal care.
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Jan 1, 2013 20:03
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Sirotan posted:Petco and other big name pet stores are probably the worst places to buy pets from or solicit information about animal care. They routinely sell animals that are in poor health, and in those rare occasions I have to enter one, I can't even bring myself to look at the tiny tiny cages they house the rodents in, especially the guinea pigs. It just breaks my heart. The people that work there probably mean well but I don't think they are trained particularly extensively. Yeah, that's good advice, and to be clear I was not using them as an informational resource or advocating that anyone else do so. I went there because for small rodents like robos, they house them in much better conditions than any of the small independant pet stores in my area, but their ferret and guinea pig cages were appalling. I would go so far as to say don't use them as an information resource, but be wary of rodent community forums too, as the consensus advice there tends to be every bit as harmful. I'd be interested to know if there's a good resource for finding robo breeders, because it would be nice to not give them my money, but I'm sure as hell not giving it to any of the horrid mom and pop stores around here.
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Jan 1, 2013 20:11
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Yeah, even though I know some thing about animal care, pet store employees are bad to rely on in general. The majority just repeat what they're told and what's on care sheets. I was lucky enough that I have a manager willing to listen to suggestions, but a lot of them don't. e: The policies on how to keep them vary by store and state, so there's that too.
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Jan 1, 2013 20:27
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Pew! Pew! posted:Yeah, even though I know some thing about animal care, pet store employees are bad to rely on in general. The majority just repeat what they're told and what's on care sheets. I was lucky enough that I have a manager willing to listen to suggestions, but a lot of them don't. I think that's the same with any store, really. I wish the stores around me had someone knowledgeable like you, instead I got a clerk who told me to pair them up, and avoid giving them a wheel because they can become "addicted to it," but that's not unique to pet stores. Getting animal care advice from one is like getting computer repair advice from a Staples; there are highly knowledgeable and overqualified people working there that can give you fantastic advice, but for every one of them there's four others who have no idea what they're talking about. I do think it's difficult to parse the good info from the bad with certain breeds, though. I mean, it's one thing for a pet store to give some bad advice, but when the ASPCA and the Humane Society both give the same bad advice, that's another problem entirely. Through my extensive pre-purchase research, this thread is the only place I've found where there actually seems to be a consensus against keeping robos together. I'm glad I read it in the end, but it's not surprising that so many people try to house robos together when the ASPCA & Humane Society have web sites advising people to keep dwarf hamsters in pairs (they treat robos and campbell's as the same type of hamster), when the pet store info placard tells you to keep them in pairs, and most community sites for robos tell you to keep them in pairs. I know I already asked about breeders, but for those of you that are knowledgeable about robos, is there a good, reliable source of information out there at all, or are you all drawing from first-hand knowledge?
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Jan 1, 2013 20:40
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Sirotan posted:Petco and other big name pet stores are probably the worst places to buy pets from or solicit information about animal care. They routinely sell animals that are in poor health, and in those rare occasions I have to enter one, I can't even bring myself to look at the tiny tiny cages they house the rodents in, especially the guinea pigs. It just breaks my heart. The people that work there probably mean well but I don't think they are trained particularly extensively. I was actually about to make a post asking how you guys felt about this. I'm always really wary of buying anything from pet stores like this even if the animals look healthy and well-cared for, but it can be really difficult to find breeders or other places selling small animals that aren't feeder mice (I got lucky and found someone who breeds winter whites in my area after a lot of Googling). I went to Petco a couple days ago for their fish tank sale, and they had a male campbell's dwarf hamster for adoption that someone had given to them. When I asked about him suddenly every employee in the store swarmed me to tell me not to take him because he bites... while reaching into the tank (which was almost completely empty except for some basic stuff) and sticking their fingers in his face, then exclaiming he almost took a finger off when he was just sniffing them. They then told me I should buy a syrian hamster or a rat instead. It was really bizarre. I appreciated them telling me he had issues, but they were so adamant about me not getting any type of dwarf hamster that it was bordering on rude, so I left without buying anything. Experiences like that are why I never feel good about buying anything but supplies there.
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Jan 1, 2013 20:49
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That seems really weird and counter-productive to, you know, the aims of the shop. Unless they were trying to get you to buy a more expensive pet over paying an adoption fee...? Personally I have little qualms about buying rodents from pet shops. I've tried to do the responsible breeder thing before and it backfired on me (mice all combusting at less than a year old, dickish ratladies). From now on its pet shops and bybs
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Jan 1, 2013 21:19
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Fraction posted:
This. If hamster ladies are anywhere near as insane and retarded as ratladies, I dunno why anyone would bother.
