Our furbabies got old!! Update time

Hi babes,
Today I'm rewriting the furrybabies blogpost that I promised earlier. It's a long one so prepare yourself.

Last week on Wednesday the 28th of June I believe, we lost Jack the gerbil. He was a very old little gerbil. He was somewhere between four and five years old. Over a year ago we lost his little brother Twinkie so we never expected him to live this long. We kinda figured he would die out of loneliness but he persevered and we tried to keep up by giving him so much attention. My brother became a replacement Twinkie, as he's the only boy in the house Jack gravitated toward my brother. He bloody loved my brother. He became a lot more tame over the last year. He was so active and was always running around, jumping through the room(he would always jump of the bed and claim the rest of the room), reclaiming his territory after my hamster would've been in the room before him, shredding every piece of cardboard the could get his paws on.

Anyways it was all fun and games untill about a month ago he became sick. When I got home we noticed he wouldn't use his back legs anymore. Just like that out of the blue, he didn't fall or anything so he couldn't have broken something. He also had a small wound on his foot but even when that healed, he didn't start using his legs again. We were prepared for things to go quickly by this point, we didn't think he would make it through the night. Anais wasn't even home so I begged Jack the gerbil to hold on until she got home and boy he did, he held on and on and managed to get by, half paralysed might I add, for longer than a MONTH. We have one though cookie of a gerbil. He didn't seemed to be in pain or sad about it. He managed to live with his handicap and did almost everything as he used too, even with the heathwave that was going on. He would still rip toiletrolls to shreds, he would just do it laying down,... The only difference was he didn't want to go out of his cage anymore nor did he want human contact. I think he felt more vulnorable and less safe because he couldn't really safe himself anymore incase of danger.

About a week before he died he would start to bury his bottom half in to the bedding and just eat like that, he started to chew on wood/cardboard less and less. The last two days he didn't move himself at all anymore, he started to eat less to barely anything, he slept continuously and eventually died in his sleep. Which is the best outcome I guess, you never want to see your pet suffer it's best if they go in their sleep. He had a good life and we were so happy to have had him in our lives as long as we did. Gerbils are just the best creatures. <3

Onto Ganache the hamster, he's also getting old. He's past the two-year-old mark and we're starting to notice. He's more grey than brown. He isn't as active anymore, also doesn't want to come out of the cage as badly as he used to. He would do anything in the past to get out and get cuddles and free running space but now he just seems to tired for it.

He got a bit sick over the winter. He had an eye that kept getting clogged up. It was sticky and stuck both eyelids together so he couldn't see if we didn't rub it open with a warm cloth. Eventually we took him to the vets and as by miracle just arriving at the vet seemed to heal him. Nothing to see except the most active excited little hamster but the vet gave us eyedrops just in case. Of course by the end of the week his eye got sticky again and he had to have a week of antibiotic eyedrops twice a day. It was a struggle as he really didn't want to get these drops but we made it, his eye healed and has been healthy ever since.

Over the past days we noticed he sleeps most of the day and night, he doesn't run (as far as I can tell) in his wheel. He breathes faster and his heartrate seems to be up. He stumbles and seems to fall over a lot of the time. We fear he might have diabetes which apparently has these symptoms. We've put him on a sugarfree diabetes diet and hope this will fix it or at least keep it under control. We did give him a lot of fruit en veggies over the past month maybe that has caused it together with his old age? We don't know but hope for te best. I'll update when things change.

Goodbyeeee
- Nikki

The Furry Babies Update - Jack

Hi babes,
There are few things I love more than my animals so I couldn't wait to do another furry babies update. The last one was an introduction to Ganache (you can read that one here). So today I'll talk about Anais' baby. Our little Jack, the gerbil.

Maybe you'll remember but Jack had a brother named Twinkie. (more here and here)He sadly passed away a few months ago near the time the other three brothers (Desert, Snow and Sky) passed away. All of them got sick. The sad part of owning small rodents is; vets can barely help them, other than giving very thinned out antibiotics there's just nothing you can do. That leaves Jack on his own for now.

Jack is over three years old now which makes it hard to match him with a new friend because he is already older and has always been quite dominant. The fact that we lack knowledge and experience to be a good matchmaker doesn't help either so we're trying to give him so much things to do and give him a lot of attention so he doesn't get lonely. *hoping that works and he's happy* Other than being possibly lonely he's still very healthy and seems happy. Let's hope he'll stay with us for a few more years

Goodbyeeeee

- Nikki

What the munchies got up to #3

 Hi lovelies,
I hope you're ready for this, a couple of weekend ago I sat down with my camera to watch Anais' little munchies play and run around. For the ones that don't know, she owns 5 gerbils. They are all boys but from different nests so we have 2 boys in one cage and 3 from the other nest in another. The ones you'll be looking at now are Jack(the brown one) and Twinkie(the light grey one). Gerbils are very active rodents, they are a true joy to watch. They run around like mad men, can jump incredibly high for such small animals, can turn into fuzzy balls of fur that cuddle each other, they're just adorable and so interesting to observe for hours on end.

