Archive for September, 2008

Peek-a-boo-boo!

September 30th, 2008

What’s under this hat?

“O hi Winnie!”

ps: I tend to have more pictures of Winnie than Tubby, because Tubby never stays still, not because I like Winnie more :p

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Gassy Winnie

September 27th, 2008

Another trip to the vet this morning.

Winnie is not out of the woods yet. Since he’s been taken off the Bene-Bac on Monday, it seemed as if he was getting better: his poop was oval & black (like how normal chinchilla poop is supposed to look like), but still small. A couple of days later, his poop returned to how they were before: small, bead-sized, & very hard. I also noticed that during feeding time, I could feel and hear popping noises coming from his stomach!

From 2 weeks of not chewing pellets, the vet suspected that the molars were overgrown & needed trimming (maybe another reason why he doesn’t want to eat on his own). When Winnie was under sedation, the vet could see that the molars were overgrown, but not too bad.

As for the popping noises, the vet said that the noises are gas moving around in Winnie’s digestive system. Vet doesn’t know what’s causing so much gas build-up. The reasons could range from: bacteria producing the excess gas, to air that was trapped in the food syringe. With all the gas in Winnie’s tummy, it just makes him feel bloated & full, hence another reason why he doesn’t feel like eating on his own. I’m still syringe-feeding him, because he wouldn’t touch his pellets! The strange thing is, he eats hay & grapes.

Now, he’s back on the Bene-bac, he’s still on the motility medicine, and on GasX (medicines for human infants to get rid of gas). I’m also reducing the amount of food I give him, hoping that he’ll get a little hungry to encourage him to eat on his own.

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Thoughtful Thursday

September 25th, 2008

Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.

~Tom C. Clark
US Supreme Court Justice from 1849-1967, authored the Mapp v. Ohio opinion

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Stuffed Baby Hamster

September 23rd, 2008

I love looking at hamsters when they just stuff their pouches silly. Here’s BH all stuffed:


Normal BH & when BH’s pouches are all stuffed

Look how wide his head is from above in comparison to his small waist (where the white band/fur starts):

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Boys will be Boys

September 21st, 2008

WARNING!!

Another chinchilla porn!

Unlike Winnie, Tubby fancies something else: Mr. Penguin.

I knitted a stuffed penguin awhile back just for fun. When Tubby was the only chinchilla, I thought he could use the company of Mr. Penguin .. & he sure did .. to the point that Mr. Penguin’s right foot & right wing came off, because Tubby ‘groomed’ him too much. So, for Mr. Penguin’s sake, I placed him in Winnie’s cage, where I know he’ll be better taken care of.

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This Reminds Me of ..

September 18th, 2008

Don’t you think this picture:

remind you of this? How does he even breathe? Silly!

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Hamster Kingdom

September 16th, 2008

From top to bottom: Crittertrail X for Dee, Daddy Hamster’s bin cage which is connected to his Crittertrail on the left, the Robo girlies’ bin cage, & the dwarf Campbells’ cage at the very bottom.

Anybody who ever said or makes it seem constructing a bin cage is easy, let me tell you …. it’s not. Nobody ever told me, but don’t expect perfectly straight cuts (unless you have ALL the right tools & a seasoned handy person).

I used these 2 instructions, but modified them:

  1. Pet Website – Make a Homemade Hamster Bin Type Cage
  2. eHow – How to Make a Hamster Cage

Those instructions are too complicated & use too many tools that I can’t afford to buy just for this project.

I minimized the materials needed to these:

  1. Plastic bins;
  2. Hardware mesh (found in the gardening/outdoors section of your local DIY store);
  3. Wire clipper/cutter;
  4. Machine screws with nuts & washers (I used size 1/2″ washers, #10 nuts & washers, & #10 machine screws. Each bin uses about 10-20 of each. When in doubt, buy extra & they’re not expensive);
  5. A drill & various sizes of drill bits (make sure you have a drill bit that’s the same size as the machine screws);
  6. If you decide to connect the bin cages to tubes, you will need a hole saw that can be attached to a drill. You don’t need to buy the one to drill through metals, because they’re expensive. Opt for the one for woods.

