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Eisefin


I have had pet store employees and potential owners pass on their information saying that rats should be kept by themselves, one rat to a cage, because they’re territorial and aggressive and will kill one another if faced with an “opponent”.
That one is especially amusing considering I have never once seen a petstore that houses its rates solitary. How are they surviving in the stores then? xd


I think the thing that made me facepalm the most was when I got in a slight argument with an exotic's petstore worker over crickets. I off handily told him I wanted about 50 of their smallest size since I needed a good amount to last me a couple months when up at college. The worker told me he could give me that many but the crickets would last a max of two weeks because they would cannibalize. After seeing the cricket bin which had no food, water, or shelter (they didn't even have some egg crate in there for them to cling too), I quickly saw why his crickets didn't last. You would think since this was a huge exotics store specializing in reptiles they would at least have a tiny clue on basic cricket care. emotion_facepalm

Greedy Receiver

Krissim Klaw
Eisefin


I have had pet store employees and potential owners pass on their information saying that rats should be kept by themselves, one rat to a cage, because they’re territorial and aggressive and will kill one another if faced with an “opponent”.
That one is especially amusing considering I have never once seen a petstore that houses its rates solitary. How are they surviving in the stores then? xd


I think the thing that made me facepalm the most was when I got in a slight argument with an exotic's petstore worker over crickets. I off handily told him I wanted about 50 of their smallest size since I needed a good amount to last me a couple months when up at college. The worker told me he could give me that many but the crickets would last a max of two weeks because they would cannibalize. After seeing the cricket bin which had no food, water, or shelter (they didn't even have some egg crate in there for them to cling too), I quickly saw why his crickets didn't last. You would think since this was a huge exotics store specializing in reptiles they would at least have a tiny clue on basic cricket care. emotion_facepalm


I have seen pet store rats with blood splattered on the bedding or on the walls because they have these rats cramped in god awful conditions with shitty food so dominant personalities develop for survival. When that survival mode kicks in then yes you can get a very agitated and aggressive rat. It’s sad, though, because you need to push a rat to extremes for that to happen unless it has a genetic neurological issue involved. Rats aren’t like that, yo.

God, I agree! I have had that happen as well. I get crickets for my rats as treats and for foraging fun so I buy big batches at a time and I have too received the “these will only last ____” and I always go “Uuuuhhh, no…?” or I’ll get horrendous looks from the employees when they know I’m getting feeder fish and crickets for my rats.

Dapper Cultist

.... so my turtle can learn it's name? O.o..... yea... no.

So much wrong with the link in the first post, but that really got me XD

Invisible Genius

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Vlad T
.... so my turtle can learn it's name? O.o..... yea... no.

So much wrong with the link in the first post, but that really got me XD

My turtle knows his name! >D

He will come out of hiding when I open the tank lid and tell him there's food. :3

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so this is my corrections to Aqualand Gerbil info:

Quote:
Breeding Colony: One male plus one or two females


This is a good way to have not just a single dead gerbil, but dead gerbil pups. Knowing breeders it is highly found to do a breeding colony. Females are the territorial sex, and in the wild only the main female will breed, her daughters actually have their hormones suppressed so they come into breeding age later. But even if both females and the male got along and both gave birth, if they didn't fight each other for the pups they would use up most of their energy stealing pups from the other and the pups would die because they aren't being fed.

the best way to breed is to have 1 male and 1 female.

Quote:
Diggers. You cannot keep a gerbil from digging in the litter like a crazed freakazoid unless you duct tape his little legs together. He will dig in all areas of his cage, covering his food dish (and water dish if you’re crazy enough not to use a water bottle). He’s not really trying to cover his food dish, he’s just trying to burrow his way back to Mongolia. This litter-throwing characteristic is another reason we prefer the larger pet blocks to seed diets. Seeds get mixed into their litter.


1.) Gerbils that have stereotypical digging (Corners of things) is doing so cause he can't burrow, upping how much bedding there is and giving a good 4-6 inches of bedding can curb this behavior. Gerbils can have a HUGE (40-50 for a pair) and only 2 inches of bedding and they will still dig in corners. but given a tiny (10gallon for a pair) with it half way filled with bedding... they wont go for the corners.