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Jan 1, 2013 21:21
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Superconsndar posted:This. If hamster ladies are anywhere near as insane and retarded as ratladies, I dunno why anyone would bother. I don't know that there are really that many hamster ladies, but from experience the big shelters here have hamsters all the time because of retarded Petcos and Petsmarts selling pregnant hamsters. They almost never get adopted, and then they're euthanized en masse. Hell, when San Fran was going to ban all pet sales a couple of years ago, it emerged that the most euthanized animal was... hamsters. Nobody wants 'em, there's no big hamster rescue movement. They just hang out until they're dead.
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Jan 1, 2013 22:08
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Fraction posted:That seems really weird and counter-productive to, you know, the aims of the shop. Unless they were trying to get you to buy a more expensive pet over paying an adoption fee...? Honestly I can kind of understand that. If the animals are raised and cared for properly it does give me some peace of mind, but there's not much guarantee on that or on longevity for animals don't live long and are prone to things like cancer anyway so I can see why people wouldn't bother. I've never dealt with crazy mouse/rat people so I can't speak to that part of it, but if my only choices were pet shops or insane breeders I might go the simpler route too. The lady I'm talking to about hamsters seems pretty friendly and sane, though, so maybe it's different for them. I don't know.
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Jan 1, 2013 22:57
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Not Your Senorita posted:Honestly I can kind of understand that. If the animals are raised and cared for properly it does give me some peace of mind, but there's not much guarantee on that or on longevity for animals don't live long and are prone to things like cancer anyway so I can see why people wouldn't bother. I've never dealt with crazy mouse/rat people so I can't speak to that part of it, but if my only choices were pet shops or insane breeders I might go the simpler route too. Eh, mouse breeders just tend to be more down to earth versions of rat breeders. Rat ladies, no matter how much they claim to breed for health, generally just breed for colour. That's it. Mouse breeders primarily just breed for shows but at least they're honest about it, and most won't even sell their mice to people because they cull so ruthlessly that they have no idea of the long term health of their lines. They can be dicks, still, though. (I emailed the breeder of my mice after each mouse death, and after the first one died he responded with a basic 'sorry to hear it' and never replied to any of my other messages.) I've bought rats from decent and lovely pet shops and, really, all that has differed there has been the socialisation they've had so far. With rat breeders, you're not even guaranteed a longer lifespan; no matter how much rat ladies claim to breed for health, the vast majority of them still have rats popping tumours and getting HLD and having chronic respiratory problems and dying pretty drat young. But at least their rats are pretty colours right ~breeders~
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Jan 1, 2013 23:51
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^^^^ Yup, the honesty issue is what does it for me. Mouse breeders largely don't pretend that they're breeding for anything but color and will often tell you as much. Rat breeders are generally wrapped up in so many layers of crazy and delusion that they don't *realize* they're only breeding for color, and are shrill and insane about ~bybs~ while often either not following up on the long term health of what they're producing, making "exceptions" and breeding crappy rats or from crappy lines to get a trait or two they want, and make most of their breeding decisions based on the collective opinion of either their entire ratlady group, or whoever happens to be queen bitch of that rat lady group at the time. Anyone who doesn't breed the way they do is a byb, and anyone who obtains a rat from anyone but them or a rescue is fueling rat abuse and torture. Their rats are not reliably healthier than pet store rats, which I really don't have a problem with, but the cognitive dissonance involved is insane and I feel for people who try to get better pet rats by going to "responsible" breeders and ending up with the same problems in prettier packages down the road. I keep touch with a few of my more tolerable old rat people contacts for when I want a pretty rat, but for the most part dealing with them isn't worth it.
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Jan 2, 2013 00:27
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| # ? May 15, 2024 17:50 |
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Fraction posted:That seems really weird and counter-productive to, you know, the aims of the shop. Unless they were trying to get you to buy a more expensive pet over paying an adoption fee...? It's only counter-productive if you assume the minimum-wage clerks rushing to dissuade adoption actually cared about their parent company's profit margin. Most of the chain pet stores only offer small rodents like that up for adoption when they were returned to the store due to a behavioral problem (the sort of problem they don't just euthanize immediately upon return for). To bring up my earlier analogy, when I worked at Staples in high school I let customers know up front when the "Staples Protection Plan" was a huge waste of money, because basic human decency and honesty made more sense than acting in the best interests of the shareholders of the company that was paying me $6.25/hour to sell printer ink. Again though, if guys like Sirotan know of a good resource for identifying reputable places to get small rodents like dwarf hamsters, I would seriously love to know of it, but I spent a good two months looking before I made my decision, and I'm much happier giving Petco my money than giving it to the mom & pop scumbags that house 10+ unsexed hamsters in a 2'x5' plastic pet carrier. As it is, I think the "gently caress Petco" attitude is inappropriate and knee-jerk when you start getting into the small rodent world. It makes sense when you're talking about guinea pigs or ferrets, but that's not what was being discussed.
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Jan 2, 2013 01:21
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