So! Everything from chinchillas to rats to mice to hamsters and cavies, this is the thread for talking about your smol squeaky nibbly friends :D (For the record, rabbits are lagomorphs so I'm afraid they don't count here ^^;;) I don't have any at the moment, but in the past I've had some very wonderful syrian hamsters. The best of which was definitely Kioku ('memory' in japanese, I think, because I wanted her to be good ones). She was a black-and-white ruby-eyed female who I got from a petstore during one of my worst years with depression. I had no friends of my own species, and I desperately just needed something that depended on my continued existence, and boy did she come through when I needed it. She was friendly and intelligent and very bonded to me - she made it her life's work to escape from every single bin cage I put her in, but she would rarely do anything besides come and climb up on my bed to see what I was doing. We became so close that she would often sleep in my inner jacket pocket as I was out and about during the day, and if I squeaked she would come running (in her exercise ball or freeroaming, if my room was tidy enough that I wouldn't lose her.) That was a bad year for me - despite her best efforts, I did attempt suicide on christmas day night of '09 - but I know that it would have been much worse without her. In the summer of the next year, she began to suffer from kidney failure - I expect it was down to poor breeding - and after a great deal of vet visits and trials for the both of us, I had her put to sleep, at only 11 months of age. I still get a little choked up when I think of that - the morning I took her to be put down, she was bright-eyed and chipper and even let the receptionist handle her a little in the waiting room, nibbling her nail polish out of curiousity. She trusted me, absolutely, and even when she was in terrible pain she let me pick her up and cuddle her without so much as a warning nip. There's a part of me that still feels awful for bringing her to her doom, but I know that if she'd been aware of what was going on, she would have much prefered a quick end to a slow, lingering one. ANYWAY. Tell me about your rodent friends!
I went to an agricultural high school, which I've mentioned before. and in my major, we each got a pair of fancy mice, who's babies got sold as pets to other students/teachers/families/etc and this is where I picked up my love of small rodents My pair were named Tommy and Tuppence Tommy was a cute brown guy, and he was a presh sweetie. Tuppence was a sleek white cutie patoot, and loved to run SUPER FAST on wheels. I have maybe one? picture of her that isn't the Most Blurry ever. they had lots of adorable babies, and lived good long mouse lives. after high school, I bought Artie, my current mouse. Who is a friendly athletic baby, and likes to climb up his cage to bug me for snacks when I walk past him. Spoiler: artie pics, he so cute
He is so precious! I love his cute little bandit eyepatch XDD I must admit I don't know much about keeping mice - how big is his cage? Is he pretty omnivorous, like a rat, or does he tend more to grains and veggies like a hamham? Also how long is a good long mousie life?
his patches are so damn cute. more toward grains and veggies, my mom likes to feed him lil carrot bits, and he's got these lil strawberry treats he loves. His cage is pretty big, cause I wanted to give him lots of room to run around and play with stuff. I got him a nice wheel, chew toys, the works. He needs a need wheel soon, which is the first thing I'm planning on doing once I get some money.
He is so cute I'm seriously considering getting a couple meeces myself now XD Maybe once my Beardie's been moved into his new viv, I can convert the old one into a smol mammal habitat XD
you should do it, they are very very presh make sure you get them lots of chewy stuff and toys get a couple of girls and let them be bffs guy/girl means ALL THE BABUS which is cute but impratical and guys will be assholes to each other.
-nodnodnod- I have XP in giving smol friends ALL the chews so their bitty teefs get worn down properly and a wheel and toys to keep their precious little brains entertained XDD (I will probs get girls and call them Lesbos and Sapphos because I'm a dork with no subltety XD)
yes good. very good. my mice are all detective themed XD Tommy and Tuppence are Agatha Christie characters, and Artie is short for Arthur Conan Doyle XD
I've had some ratfriends and a couple of micefriends back when I was in like grade 7. the mice were sons of one of the class pets, because whoops she was not just large but full of tiny babbies. the mousebros were named Frodo and Dr. Doom, i don't remember why. they were very smelly though. and we didn't know much about proper cage size so unfortunately they probably didn't have as much stimulation/exercise as they should have. rattos we had more experience with. Spoiler: RATS i think i made a post about them in the pet stories thread or something? we got two ratfriends from a pet store in town, and they nominally belonged to my brother and I. Mine was named Twitchers, she was a good and smol fawn(?) solid-coloured lady with a cute white patch on her stomach. his rat was Nougat, and she was a white/dark-coloured hooded rat and she was sort of pushy and bullied twitchers sometimes. They both liked to sit in ur sleeves and be a sleeve rat in the mysterious arm-tube next to a Large Friend Human. they also liked to sit on shoulders, and hoodies were very intriguing. I still have this hoodie from when I was in like grade 6, from the high school my brother had just started at, and its got these little holes in the hood because "what is this??? a food? can eat? ?? (bites)" :') and then after both of them died at like 2 years old, we eventually got two more rattus friends who were maybe sisters. we got them from a pet store in the next town over, for whatever reason (possibly because twitchers and nougat were Secret Rats kept in mom's old at-home office that dad never went into, and we didnt want dad to see us at one of the pet stores in town. he was being reasonable about No Pets Really Except Fish but we wanted tiny rat buddies anyway) possibly due to bad breeding or just whatever, one of the sisters got some sort of inner ear thing. that got looked at and treated, i think, but she ust got other issues and died rather young D: she was my brother's rat, her name was Toffee and she was a good small friend. my rat was named Zelda and she lived to be an old ladyface with several other friends. (btw I should clarify that they were only nominally "my brothers" or "my" rats, mom did most of the cage-cleaning and they weren't kept in separate cages or anything.) post-toffee rattos, we got Dora, a dumbo black and white hooded, and Sandy, also a black and white hooded. I forget the order in which we got therm, but the first was to keep Zelda company and the second was to keep the first company because Zelda was an old lady. Sandy turned out to be pregnant tho. we got her out of the male's cage in the local pet store, probably because she'd been put there to generate more stock for free. so we took her home, she proceeded to have many babies while I was away at summer camp so my mom covertly emailed me pictures of this travel cage with a lil pile o'babies :'3 twelve pups for a rather overwhelmed young momrat the small babs were mostly boys. they were probably not given enough cageroom, sadly. their names were....just gonna quote myself from the pet stories thread. Maybe there was one called Henry? Hmmmm. Anyway! Rattos! These days, due to not enough spoons/money for actual pet-care, I enjoy rat videos and ratpics and booping the screen like "oh! what a good and cute face! a champ. a friend. so sweet."
I had a little mouse who was patterned like the stereotypical cow. All white with some black spots. I loved him. His named was Mr. Mouserton and I would play with him and let him climb about me. He got cancer though. I love him lots though. Mice are bros.
I had pet rats in elementary school! Their names were Bart and Larry and I miss them to this day. ;-; Rats are my faves, okay. Sadly, I do not currently own any actual rodents, but I DO have a little rat finger puppet! His name is Frigglish and I love him.