2.) There is nothing wrong with food getting mixed in the bedding, scatter feeding is a wonderful way to have them work their minds and find their food like in the wild.

Quote:
Litter. You need an “absorber” on the floor of your gerbil cage. We recommend all litters except cedar. We much prefer pine, aspen, or ground corn cobs. You need to change their litter weekly. Dirty litter encourages disease problems, even if it doesn’t stink.


Pine is a no no... Corn cob can cause feet issues. They really need a litter that they can dig in. Aspen + hay or Carefresh + hay works very nicely.

changing bedding weekly depends on the type of cage... and if the gerbils have a bathroom area.

Quote:
Pets with Handles. Some sources say gerbils picked up by their tails are in danger of their tail’s skin peeling off. We’ve picked up thousands of gerbils by these handy little handles without skinning their tails. Your gerbil won’t love you for picking him up by the tail, but he won’t lose it either.


They have been yelled at already by tons of people for this. but I this really pisses me off. Tails are fragile things, sure the very base is stronger than further down the tail, but it really shouldn't be how you want to pick them up...

I have had one gerbil with a kink in his tail, it wasn't bad enough to break it off, but he had less balance than Jethro, and that was due to him not being able to use is tail completely.

Quote:
Take them out of the same group or they will always fight – sometimes to the death.


if introductions are done properly and carefully, the bolded can be avoided, though some gerbils though fine sharing a split cage, will never want to share an unsplit cage, but this is fine.

Also this site has NOTHING NOTHING on split caging *bangs head against desk*

Quote:
We cannot sex young gerbils. Most male rodents sport huge testicles. Male gerbils are not as obvious. His testicles are still less apparent at older ages.


Um... yeah you can. oh look here....they can be sexed at 10 days old if you know what you are doing. It also shows an adult male vs an adult female.... the adult still seems to be obvious even if it isn't male rat size coconuts hanging from him.

(My pet store acutally wasn't sure if D and M were males.... i took one look when they were 2 months old an way liek "uh yeah... they are males." wink

Quote:
Do They Like Wheels? Wheels are great for hamsters. Wheels are only semi-great for gerbils. The spokes in the wheels can catch their long tails and break them. Put some ugly duct tape on the outside of the spokes to keep their tails from catching. Then put litter on the sticky part they will be running on.


two words: Silent Spinner

"oh but they can't have palstic in their cage!"....silent spinners are thick enough that it would take a long time for them to make a dent.

Quote:
Gerbils are diurnal.......won’t run their squeaky wheel at all hours of the night


No they are not in captivity they are crepuscular. And they WILL run on their wheels when they feel like it even if it is in the middle of the night when you go to bed or during the day when you are taking a nap.

Quote:
"Kathy Evans, June 12, 2006
You have a dangerously wrong piece of info on your gerbil care fact sheet. In Gerbils the females are the dominant ones. If you put more than one female with a male they will KILL each other. Please change this. Also at the bottom of your sheet, you tell them to leave the male in but you do not tell them that they will mate again and again and again and have babies every 5 weeks until the female reaches 20 to 30 months old. Also you tell them they can not put a female back in. Yes they can with the split cage method. No gerbils should meet each other for the first time without the split cage method. They will kill each other if over the age of 10 weeks.
Please visit the AGS website: http://www.agsgerbils.org and go to the care guide for proper information. Due to improper information we see too many newbies come to us asking why their gerbils died or one killed the other or why their one lone gerbil is so depressed.
I would greatly appreciate it if you would fix these simple and way too common errors on your sheet so that the proper info gets to people purchasing gerbils. Thank you very much"

A: I'm not too sure exactly how dangerous the page is, but I'll make your suggested corrections within the next two or three days. LA


She points out some very good issues with "LA's" page... and really didn't want to touch on the male in thing....

Malevolent Phantom

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Mircheese
Hey everyone!
I would have just made this to show you something really stupid I found, but to avoid cluttering up the forum with a bunch of similar threads, this topic should have a bigger use! So here you are welcome to post any poor care information you come across and educate people as to why it is wrong, etc etc. If you want to express your dislike for someone's pet care or want to get something off your chest just because it's annoying you, this is the place for you! Any and all discussion is welcome! emotion_awesome


I'll start off by sharing this "OMGWTF" caresheet I found:

Soft-shelled turtle

This is like, wrong on soooo many levels. gonk


That needs to be erased.