And this is how I modified the methods:

  1. Remember to measure twice & cut once.
  2. Instead of cutting the lids, I cut windows on the side, so I can stack the bins. Besides, I think cutting the lid would be harder.
  3. Instead of needing to cut extra windows (& placing a wire mesh) to hold the the water bottle, all I did was drill 3 holes creating a triangle pattern: 1 hole big enough for the teat to come through & 2 smaller holes where a wire can be attached to secure and hold the water bottle (picture of blue water bottle). But if you have a different type of water bottle (like the purple one in the picture), all I did was drill 1 hole & place a double sided tape on the water bottle holder so it won’t swing.
  4. How I attach the tubes to the bin cage: to secure the tubes, place the connector ring inside the bin. Alternatively, you can use duct tapes, but they’re ugly.

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Snuggling

September 15th, 2008

I really like seeing the Robo girlies all sleep together in a pile. It’s real hard to take a good picture of them, because the slightest noise (of my camera clicking) & the flash wake them up in an instant. I tend to find 2 of them sleeping together, while 1 is almost always sleeping alone somewhere else. When I do see all 3 of them sleeping together, 1 tends to be buried, making me think that there are only 2 of them :-) Cute.

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Progress

September 14th, 2008

I counted 4 half-sized poops when I let Winnie out (compared to the bead-sized poops that hardly came out of him for the past few days) :-D


Winnie looks funny here, because he’s in the middle of chewing his food.
I think he’s getting spoiled by being syringe-fed; he shows appetite when being syringe-fed, but doesn’t want to eat pellets on his own.
Note: that hairy hand isn’t mine …

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Day Hospitalization

September 12th, 2008

Another appointment with the vet this morning, because I noticed that Winnie’s droppings are even smaller & less. His stomach feels real tight & bloated, vet said it’s most likely because the food he took in yesterday (from me force-feeding me) isn’t moving & pooped out properly.


At the animal clinic

X-ray with Iodine shows no irregular gas pattern or anything solid in his digestive tract. However, soft things like fur won’t show up on the x-ray. So, there could be a possibility that there are soft things stuck in his digestive tract. If there was something stuck in his digestive system, gas would build up in a certain area, causing him to bloat. Vet recommended that I hospitalize him for the day, so the vet could gas him & take his blood, give him some fluids, and gut motility medicine to stimulate the body to excrete on its own. I decided to go ahead with some blood works, because the weekend is coming & I want to be able to pinpoint his illness as soon as possible for my own peace of mind. The blood test will show any abnormal count of white blood cell (hints of parasitic or viral infection). Worse comes to worse, it’s some of kind of internal organ failure, like the kidney. The vet is very apprehensive about surgically figuring out what’s wrong with him. So, at this point she’s trying the best she can to use non-invasive methods.

I continually called the vet to check up on him. Even with the help of medication, Winnie still isn’t pooping normally. The vet doesn’t want Winnie to go into shock because of gut stasis.

Let’s hope for the best.

**UPDATE**


In the car, Winnie rides shotgun

Winnie came back home with more medications: pain medication (to ease pain from any gut stasis) & gut motility medicine (to get his digestive system moving again). Vet wasn’t able to extract any blood out of him. She tried the ear & the leg, & decided that’s enough poking around. Besides, it’s dangerous to put a chinchilla under sedation for too long. Everyone at the animal clinic seemed to be getting attached to Winnie (after only a day of hospitalization). What can I say? He is a cutie & I’m a proud owner :-D

I wasn’t able to buy the Alfalfa King brand of timothy hay (what I normally buy for the chinnies) & had to settle with Kaytee. Good news is that Winnie is nibbling on some of the timothy hay :-)

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