Asian Tsunami: The Animals Knew

Evidence is being discovered that the animals sensed something was wrong, and went to higher ground in Sri Lankha. Human bodies are being found, but no animals...

Agatha the Budgie

On one special morning walk, I reached my hand up to my shoulder and she hopped on. Then I turned her so she faced me and lifted her upwards, into the air perhaps 6 or 8 feet. She opened her wings and gently fluttered back down to me. I caught her in my hands. She liked it. She had that "lets do it again" look all over her face. So we did it again and again. Higher and higher she went, sometimes circling two or three times before coming down to my hands. It was a wonderful experience, for both of us.

From Lucky In Love: A Pigeon Story

This reminds me of Christopher and Agatha, our Budgie (that's her in the picture...) They've begun this game recently where during Agatha's out-of-cage playtime, Christopher has her come perch on his finger, walks across the room, then launches her into the air towards her outside cage perch. It encourages safe flight, and interaction/play between them. Speaking of safe flight, she can be rather reckless at times, trying to land on the ceiling fan...while running!

Training

Oliver has been recently adopted. He is learning the importance of training his human...

Brats

Christopher found a clip-on water bottle unclipped and dragged across a cage this morning. The mice that were present when it was found were busy using it to build their nest against, looking very pleased with themselves. Chris refers to them as 'little brats', but all in good fun.

Lately they've been rooting around in the bedding so vigorously that the underbedding of corn cob, like little pebbles, come spewing out between the cage wires onto the floor and my countertop in the kitchen, where they live. Quite a mess, I can tell you, and I scold them with a smile on my lips, and they never take me seriously...Well, what can you do? They're so cute!

FTM & Suet

Over the holidays, we heard from FTM's human friend, David...

The mouse was jumping up and down in delight when he got an email from America :) He's coming out more in the daytime now: I may be able to get some photos soon. He loves eating suet.

David went on to say...

The mouse is nonchalantly filling himself with suet and almonds even as I write. But my camera has dead batteries. No doubt you will hear from him again, by and by.

Well, we certainly hope so, David.

Neighbor

Neighbor
Originally uploaded by A. Subset.

This photo on Flickr, struck me as not only incredibly detailed, but also capturing this little 'neighbor' in a very natural manner.

Book Find: "The Mouse and His Child"

A "magical book", the reasons it speaks to such a wide range of readers is that "...in its inventive celebration of junk it reveals the consciousness of a child. In its lyricism it suggests a young man newly in love. In its tenderness we see the father of young children. And in its dark places we meet a middle-aged man in crisis." - The New York Times Book Review

I was delighted to discover a book today titled The Mouse and His Child.

Now, as soon as I read that title, I HAD to find out more, of course. It was an intriguing title, not because of the word 'mouse' (well, maybe a bit...!), but because it was followed by '...and his child'. THAT is what made it unique, and thus worth looking into.

Sight unseen, I have ordered a copy for myself, and my grandsons, and they are on their way to us as I write this.

I did a bit of investigating online just now, and found a few sites of fans who love his work. One site even mentions the first ever convention about this author will be this coming February. What an excellent time for me to become aware of him. And here I was cynically thinking I may have no worthy authors left to discover...

Mouse News III

Researchers are finding out that giving honey orally before cancer appears (preventative) inhibit development of tumours in mice. They are also finding that injecting royal jelly after cancer appears (treatment) significantly reduces the spread of cancer.

This is great news for mice and those that love them, since tumours are one of the most common health problems with mice. It's good news for their human friends, too, since this could be indicative of future treatments that might help them, too.

Once again, mice lead the way...

Baruchito Update

I am a HUGE Baruchito fan. Since early November, you obviously have been busy because no updates. Many of us are curious - how are the baby hamsters? :)

Trish
_______________________________________

Hi Trish,

Thanks a lot for your mail. :)

There have been no updates since November because I'm very busy lately, having to do two jobs. Baruchito, Flan and the babies are fine... except for one male who died two weeks ago. :( We gave him to a friend of mine who apparently didn't have any experience with pets, and looks like the poor baby got a cold and died a few days later. The other four babies (two boys and two girls) are still living with us, and we'll be giving three of them to two friends in Hiroshima when we go there for new year.

We're keeping one girl. She was the smallest of the litter, but also the most friendly. She really likes to play on my hands. You can see a photo of her here (when the two females where still on the same cage)

By the way, her name is Nana. :)

The funny thing is that each of the babies has developed his own personality or habits. One of the boys, for example, cannot live without some tunnels or some narrow place to hide into. We think he's the one who's sleeping in the last item I posted on baruchito.com. He's the one on these photos:

http://www.ag0ny.com/misc/bonsaihamster.jpg
http://www.ag0ny.com/misc/bonsaihamster2.jpg
http://www.ag0ny.com/misc/bonsaihamster3.jpg

He has a very big CritterTrail cage, but he looked sad until we put a lots of tunnels on it. He's spending most ot the time running inside the pipes and sleeping.

The other boy has a normal CritterTrail cage (like Baruchito's). He runs a lot on his wheel, but he has a very bad habit: he likes to have his toilet just next to his bed, on the second floor of the cage, and AFTER removing all the sand/wood chips that I put there. We have to clean him every day, and I'm thinking about blocking the pipe so he can't use the second floor and is forced to use some other place as toilet. If you know some way to make him do this without blocking access to his nice bedroom, please let me know. ;)

I will update the blog software as soon as I can, because something went wrong with the current one and users cannot post comments for some reason. When I do that, I'll post a lot more things about Baruchito, Flan and the babies. :)

Regards...

World's Oldest Mouse

I must say, IDG1-030 was a mouse with character. It touched my heart to see that the scientists with which he worked all his little life, cared enough to memorialize him...