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Eisefin
Krissim Klaw
Eisefin


I have had pet store employees and potential owners pass on their information saying that rats should be kept by themselves, one rat to a cage, because they’re territorial and aggressive and will kill one another if faced with an “opponent”.
That one is especially amusing considering I have never once seen a petstore that houses its rates solitary. How are they surviving in the stores then? xd


I think the thing that made me facepalm the most was when I got in a slight argument with an exotic's petstore worker over crickets. I off handily told him I wanted about 50 of their smallest size since I needed a good amount to last me a couple months when up at college. The worker told me he could give me that many but the crickets would last a max of two weeks because they would cannibalize. After seeing the cricket bin which had no food, water, or shelter (they didn't even have some egg crate in there for them to cling too), I quickly saw why his crickets didn't last. You would think since this was a huge exotics store specializing in reptiles they would at least have a tiny clue on basic cricket care. emotion_facepalm


I have seen pet store rats with blood splattered on the bedding or on the walls because they have these rats cramped in god awful conditions with shitty food so dominant personalities develop for survival. When that survival mode kicks in then yes you can get a very agitated and aggressive rat. It’s sad, though, because you need to push a rat to extremes for that to happen unless it has a genetic neurological issue involved. Rats aren’t like that, yo.

God, I agree! I have had that happen as well. I get crickets for my rats as treats and for foraging fun so I buy big batches at a time and I have too received the “these will only last ____” and I always go “Uuuuhhh, no…?” or I’ll get horrendous looks from the employees when they know I’m getting feeder fish and crickets for my rats.


the one time I bought mealies for the gerbils I actually got a "you can feed these to rodents?" look but these girls (women...some where older than me) were all gushing about how big Jethro was and how cute he and the darling babies were.

made me happy inside. if i lived around other stores and had a car up here I would so take the gerbils during the warmer months to pet stores, just to help them get more social. and Ika would go too...but she can easily travel out in the winter but I would rather not throw the boys out in stuff like that XD
Mircheese


Or the care pages are all written by different people... The iguana one uses first-person and keeps emphasizing "I told you iguanas aren't smart now are they?" or whatever... ffffffffff iggys are like one of the most intelligent reptiles ever! <3
I have to admit the 3 that managed to get stuck in my chain-link fence make me question otherwise. rofl

Edit- Oh lol I thought I would include a photo for reference. Here was one showing off the lovely chain link fence look. We had to cut the fence to free her. Unlike the other two however she was super chill about letting us help free her.

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Invisible Genius

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Howdy everybody!!!! Sorry for my super-long unexpected hiatus, but...... SCHOOL. Dx

But I saw this the other day and thought I might share.

ADF caresheet

lol. But you likely won't see me around here much still. I'm always sooooo busy; My last year of high school is like my first year of college (Taking all AP classes) Dx

Oh, also, if you guys didn't know I got a new fish: (clicky)

Sparkly Lunatic

Mircheese

Glad that you stopped by :3
Your new fish is a beauty!!

Good luck with all your coursework this semester.

IRL Gekko

o________o That aqualand link. The dove section:
Quote:
Really Tame. However, even a total stranger can reach into a cage and pick up a dove. No high-pitched screeching. No panicky wing-flapping. They are completely tame – with no training period necessary at all.

Yeah....so my ring-neck dove doesn't try to wiggle out of my hands when I take him out for flying around(contained area, no fans, no heaters, no A/C unit, nothing to get burned on, windows covered, etc, think bird-proof) to stretch his wings since I can never find an affordable cage for him. D: (Seriously, I had to get crafty and combine a parrot cage he was in and a parakeet cage together) Sure....I mean, I know he's just usually super excitable and wants to fly around, but still. .-.

Quote:
Treats. Of course doves enjoy a change of pace in their diets. Keet foods have quite a bit of variety in them, but doves will appreciate different treats – even a little bite of bread or cracker. Greens, bits of fruit, and other little snacks go down smooth.

