Yes folks, I caved.  I drove past that pet store and tried not to think
of that sweet baby girl that was being trampled by her 9 cagemates as
they fought over their food and what little room they had in the ball to
sleep in.  When I left last night she had fallen asleep in the corner of
the cage by herself, having given up on trying to climb over the others
to get into the ball-o-fur.  So I drove past and commended myself on my
strength, I forgot I had to drive past again to get home though.  I
thought, I'll just go see if she's still there.  Of course she was and I
HAD to pick her up again, and she HAD to give me kisses and curl up in
and fall asleep in the palm of my hand... sigh... I couldn't just put
her back in that cage and walk away again.
 
So here she is.  No name yet, but boy has she got it made already.  Nice
two story cage for a while.  (I'm afraid she's too little to be free
roam for a long while) she's so tiny she can't get to the second level,
so I took the chinchilla bathhouse that I bought for the other ferts,
(thinking it would make a nifty hiding/sleepy spot with a cozy baby
blaket inside... they didn't have the same idea though) and padded it up
to make a good baby sized hidey hole and she's got her own food and water
dishes and a little fert boat to play in and a real litter box (keeping
my fingers crossed that she catches on quick) She wasn't too thriled
about the nail trimming, but they were SO sharp!  Her teeny nails were so
tiny that I was afraid to cut too much, the pink was just so hard to see
and i didn't want to stress her out any more today.
 
All three got a bath tonight, but I forgot to use the cream rinse on her
that I did on the other two.  Do you think that would make the difference
in wether they accept her or not?  I'm hoping they do, but it will be a
while before I try to introduce them.  (I'm afraid that since she's so
small they might scare her) I've never had a baby before so this is a
little new to me.
 
Well, I'll update more as soon as we see the vet and we figure out a
name for her... She's been a riot tonight already though.  I took the
other ferts downstairs to their cage so she could run around a bit and
excercise when I found a "present" from one of the others.  I wanted to
clean it up before she got to that side of the room and decided that it
was a good potty place too - so I got out the cordless carpet cleaner and
started cleaning it and she tried to attack the cleaner!  What a riot to
see this tiny girl trying to attack this carpet cleaner that is 10x her
size.  I'm glad she's spunky, makes me think she'll be able to hold her
own with my other two girls.
[Posted in FML issue 4088]