Bunnies Nibbles and Summer have just left the house to be neutered. My sister took them as I've got work in an hour. They had their breakfast pellets and as rabbits do not vomit, they are allowed food before the surgery. Their carry case had a whole pile of meadow hay at the bottom for them to nibble and I made a mix of timothy hay, alfafa, clover, plantain leaves and some meadow herbs for them to eat after surgery at the vets. They also got a small bag of pellets as a treat.
At Rabbit.org they have a decent faq on spaying and neutering of rabbits. It's got information such as what questions to ask your vet, pre- and post-surgery advice and the benefits of neutering and spaying.
The guinea pigs have gone too as I think they had a fight yesterday when I was at work, Peanut must have taken a chunk out of Butter's nose. It's very sad as when I got back, they kept sizing each other up and in the end we decided to separate them in the cage. This morning, they had not fought when put back together again and it was decided that they should be kept together for the journey to the vets as pigs are less stressed when put together. I just hope they won't fight after. Anyone know if pigs can get along after they had a fight that's serious enough to draw blood?
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Monday, 12 September 2011
Guinea Pig Sitter
I am pig sitting my sister-in-law's two guineas. It took an hour's drive from my brother's house to mine so they were pretty nervous by the end of it. My brother and his wife will be going to the south of France for a week but the pigs will be with me for three weeks. I've stayed at their house before to look after the pigs for a few days but this is the first time I've had them in my house.
Their names are Peanut (light brown and white short hair) and Butter (yellow and white short hair). Peanut and Butter are very nervous piggies as they do not seem to get enough human contact at home. Whilst they do not bite they dislike being held and will run and hide all the time. I hope to change this in the three weeks they are here and hopefully their quality of life will improve. I will keep my animal diary updated with any progress I make with this piggies.
As a general rule, when moving animals to other houses or when buying your pet for the first time, it is best to leave the animal alone for a day. This lets the animal calm down as travelling can be stressful and it lets them explore their new surroundings at their own pace. Basically, you are giving the animal back some control over it's life.
These are a few key steps when bringing a pet home:
Their names are Peanut (light brown and white short hair) and Butter (yellow and white short hair). Peanut and Butter are very nervous piggies as they do not seem to get enough human contact at home. Whilst they do not bite they dislike being held and will run and hide all the time. I hope to change this in the three weeks they are here and hopefully their quality of life will improve. I will keep my animal diary updated with any progress I make with this piggies.
As a general rule, when moving animals to other houses or when buying your pet for the first time, it is best to leave the animal alone for a day. This lets the animal calm down as travelling can be stressful and it lets them explore their new surroundings at their own pace. Basically, you are giving the animal back some control over it's life.
These are a few key steps when bringing a pet home:
- Ensure you have all the necessary items to look after your pet before you buy it. (Food, Housing, Toys and Litter). Choose a quiet room and set the new home up. Choose a place out of direct sunlight and draught.
- After you have chosen your pet, get home straight away.
- Fill up the water bottle and add some food to it's food bowl or hay if it takes hay. Make sure there is adequate bedding.
- Gently place your new friend into it's home and leave it to explore in it's own time. It might seem like a good idea to play with it straight away but if you think about it from an animal point of view, its just moved from the only home it ever knew to an unfamiliar place. It will need some time to get used to its new home.
- After a good few hours, some people recommend to wait till the next morning, you can begin to bond with your pet.
Thursday, 8 September 2011
Hamster Treats from HK (post two)
In 'Hamster Treats from HK (part one)' I mentioned some of the dried fruit and veg that you can buy for your pets in HK. There are some more unusual treats that were also available. For instance, fish.
Yep, dried fish for hammies. I've fed my cat something like this that I got from my local pet shop which he wasn't all that impressed with. I reckon he preferred his fish fresh. My Coshu would take experimental bites but had never ate a whole piece. My cat, however, decided this pack from the east was much tastier than the local pet shop's one and stole the bag. I guess fish is fine for hamsters as it is mentioned on Hamsterific's food list.
This one was little jelly pots full of vegetable flavour jelly (carrot and greens). Coshu really liked it, he would sit there licking the jelly and the pots were similar in size to coffee machine capsules so it was quite big for a hamster. For that reason I never let him have a whole pot. I actually didn't even allow him a quarter as I was worried about sugar and water content. I cannot read the japanese so had no idea what the ingredients are or the quantities. I most likely would not be purchasing this again.
