Cocoa, Chester and Miscellaneous Updates

It's been a while and I have sooo much new happening. Vermin Village will open mid-November. Time has been taken up with some last minute classes. Precious and Shäst have bonded and share a cage. I did have them in a "bigger" cage that I made, but I decided it was too unwieldy and had some sharp edges. So I am going to have a "custom" addition made at Quality Cages. They have a wheel, but they don't use it as they are too busy keeping house.

I picked up a jumbo rat named Chester. He is under 6 months old, big, lovable guy. He is by himself right now. I'm hoping to see if he can join Knick and Knack and have some pals.

I clamped the 2 five story rat mansions together and it makes a wonderful 10-story cage for my 4 brothers, Rico, Baxter, Worth and Mosco.

Pepé, the mouse, kept having one of the three brothers escape from their habitat and into his habitat. The first time it happened, Pepé had the intruder pinned up the tube. The second time it happened, Curly had Pepé pinned up in the tube. I thought they were escaping outside of their habitats through the wheel open. Last night, I saw differently. They were escaping out the DOOR. The spaces were too wide on the door. So I've replaced with 1/2 x 1/2 inch wire.

While John was in Tennessee, I acquired Cocoa from the Oregon Humane Society. She was the last of a family of gerbils. She was the only black gerbil AND she was there several weeks longer. (Black animals stay in the shelter longer than other animals, that is why most shelters have "adopt a black dog" week.) John had mentioned he liked the rats, but they were asleep when he got home from work. Cocoa is awake during the day. We had a HUGE aquarium that we got for $5 at the Columbia Humane Society Rummage Sale. I got her a ceramic sand bath and put Chinchilla sand in it, a wheel, some tubes and about 4 inches of paper bedding and hay. She went to town! I know she hadn't had a sand bath in some time as she was at the shelter for over a month. She jumped right in. The next day, her coat was VERY nice. She rearranges her decor every day AND she LOVES the wheel. At first I had it on the 4 inches of bedding, but she kept tunneling underneath and eventually the wheel wouldn't move anymore. Now I tape the stand to the TOP of the aquarium (there is a lip) and she loves it even more there. (Sounds like the damn thing is about to carry the aquarium off!)