Mr burns hands

Laying all comfy in the sun, they love to lounge around in the sunlight.

Smileyface.

Voila, those were my little cutesies, I hope you like watching them as much as I do.

Goodbyeeee

- Nikki

What the munchies got up to #1

Hi lovelies, 

My laptop is full of animal pictures so I have another animal post planned for today. I just love my tiny munchies so much. I also have a little Marshie-update. She is absolutely cute and adorable but she is such a little scaredypants. We think she might be blind or at least doesn't see as well as she's supposed to see. It's not the biggest problem because hamsters can smell very well and just feel everything with her whiskers. The only problem is that because she doesn't see very well, she's easily scared when she hears noises she doesn't know or if she just get surprised. It's harder to get her out her cage to get a bond and play with her but lately it's getting better. She has gotten to know me better and now crawls on my hands and let me hold her. She has also gotten comfortable just walking around and exploring. Makes me a very happy hamstermommy.

Little Jack holding on to his drinking bowl.

Marshmellow emptied her hamsteringcheeks. This all came out, can you believe that?

Exploring

Peep

Exploring some more

Mommy, you there?

Just chillin' with my paws up

Ah so cuteeeeeeeeeeeee, 

Goodbyeeee

- Nikki

What Anais bought - Gerbil edition

Hi lovelies, 

So this happened... again... As I went to the animal store to get some food for my little muchie my mom noticed they had babygerbils. I looked and saw that there were 3 and about as big as the last nest that I told you about, the ones that disappeared. They probably are from the same nest and brought back to the store. Nonetheless, I told Anais, and with 'told her' I mean called her right away to than realise she was still in class. So I followed that call with numerous excited texts. Only a couple days(the 9th) later we went back to the store and took our 3 new boys home and boy, we couldn't have been more excited. 

This means we have now 5 gerbies, which don't live in the same place because they might kill each other and we don't want that. 2 bigger ones and 3 brandnew babies.

We have 2 sandcolours and 1 white one. In total that makes 1 wildcolour, 1 white one, 1 light grey one and 2 sand ones. Apparently we're going for all the colours here. They are so small, about 5cm and so fast that you can't possibly try to grab them because you would crush them. They squeak all the time what surprised us because none of the others do that but after a quick google search it turned out that was normal for babies because they are excited all the time. Just as we are now that we have them. 

Now for the exciting part what are the names? So we already had Jack and Twinkie and now we have added Desert, Skye and Snow. Snow is the white one. 

Fun fact : They fit easily with 2 in one basic toiletroll

They are so freakin' adorable, I can't even... aaaaaaah

Goodbyeeee

- Nikki

You're like a dictionary, you add meaning to my life

Hi lovelies, 

Don't be surprised, I'm here with animal pictures again. I can't bear it, to not take pictures of them. Too damn adorable. I even have a surprise animal for y'all. Jep I just typed y'all. It sounded right in my head. You've never seen it at my blog before, it will excite you so keep on scrolling. 

First and for all in the category My Cute Hamster: Cocopuff

As you may or may not remember from this post, my hamster thought it would be nice to climb into his food bowl by pulling himself upwards. It did work, he was strong and looked adorable but here is the downside (look below). He did it so much that he scuffed his belly and now has a bald roll of fat. I moved his branch of wood to the side because I was afraid that if he kept doing it, he would start to bleed and the healing would itch. It's just better to prevent right? A couple of weeks later he is growing little fuzzy hairs on his bald spot. He'll be fine

In the second category, Anais' fat cat: Mousti 

Hoovercat below

Third category, The New Gerbies: Twinkie and Jack

Taking a sand bath together

And now for the most exciting category: New Tenants Of Our Yard, Wild Squirrels

We have noticed that a couple of wild red squirrels live in our yard. It's so exciting because they are pretty rare and getting extinct. You aren't allowed to keep them as pets so I was very excited to see one in real live and they choose to live in our yard, YES. We see them running around, collecting nuts from our walnut tree. They hide them everywhere, in the grass, in our flowerpots,... I'm hoping they make babies and we get to see them in spring ^^

swishy tale

Collecting nuts

Aren't all the pictures adorable. I can't even handle it. 

Goodbyeeee

- Nikki