These are chewing treats that were peanut flavour. They were quite hard which was good as my hamster refuses to chew wood. Before I had him on dog biscuits to help wear down his teeth but these were harder. I did wonder about what was in them but it was an occasional treat so I figured it wouldn't cause much harm. This brand is called 'Alex - Animal Farm' and they do lots of different treats as you can see on this Singaporean website: Petronize. I've not bought anything from this website before but they do a big variety of treats by Alex and ship to overseas countries.
There you have it, these are the treats I got in Hong Kong. While the variety is huge over there, I am concerned about how healthy these treats can be and the ingredients that are in them. However, if your pet is in a healthy condition, a small treat will not do a lot of harm.
There you have it, these are the treats I got in Hong Kong. While the variety is huge over there, I am concerned about how healthy these treats can be and the ingredients that are in them. However, if your pet is in a healthy condition, a small treat will not do a lot of harm.
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Gin 'needed' rescuing
Today I had to rescue my poor pathetic cat.
We had scary winds and heavy rain. It was bound to happen at some point and because we had very sunny weather last week so I was expecting this week to be a bit on the glum side. What happened was my cat spent most of the day inside and I guess his bladder must have been full. So he went out when the rain had stopped for a bit.
It was just his luck that the rain returned with a vengence. I went into my garden with a rain poncho and an umbrella to save him as the silly cat had huddled himself underneath our fir tree at the end of the garden. To get to him, I had to squeeze under our cherry tree and when I finally reach him, he gives me this poor pathetic me-ooowwww. I offered to carry him but he ran back to the house leaving me in the rain. Soaking wet. Well I guess my help wasn't needed!
Next time I won't go and look for his sorry bum!
We had scary winds and heavy rain. It was bound to happen at some point and because we had very sunny weather last week so I was expecting this week to be a bit on the glum side. What happened was my cat spent most of the day inside and I guess his bladder must have been full. So he went out when the rain had stopped for a bit.
It was just his luck that the rain returned with a vengence. I went into my garden with a rain poncho and an umbrella to save him as the silly cat had huddled himself underneath our fir tree at the end of the garden. To get to him, I had to squeeze under our cherry tree and when I finally reach him, he gives me this poor pathetic me-ooowwww. I offered to carry him but he ran back to the house leaving me in the rain. Soaking wet. Well I guess my help wasn't needed!
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| Cat in Bag |
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| "are you calling ME pathetic?" |
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Hamster Treats from HK (post one)
I spend quite a lot of the money I earn on my pets and I do love going through pet shops looking for toys and treats they might like. The problem is, I've been to every pet shop near me and was bored with the same old same old. So when I went to Hong Kong last summer I was extremely excited to see what sort of hamster goodies they had.
The amazing thing about HK is that in Mong Kwok you get a street full of pet shops. There is one street that goes by the name of Goldfish Street (this is a direct translation from Cantonese so it may not be accurate) that only sold fish and aquarium products. There isn't a street called pet street but there is an area that has many pet shops. I'm not too happy about how the pets were looked after in these pet shops as they had as many as 15 dwarf hamsters in one cage. Some even had puppies placed into pens that gave them only enough room to turn around. I would not recommend buying an animal from these shops. However, there are shops that stock a lot of food. The variety of treats and foods was immense. These shops bought their stock from Japan and I was quite spoilt for choice.
They stocked almost any form of dried fruit possible and a big variety of dried vegetables. I wonder if fresh fruit and veg are pricier in Japan? I've seen little tubs of dried apple and pineapple in some pet shops in UK but rarely things like dried strawberries.
Dried Strawberries: These were around 20hkd which is roughly £1-£1.50. They were freeze dried hard lumps of strawberries. Once opened, these would soften slightly so it doesn't stay fresh for long unless you stick it into an air tight container. To be honest, my Coshu was not very impressed with these but then again, fresh strawberries aren't his idea of a good dessert. I would imagine sugar content would make these an occasional treat.
Dried Apple: Same as above really, apart from these got scarily soft after being opened! My hammy liked these a bit more than strawberries. You can get these in health shops and some supermarkets around UK for human consumption and as long as there is no other ingredients apart from apple they would be safe for hamsters. If a preservative is used, please do check it is OK for your pet!
