Since New Year we have had a few more losses amongst the old ladies, not surprisingly, and by the end of January there were only two of the original group of twelve left – Penguin and Leela. Penguin has a lump and some persistent respiness and Leela is mostly ok but a little bit vague sometimes. So a conversation was had with our friendly breeder who happened to be rehoming some of her middle-aged ladies, and five were selected – two agouti double rexes, 15 months old, two black-eyed blue point Siamese, one of 11 months old and one 10 months old, and a 10-month old red eyed Siamese (the agoutis are sisters but none of the others are related).
We attempted some photos last weekend with mixed results! Names have only just been assigned this morning.

Toccata

Fugue

Petrichor

Corsiva

Lucida
Corsiva and Lucida are smaller than the others, and all five are lively and inquisitive. The three Siameses had already been together but the agoutis were new to them so we have had a couple of weeks of them all getting to know each other, and yesterday we took a deep breath and put them in a carrier with our little old ladies.
Phase 1: Let us out of here!

Phase 2: Go away, we’re sleeping.

After a few hours of Phase 2 we gave them an upgrade to the hamster cage, plus a bit of scattered food.
Phase 3: More space! And stuff to eat!

And pretty quickly they settled down in there too.
Phase 4: Yeah yeah, we’re all getting on ok.

They’re been in there for nearly a day now so we’ll have another upgrade later this afternoon, and they can have a bigger cage and some treats. Fingers crossed that it all continues to go smoothly. The older ladies are used to being in a big group so they should take it all in their stride, and the younger ones seem to be pretty much unfazed by most things.
Meanwhile the boys are now in the top half of the big cage and have the wheel – it took two days for them to go anywhere near it but they seem to like it now. They’re lovely, affectionate and chilled boys, and I’m thinking of showing a couple of them in Pets before they get much older. Bolivar in particular loves attention and is always first to the cage door. Haven’t had chance to get many photos of them lately though – but I did get this one morning recently. Three of them could be bothered to get out of bed and say hello and the fourth couldn’t.
