Yet more tales of idiocy from the pet unit

[DesignFox]

I've always wanted a bunny, but I am so allergic to them, I can't be around them.

I'm the same way. We had one bunny and I was ok. Then he died (he lived to be 9!) and we got a new bunny. And I was sort of ok. Then we got another bunny (making 2 at the same time). My allergies just couldn't handle bunnies anymore. My throat closes up and I get all wheezy...my glands swell, I can barely breathe, my eyes itch, and my nose is completely stopped up- or runs like a hose.
We had to sell our bunnies.

[AFpheonix]

I see a lot of the same stupidity with horses, too.

Although I have to wonder- why is it that the horses that are kept in fields with fences that are held together with barbed wire and twine and have dead cars, piles of sharp pointy metal things and tractor implements in them don't ever seem to get injured, but ours, kept in clean paddocks with pipe fencing and clean stalls, always seem to get dinged up? It's a mystery.

[Argabarga]

I see a lot of the same stupidity with horses, too.

Although I have to wonder- why is it that the horses that are kept in fields with fences that are held together with barbed wire and twine and have dead cars, piles of sharp pointy metal things and tractor implements in them don't ever seem to get injured, but ours, kept in clean paddocks with pipe fencing and clean stalls, always seem to get dinged up? It's a mystery.

We had one once that was really mouthy, and too smart for her own good. She figured out what the little switch on the wall next to her stall did, it turned on the lights. From that point on, whenever she wanted attention, she'd just turn the lights on, and you'd have to go out to the barn to turn them off. Our family had an old Honda that died, so we parked it next to the barn until we could fix it. She either took offense that it was in her personal space, or had never encountered one that didn't run away from her but whatever reason, she decided to see how a car tasted....

And she chewed the paint off the hood, fenders and most of the roof supports.....

ANd that must've filled her dietary requirements for car paint for the rest of her life, she never touched it again.

It's a wonder she never got sick on injured.

[AFpheonix]

Ooooh....stories of naughty horses

My eldest sister used to have a pony. She thought the light switch in the barn was perfect for rubbing her fanny on. My sister would look out of her window into the barn and see the lights flash on and off and on and off.....
It was essentially a run in barn, and one open stall housed a mustang. She thought the front of the mustang was also a nice thing to rub her fanny on. The front end was nice and polished clear down to the metal years of her rubbing her butt on it....

I had a gelding that I'd raised from a baby and sold in college. He was a standard little boy, kind of naughty. I had him up at my trainer's barn after she got it built. At that point, they didn't have many paddocks up yet, so they'd turn out in the arena. He would reach around the corner and eat the phone, managed to strain himself through a gate, got ahold of her jacket hanging neatly on a hook and stomped it into the ground, and at one point when they had her pickup parked next to the arena, put little teeth marks aaaallll along the hood all the way down to the metal. She was so mad at me about that one.... I kind of miss him, he was a complete dork, but mostly a good boy.

At this place, mom decided to take the motorhome cover off and placed it entirely too near the fenceline. One of the broodmares got ahold of it, pulled it in with her, and proceeded to play tug-o-war with it with one of her pasturemates. Totally ruined the cover. For days afterward, you'd see this mare running around with little scraps of the cover in her mouth

And of course, you can't leave a hose running into one of the water tanks unattended, somoeone will usually grab it and start spraying or flogging their pasturemates with it.

When the well pump keeled over this summer, we had a big water tank in the bed of the pickup that we used to fill water buckets and tanks with. If I drove the truck into the yearlings' pen, it was like the icecream truck was coming through. I had a little following jogging along behind me. Honking the horn would only make them run a little ways away, I guess the prospect of nibbling on the side view mirrors was just too great for them.

There's many more stories, especially about the first couple of horses we ever had, but I'll stop for now.

[Becks]

Ahhh, the dark days when my sister and I had hamsters. We didn't know it, but we had at least one male, with a few females.

They were quite fertile...but the babies never lived.

And cannibalistic. Take my word for it.

We'd come home from school and find a litter of newly born dead babie hamsters, and the mommy/daddy...well, see the above line.

I will never own hamsters again.

[Seanette]

Sounds like a fair number of you would appreciate this site:
http://www.badpets.net/BadPets/index.html

I've contributed to the cat and bird lists.

[Bacopa]

We decided to get gerbils as they were more daytime animals as opposed to the nocturnal habits of a hamster. This meant we needed to get at least two as we learned gerbils are social animals and do better with a companion.

The saleswoman SWORE to us that the two five-week-old gerbils we were buying both were female. Turns out that Fairy Princess (the name my daughters gave the white one) came with a "magic wand" that caused Little Miss (the black one) to produce four more gerbils some two months later. We did not know that female gerbils “do it” the day they give birth so it was not until Little Miss was in the process of growing her third litter that we managed to get the boys and their father, Fairy Princess, away from the girls and Mom.

By that time I had become an expert in sexing gerbils. We managed to find homes for the second and third litters once we threw in free cages and proved only same sex pairs were being given out.

We've never had a problem with mis-sexed gerbils where I work, but there have been some problems with Siberian hamsters. We will take the babies and the father back once the babies have nursed and give the customer as many of the female babies they want.

-Bacopa

[Bacopa]

I did not know that about hamsters. Good thing I have never bought a hamster....

Yes, two adult hamsters will fight to the death, and the victor eats the brain of the loser. I'm not kidding. Ask anyone who knows hamsters. They start gnawing at the eye socket and move upward to expose the brain.

-Bacopa

[Crosshair]

Although I have to wonder- why is it that the horses that are kept in fields with fences that are held together with barbed wire and twine and have dead cars, piles of sharp pointy metal things and tractor implements in them don't ever seem to get injured, but ours, kept in clean paddocks with pipe fencing and clean stalls, always seem to get dinged up? It's a mystery.

It's like a horse playpen. You don't want them getting bored. You give them plenty of choices to choose from and they choose the ones that don't hurt them.

[Jules Of All Trades]

Pet Lovers Help! Hamster Question (sorta OT)

Oh man, now I'm kind of freaking out about the new hamsters we got last week. A friend of mine was giving them away so we took three. She said they are Russian Dwarf Hamsters, and from what I've read I'm guessing she's right. They're also all 3 legged (yay for inbreeding!), so it was either find suckers like me to take them or give them to the pet shop to quickly become snake food which she didn't want to do. I, for one, find them absolutely adorable! They're small, grey, funny little 3 legged cuties, and their squeaking gives me the giggles.

I'm sorry this is so far OT...but can someone tell me if I'm going to have hamster death match 2006 when they get bigger? They're about 7 weeks old now, living in the same cage, and I did my very best to sex them before we picked them out. *please be 3 females, please be 3 females, please be 3 females* I just need to make sure I seperate them if I need to, don't need my kids coming home to a hamster crime scene.

[tintaglia]

In my experience, dwarf hamsters are ok in colonies, it's the syrians which must be seperated. I would simply keep an eye on them, but I think they'll be ok

[Lace Neil Singer]

Depends; is there one who's smaller than the others? Once at the pet unit, we had a group of Russians which we bought from a breeder; at first they were fine. We split them into boy and girl groups, then 2 days later 2 of the girls viciously attacked the third female, who was the runt of the litter, and bit off her left hind leg and blinded her in one eye. I adopted her as I knew after that she wouldn't sell. I named her Daisy and it was the first time I'd ever had a Russian hamster; the other hamsters I've owned have been Syrians. She lived about 2 years before she died; I was glad I'd given her a chance at life. After her wounds healed up she was perfectly happy, altho she never got really tame and I had to always handle her wearing a glove as she liked to nibble my fingers on occasion.