Dried mixed vegetables: This is something I've not seen in UK for hamsters. If you know anywhere that does something similar, please do share! I cannot read Japanese so from the packaging it appeared to have carrot, some kind of squash and/or marrow, and two other things I could not identify. The store owner said it was hamster safe and my one loved it. It looked tasty enough to eat. I did have something similar when I was in HK, a shop called Muji (coincidentally is full of Japanese products too) had packets of vegetable crisps but with added salt. That was pure yumminess. This was more expensive at 30+hkd (over £2).
I bought three other different types on treats on that holiday and those were quite bizarre. Its not the usual stuff you see in the UK. I'll talk about and post piccies of hamster fruit jelly pots, dried fish for rodents and peanut flavour chewy treats in my next post.
The amazing thing about HK is that in Mong Kwok you get a street full of pet shops. There is one street that goes by the name of Goldfish Street (this is a direct translation from Cantonese so it may not be accurate) that only sold fish and aquarium products. There isn't a street called pet street but there is an area that has many pet shops. I'm not too happy about how the pets were looked after in these pet shops as they had as many as 15 dwarf hamsters in one cage. Some even had puppies placed into pens that gave them only enough room to turn around. I would not recommend buying an animal from these shops. However, there are shops that stock a lot of food. The variety of treats and foods was immense. These shops bought their stock from Japan and I was quite spoilt for choice.
They stocked almost any form of dried fruit possible and a big variety of dried vegetables. I wonder if fresh fruit and veg are pricier in Japan? I've seen little tubs of dried apple and pineapple in some pet shops in UK but rarely things like dried strawberries.
Dried mixed vegetables: This is something I've not seen in UK for hamsters. If you know anywhere that does something similar, please do share! I cannot read Japanese so from the packaging it appeared to have carrot, some kind of squash and/or marrow, and two other things I could not identify. The store owner said it was hamster safe and my one loved it. It looked tasty enough to eat. I did have something similar when I was in HK, a shop called Muji (coincidentally is full of Japanese products too) had packets of vegetable crisps but with added salt. That was pure yumminess. This was more expensive at 30+hkd (over £2).
I bought three other different types on treats on that holiday and those were quite bizarre. Its not the usual stuff you see in the UK. I'll talk about and post piccies of hamster fruit jelly pots, dried fish for rodents and peanut flavour chewy treats in my next post.
Monday, 5 September 2011
Hello!!!
Hello!
My name is Enmee. As you may have already guessed, I love animals. I have a fair amount of knowledge when it comes to looking after some pets such as cats and hamsters but having just added two bunnies to my household, I have quite limited knowledge on them. I enjoy learning about animals and their needs so I spend a lot of time reading and researching about them (my current read is A house rabbit primer by Lucile c. Moore).
One of the things I found frustrating when looking for information on how to care for my new rabbits is how many websites and even some books have conflicting or unclear information. This is especially true if you were looking at rabbit diets. I started this blog to help new owners with taking care of their pets and I intend to cover subjects such as housing, diets, play, training and reviews on products and where best to find them.
Another important reason why I wanted to start a blog is so that I can share my experiences with my own beloved pets with other animal lovers, so without further ado, lets meet the family!
This is my Syrian Hamster, he was originally named Coco but we now call him Co-shu (shu means rodent in cantonese). He is almost two years old. Coshu is getting quite old now as his hair isn't as thick as it used to be, but he is as active as ever! He is very friendly and never bites. Absolutely fearless.
Blackie passed away in 2008 but he was so special to me. He was a blind cat with problems in his liver and kidney. Those were caused by old age. Even so he was the sweetest cat I know and I've met many cats as my day job is in a cattery. Blackie was a very happy cat despite being on meds and not being able to see much. His nose was amazing, he could sniff out KFC a mile away and find the source without bumping into anything.
Gin is a stray cat that moved into our home some seven years ago. For some reason, almost every guy that meets Gin dislikes him whereas girls all get on with him. Maybe he is a ladies guy? With Gin you have to be able to read his moods otherwise you'll likely end up getting nipped. Since Blackie left us Gin has became quite affectionate and likes to dribble in peoples laps!
