Well we had quite a lovely night last night! We had picked up our usual live feeders (Kyna and Rionach take them p/k) yesterday and saw that the pet store had some lovely chubby just weaned gerbils. So we grabbed up one with our rat weans as we've read that sometimes WC balls will take those if nothing else. Expensive little buggers but we figured whatever it takes to get Saoirse eating, it's very worth it.

Well we popped the gerbil into our feeder carrier and left it on top of Saoirse's sterlite to see what she would do. She very quickly came out of her hide and began searching the lid of her tub then sort of honed in on the scent location and stayed very still angled upwards right under where the gerbil was. We left them in the dark for an hour like this and then figured okay let's see what happens here.

Put the live little gerbil in there, turned all the lights off and wham! no gerbil. Afterwards Saoirse started hunting around her small sterlite which was just lovely to see. So having another rat wean available, we did the same thing. Rat wean in feeder container put on top of her sterlite, leave for an hour in the dark. She again honed right in on the area above her where that nice smell was coming from.

Introduced the live rat wean, lights off....WHAM! buh bye wean rat!!! From what we could see in the dark she hit it faster than the little gerbil and took it down slick as anything (for her size a rat wean is a small meal of course).

So obviously we are thrilled. It was a calculated risk and we knew she might refuse as that is her "reputation". So now we will just leave her be (she's in her warm hide) and monitor her for any signs of regurge.

I know that she was in a rack prior to coming to us and has had a LOT of changes and stress in the past 6 months. I don't know if the change to a quiet, dark, peaceful environment and a small enclosure has done the trick and got her eating or if it's the time of year or it was just time or just blind luck but....

Saoirse ATE!


~~Jo~~