Training with noises

 
Ronnie and Derek now associate a ‘clicking’ noise with food, as I’ve always made the noise when feeding them. Even if they’re dozy in their house and I click, they’ll now drag themselves out and over to the cage door as they know they’re going to get food (maybe a treat!). They also come over when I open the plastic boxes I store their food in, as they recognise the noise now.

They’re also now used to the noise of the front door being unlocked, so if they’re in their house when I come in, they’ll pop their heads out to see what’s going on. It’s a welcome sight to come back to!

This info about training and noises has been added to the Habits page.

‘Summerats’

 
At the start of meteorological summer, here are some recent photos of Ronnie and Derek.

Click thumbnails to enlarge. More photos on the Photos page.

Porphyrin around Derek’s nose

 
Yesterday evening, Derek had a dried, browny-red substance around his nose. It looked like dried blood at first, but was actually porphyrin which is a mucus-like substance. It can be a sign of excessive stress or a respiratory infection, but Derek had no other symptoms.

I cleaned his nose and, this morning, it was still clean. The internet assures me the porphyrin release was likely just a one-off, due to temporary irritation in Derek’s eye caused by something such as a piece of bedding or an eyelash getting in his eye, or maybe he scratched it while self-grooming.

As always with this sort of thing, I’ll keep an eye on Derek and make sure it was just a one-off.

This info about porphyrin has been added to the Care page.

Alert and Sleepy

 
This morning, Ronnie was feeling alert while Derek was the opposite…

Click thumbnails to enlarge. More photos on the Photos page.