the beastie at home
May. 1st, 2008 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishI now have a Roborovski hamster. She has eyebrows.
The wee beastie's name is Keishi, after Keishi Mirabara in Raphael Carter's utterly brilliant post-cyberpunk novel The Fortunate Fall. Keishi Mirabara, for all intents and purposes, lives on the Net. Which is just a series of tubes. Tubes which tell me that "keishi" is Japanese for either "vigilant," which my Keishi certainly is, or "poppyseed," which looks a little like millet, which comes in her food mix and is probably responsible for much of the night-time "klik-klik-klik" of food gnawing.
Not that she eats much of anything, really. The bits of carrot and red pepper I gave her vanished pretty quickly, but I think they just got buried. The most recent slice of red pepper didn't even get that treatment; a few nibbles were all. She's shown no interest at all in alfalfa, spinach, or mushrooms, either. (I take that back. She sat on the mushroom slice for awhile.) The level of food in the food bowl decreases, but I never see (and only rarely hear) her eating.
We went out to Petsmart on Friday night and bought her a second cage and a series of tubes to connect them. She loves the tubes. I think this is because they're small enclosed spaces and aren't in any danger of being lifted off of her. She's pretty much indifferent to the cute hamster house and the largeish cardboard tube. I gave her a decent amount of toilet paper to nest in, and she's built three separate dens. One is in the skybox that came with her original cage, one is in the original cage sort of under the wheel, and one is in the new cage right next to the tube.
Really, Keishi behaves almost completely unlike the Syrian hamsters I had in junior high. She doesn't seem to carry food in cheek pouches. She doesn't climb the walls of the cage unless provoked. She doesn't go exploring everywhere she possibly can-- it took er three. She doesn't want treats, or care much about the presence of food. She doesn't drink water. She doesn't chew the heck out of any wood she finds. She doesn't care about shelters. She bolts like mad anytime I get too close to the cage. The one time I put her in the hamsterball she sat there, terrified, for around five minutes. She doesn't tend to start moving around 'til midnight or so, and she's ready to go to sleep again by seven.
On the bright side, she's adorable when she's cleaning herself. Which she does a decent amount, sometimes even where I can watch.
The vet's given her a more or less clean bill of health ("If you're really worried we can do X-rays or put her on antibiotics, but she seems fine"). I figure I'll keep an eye on her, talk to her as I walk past, that sort of thing. Try to find something that she actually likes to eat so I can start making friends.
She's hard to photograph in the cage. Pictures on Sunday evening, perhaps.
The wee beastie's name is Keishi, after Keishi Mirabara in Raphael Carter's utterly brilliant post-cyberpunk novel The Fortunate Fall. Keishi Mirabara, for all intents and purposes, lives on the Net. Which is just a series of tubes. Tubes which tell me that "keishi" is Japanese for either "vigilant," which my Keishi certainly is, or "poppyseed," which looks a little like millet, which comes in her food mix and is probably responsible for much of the night-time "klik-klik-klik" of food gnawing.
Not that she eats much of anything, really. The bits of carrot and red pepper I gave her vanished pretty quickly, but I think they just got buried. The most recent slice of red pepper didn't even get that treatment; a few nibbles were all. She's shown no interest at all in alfalfa, spinach, or mushrooms, either. (I take that back. She sat on the mushroom slice for awhile.) The level of food in the food bowl decreases, but I never see (and only rarely hear) her eating.
We went out to Petsmart on Friday night and bought her a second cage and a series of tubes to connect them. She loves the tubes. I think this is because they're small enclosed spaces and aren't in any danger of being lifted off of her. She's pretty much indifferent to the cute hamster house and the largeish cardboard tube. I gave her a decent amount of toilet paper to nest in, and she's built three separate dens. One is in the skybox that came with her original cage, one is in the original cage sort of under the wheel, and one is in the new cage right next to the tube.
Really, Keishi behaves almost completely unlike the Syrian hamsters I had in junior high. She doesn't seem to carry food in cheek pouches. She doesn't climb the walls of the cage unless provoked. She doesn't go exploring everywhere she possibly can-- it took er three. She doesn't want treats, or care much about the presence of food. She doesn't drink water. She doesn't chew the heck out of any wood she finds. She doesn't care about shelters. She bolts like mad anytime I get too close to the cage. The one time I put her in the hamsterball she sat there, terrified, for around five minutes. She doesn't tend to start moving around 'til midnight or so, and she's ready to go to sleep again by seven.
On the bright side, she's adorable when she's cleaning herself. Which she does a decent amount, sometimes even where I can watch.
The vet's given her a more or less clean bill of health ("If you're really worried we can do X-rays or put her on antibiotics, but she seems fine"). I figure I'll keep an eye on her, talk to her as I walk past, that sort of thing. Try to find something that she actually likes to eat so I can start making friends.
She's hard to photograph in the cage. Pictures on Sunday evening, perhaps.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-04 03:10 am (UTC)I tried buying Edgar's affections with food and toys when I first got him but he'd just screech and eye whatever I was offering like it was poison. A successful ploy I used was I would sit next to his cage everyday and basically ignore him - read, watch t.v. write, etc. I think anything that's basically a prey animal gets a tad freaked out if it's watched by something that it isn't sure might be a predator who's sizing it up for a snack. So if you quietly hang around letting him get use to your presence he should begin to see you as harmless and relax. Since they're curious and social, he should then begin to take an interest in you.
Patience and time. Some pets (and people) you just gotta woo.