Thread: So, I've Never Kept a Journal Before

Concerning Rodents For my 21st birthday, my dad got me one of the best gifts ever a pair of five-week old mice. One was a pink-eyed white Bianca and the other was a badly marked uneven champagne Zoe. Pictures will come later, I promise. Anyway, at first I assumed mice would be a little bit like keeping fish nice to look at, but not exactly interactive. I am delighted to admit that I was wrong. Mice are wonderfully intelligent and entertaining little critters, fully capable of solving simple puzzles and actually remembering the solution for the next time they face it. In other words, they can learn and surprisingly well. Female mice are very social and do best in groups, otherwise they get lonely. I've heard of female mice dying of loneliness. Male mice are aggressive to other males, and, unless raised together from birth, tend to fight each other. So they have to be kept singly, or with an older female who can't have babies. My last mouse died a few months ago at the ripe age of 20 months. Hopefully I'll get some more, someday. At the largest, my mouse family consisted of five females Crow black, Zoe, Whiskers and Ears there's a reason for the names Whiskers had her whiskers nipped off by Crow, and Ears was missing an ear. I R KREATIV!!, and Pyrite a lovely little gold who remains the most gorgeous little rodent I've ever seen. They all had very distinct personalities. Although Crow was the smallest, she was the undisputed queen of the nest and would nip the whiskers of the others. Whiskers aka Globemouse was amazingly big she liked to pick through the food so she could get the best fatty bits. Ears was a fighter, through and through. Although she was missing a lot of her fur and most of an ear through a disease, she pulled through wonderfully. She survived the longest of my mice. And finally, Pyrite, little Pyrite. She was a bit of a bitch, actually, and tended to make a weird little squinty face at any human. Zoe was the friendliest of the bunch and enjoyed jumping into my hand or sitting on my shoulder. Bianca, sadly, was born with epilepsy she died a few months after I got her PICTURES HERE Crap picture of Zoe All the sleepy mice Zoe and Whiskers Pyrite and Crow Pyrite MOAR PYRITE Anyway, yes. Mice are awesome and make wonderful if a bit stinky pets. Currently, I have rats, Blitz and Blaze. I don't have any pictures of them right now since they're getting over a slight mite infection they've got bald spots. They are just delightful. 3 Blaze is the sweeter of the pair and rather timid. Blitz, true to her name, is more aggressive and has a bit of a biting problem. She's getting better. Finally, rounding off the rodent family, is V. Simply V, pronounced as the letter. He or possibly she is a vole. A vole is a small rodent that looks kind of like a cross between a mouse and a hamster. They're pretty damn adorable. V joined the family after Lil'y, destroyer of worlds and bringer of tiny rodent tears, caught him and broke his leg. Since I'm a total bleeding heart and my dad is nearly as bad, we decided to keep him. Just until his leg healed, of course. This was last August. Clearly, V's leg is healed, but I decided to keep him. He was roughly three weeks old when caught and is fairly tame. He loves running in his wheel and is EXTREMELY intelligent. You can tell this is SRS BUSNSS from the caps. He loves to chew on his wire ceiling, but can only get to it by piling up stuff. To combat this, he piled up his food bowl, wheel, and litter so he can stand on the pile. Very clever little bastard. 3 Anyway, I had a reason for writing this and it wasn't just so I could gush about OHGODAREN'TTHEYADORABLE, although that certainly is compelling. Clearly, pet rodents are thinking and intelligent beings who deserve some affection from a good family. I was at the pet store yesterday, picking up some crickets and bedding when I passed by the rodent cages. Several young girls were squealing at the rats going, EW EW EW LOOK AT THEIR TAILS and similar phrases. They were also banging on the cages. I don't mean tapping. I mean BANGING, and terrifying the poor creatures. The rats were half-crazy with fear. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE? I mean, seriously... if you don't like rodents, stay the fuck away from their cages. It's that simple! It's not as though the rats were running around and chasing people down. They were SLEEPING in their cage! In their little igloo! Goddamnit, but it pisses me off when people gleefully perpetuate animal abuse of that sort, citing something like, 'Oh, they're just micerats, don't get your panties all in a bunch'. I don't care if they are 'just' rodents. They are pets. The moment you tame an animal, you take responsibility for it. It's your job to take care of it, make sure that it isn't harmed.