Mischief Ham Update

[kyrilliondaemon]

Hi all

We've had a big day with the hams today, so we thought we'd update HC on how things stand at the moment.

Scamp is occasionally chewing but otherwise good.
Skip is fantastic and still loving his Alexander, his fur loss is a bit concerning but he seems ok so we're not too worried since its almost definetly old age.
Dusty, Scruff, Timmy and Bump are doing well together, and all friends and happy at the moment.

Then we get to our robo girls. As most know, Muffin and Whizz lived together for a while, then fell out because Muffin was growing up.
They've spent two and a half weeks living either side of a divider in a ZZ2, and all the signs were great. They sat next to the divider a lot, sniffed, climbed up, and seemed really glad to have the company there.

Today, we decided to try letting them meet in a nice neutral box without a divider. We thought they'd be ok, or that Muffin would be the problem. It actually turned out that as soon as they met, Whizz attacked Muffin.
Muffin is ok, a little shaken up, but she's fine and currently having a wash. They're both back in the ZZ2 with the divider but we will not be trying to introduce them again.
Its a shame that they can't live together but both are ok alone and Whizz is clearly not willing to be friends with Muffin anymore.

Now we're sorting out caging, and Muffin is about to move back to the duna fun she used to live in (its actually Skip's but his smells of her and hers doesn't so she's getting his anyway lol), while Whizz will keep the ZZ2 until we're sure both have settled from the separation and we can see if she likes the big space or not.
After everyone has settled properly and we're sure how they feel about their cages, we're going to clean the ZZ2 completely and then Muffin will get that while Whizz gets her own duna fun. The idea is to give both girls time in large and smaller cages so that we know what they prefer. If both prefer bigger cages then we'll buy another big cage for them and Muffin will probably keep the ZZ2 permanently as she loves being able to burrow so deeply in it.

So, thats how life currently stands with the Mischief Hams.

[vanilla-yazoo]

awww im sorry the girls had a fight! this is why i cant have pairs anymore -_- my oh asked last night when I showed the lovely pom girls together, if they can be together, as he thought they could only be appart, he has only known my 8 I have, and all are single.

It sounds like its best they stay singles now. but they will be utterly spoilt singles
glad to hear everyone else is well

[kyrilliondaemon]

*shrugs*

We never got too optimistic about the reintroduction, we just thought they'd be ok for a week or two and then fall out to be honest lol. We know what caused the original separation and we weren't sure it'd have resolved, so even if they'd wanted company there was a chance the old problem (dominance) would surface again and cause problems sooner or later. We were just wanting to give them the choice, and er... I think they made that choice quite clear really.

They're both happy and have been exploring new cages, and we'll hopefully get final caging sorted by mid-April now. Whizz seems very content in the ZZ2 so I have a funny feeling we'll be ordering another 100cm by 50cm cage sooner or later, but we'll see what the hams decide over the next few weeks really.

I've taken a few photos of both of them in their current homes so I'll be uploading those and adding them to this thread soon


Edit - We've decided to give Muffin the duna fun complex now, as it kinda makes our cage experiments fairer. We'll now wait and see what happens and yeah, photos will be up later

[Kissa]

Aww Seems such a shame that they won't get on. At least they'll both have good cages and be happy single

[kyrilliondaemon]

Yeah its a shame, but they'll be fine so its ok.

Here're photos of the two of them and their current cages and such.

Whizz













Muffin's cage


Muffin in her cage (before it became a duna fun complex)


After it became a complex





Oh and this is what the ZZ2 looked like when we dug the aubiose aside to remove the divider, it amused me so I wanted to share that too lol

[Pompompoms]

I find the barrier can be deceptive, or rather the behavior behind the barrier can be deceptive . Dasher and Billy spend three weeks with the divider, and all their waking moments would be sat touching hands cheeping at each other and sniffing each other through the mesh. I was very optimistic about the reintroduction, but it was bedlam!

It was worth a try, and neither of your lovely little ones was hurt so now you know you have done your best, and you know they will be perfectly happy it the lovely homes you'll make for them

[kyrilliondaemon]

Yeah we didn't expect them to work out long term lol
We hoped they'd get past three seconds together, but er... Whizz wasn't so keen on that idea. The idea was to give them control of their futures and they definetly made it clear what they want.

Both are definetly fine in their separate cages though, and its almost like they'd never spent time with the divider really, both are acting 100% normally which is good

It was worth trying and now we can keep them separate and know we're definetly doing the right thing. We got Muffin expecting to keep them separate, so now its been confirmed that they need to stay separate its fine. They're both happy and have lots of space so we're happy too

[KatiePillow]

Glad you're happy with their decision, guess they're both loners now. I hate the idea of a sole robo, but they don't seem to make things easy, do they!

Glad everyone else is doing ok, hope Scamp learns to behave again soon!

[fluffymunchkins]

Love the cages they are very lucky x

[kyrilliondaemon]

Thanks both

And yup, we're ok with this. We'd prefer they lived together but if they don't want to then we've accepted that both will be happier alone. At least now the decision has been finalised they can go back to having more than half a ZZ2 each