REALLY should specify WHAT type of greends, fruit, and other 'little snacks'. That's just asking someone to feed their dove cheetos, or to feed them iceberg lettuce, which I don't even recommend people because it's just overall empty nonsense. And parakeet food? .-. Really, this might be because I feed my dove a special blended diet made by my bird vet, but I would not recommend that. At all. Dove food isn't THAT hard to find if you look for it in the right places.

Also, in regards to the original care sheet, for the soft-shelled turtles, I may be wrong, but isn't it necessary for them to have light, especially in order to have an established day/night cycle? I know I've had to for red-eared sliders before as well as for my tortoise.

Alien Blob

that... that aqualand link...
i only looked at the section about bunnies, but... this, about trimming nails:
Quote:
or, take him out to your concrete driveway and pull him backwards with his nails on the concrete.

i was making this face, i think: emotion_0A0
why... how could anyone think that would be a good idea??

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Sayania


Quote:
Treats. Of course doves enjoy a change of pace in their diets. Keet foods have quite a bit of variety in them, but doves will appreciate different treats – even a little bite of bread or cracker. Greens, bits of fruit, and other little snacks go down smooth.

REALLY should specify WHAT type of greends, fruit, and other 'little snacks'. That's just asking someone to feed their dove cheetos, or to feed them iceberg lettuce, which I don't even recommend people because it's just overall empty nonsense. And parakeet food? .-. Really, this might be because I feed my dove a special blended diet made by my bird vet, but I would not recommend that. At all. Dove food isn't THAT hard to find if you look for it in the right places.


Doves are small birds and eat small things. Budgies are also small, also eat small things. There is very little difference in budgie seed and dove seed.

Quote:
white millet, milo, wheat, canadian field peas, red millet, canary grass seed, popcorn, safflower, oat groats, ground yellow corn, ground wheat, corn gluten meal, wheat middlings, dehulled soybean meal


Quote:
white millet, canary grass seed, oat groats, dehulled soybean meal, corn gluten meal, ground corn, calcium carbonate, wheat middlings


One is Kaytee Supreme Dove, and one is Kaytee Supreme Parakeet. Can you tell which is which? razz

Sure, one has milo and peas and safflower and popcorn, but it's not really a do-or-die sort of thing, especially if one supplements with other foods (no bird should only eat food out of a bag, they all need supplementation with fresh food).

IRL Gekko

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Sayania


Quote:
Treats. Of course doves enjoy a change of pace in their diets. Keet foods have quite a bit of variety in them, but doves will appreciate different treats – even a little bite of bread or cracker. Greens, bits of fruit, and other little snacks go down smooth.

REALLY should specify WHAT type of greends, fruit, and other 'little snacks'. That's just asking someone to feed their dove cheetos, or to feed them iceberg lettuce, which I don't even recommend people because it's just overall empty nonsense. And parakeet food? .-. Really, this might be because I feed my dove a special blended diet made by my bird vet, but I would not recommend that. At all. Dove food isn't THAT hard to find if you look for it in the right places.


Doves are small birds and eat small things. Budgies are also small, also eat small things. There is very little difference in budgie seed and dove seed.

Quote:
white millet, milo, wheat, canadian field peas, red millet, canary grass seed, popcorn, safflower, oat groats, ground yellow corn, ground wheat, corn gluten meal, wheat middlings, dehulled soybean meal


Quote:
white millet, canary grass seed, oat groats, dehulled soybean meal, corn gluten meal, ground corn, calcium carbonate, wheat middlings


One is Kaytee Supreme Dove, and one is Kaytee Supreme Parakeet. Can you tell which is which? razz

Sure, one has milo and peas and safflower and popcorn, but it's not really a do-or-die sort of thing, especially if one supplements with other foods (no bird should only eat food out of a bag, they all need supplementation with fresh food).

I'm going to guess the bottom one is parakeet food. :3
But yeah, like I said, that's probably because I buy from my vet. I do still always have problems though thinking of new fresh fruits for the birds. They get daily supplements, but yeah, I'm always afraid of what greens and what fruits are bad for them. gonk I know I've fed banana to them before, Luka(parakeet) doesn't care for it, Tanner(ring-neck dove) goes nuts. XD But past that it's all fuzzy on what to do. I should bring in a list to my vet and ask him which ones are okay and which ones aren't....

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