Nibbles and Summer! These are my two new baby buns. Nibbles is the black and white one, I think the pattern looks like a Dutch but he seems to be slightly bigger for his age. Mind you, they told me the bunnies were 10-12 weeks when I bought them but I'm fairly confident they were slightly older than that as they certainly did not look small enough to be 10 weeks old! Summer is the yellow and white, I think he is a french lop with helicopter ears (an ear that doesn't fully lop or stand fully erect). It is quite unlikely that they are pure breeds as I got them at Pets At Home. I've had them since early July this year and they were sold to me as females even though they were males! There is a story behind it but that's for another post!
I also had one Russian dwarf hamster. He was called Snowball and he was a 'rescue' hamster. A family member had purchased a pair of hamsters and did not know how to look after them properly. The two hamsters got into a serious fight where Snowball killed the other one (whose name I do not know) and she no longer wanted to play with him. So she went off to university and left the ham with her mother who was too busy to give him adequate care. Anyhow, Snowball soon entered my care after that and by then he was very hard to socialise. He would bite hard enough to draw blood which made handling him quite impossible so in the end we hamster proofed a room and let him come out of his cage to run loose when he wished. Snowball was with me for a few months before he died peacefully in his sleep. I do not have a photo on my laptop but I will put one up soon!
That's my main animal family. In my next post I will write about hamster foods, particularly treats you can buy in Hong Kong that are not available in UK (with photos!). I hope you will find this blog helpful. Please do leave comments about your pets, any little quirks they might have and share your knowledge of pet care with the rest of us! Every little thing we learn about our furry friends enable us to provide a healthier and happier lifestyle for them.
My name is Enmee. As you may have already guessed, I love animals. I have a fair amount of knowledge when it comes to looking after some pets such as cats and hamsters but having just added two bunnies to my household, I have quite limited knowledge on them. I enjoy learning about animals and their needs so I spend a lot of time reading and researching about them (my current read is A house rabbit primer by Lucile c. Moore).
One of the things I found frustrating when looking for information on how to care for my new rabbits is how many websites and even some books have conflicting or unclear information. This is especially true if you were looking at rabbit diets. I started this blog to help new owners with taking care of their pets and I intend to cover subjects such as housing, diets, play, training and reviews on products and where best to find them.
Another important reason why I wanted to start a blog is so that I can share my experiences with my own beloved pets with other animal lovers, so without further ado, lets meet the family!
Blackie passed away in 2008 but he was so special to me. He was a blind cat with problems in his liver and kidney. Those were caused by old age. Even so he was the sweetest cat I know and I've met many cats as my day job is in a cattery. Blackie was a very happy cat despite being on meds and not being able to see much. His nose was amazing, he could sniff out KFC a mile away and find the source without bumping into anything.
Nibbles and Summer! These are my two new baby buns. Nibbles is the black and white one, I think the pattern looks like a Dutch but he seems to be slightly bigger for his age. Mind you, they told me the bunnies were 10-12 weeks when I bought them but I'm fairly confident they were slightly older than that as they certainly did not look small enough to be 10 weeks old! Summer is the yellow and white, I think he is a french lop with helicopter ears (an ear that doesn't fully lop or stand fully erect). It is quite unlikely that they are pure breeds as I got them at Pets At Home. I've had them since early July this year and they were sold to me as females even though they were males! There is a story behind it but that's for another post!
I also had one Russian dwarf hamster. He was called Snowball and he was a 'rescue' hamster. A family member had purchased a pair of hamsters and did not know how to look after them properly. The two hamsters got into a serious fight where Snowball killed the other one (whose name I do not know) and she no longer wanted to play with him. So she went off to university and left the ham with her mother who was too busy to give him adequate care. Anyhow, Snowball soon entered my care after that and by then he was very hard to socialise. He would bite hard enough to draw blood which made handling him quite impossible so in the end we hamster proofed a room and let him come out of his cage to run loose when he wished. Snowball was with me for a few months before he died peacefully in his sleep. I do not have a photo on my laptop but I will put one up soon!
That's my main animal family. In my next post I will write about hamster foods, particularly treats you can buy in Hong Kong that are not available in UK (with photos!). I hope you will find this blog helpful. Please do leave comments about your pets, any little quirks they might have and share your knowledge of pet care with the rest of us! Every little thing we learn about our furry friends enable us to provide a healthier and happier lifestyle for them.
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