A Week in the Life of Raffy and Pip - May - and general bits and pieces

[Maz]

Day 1 - Thursday

This "week in the life of" thread for May, will be about my hamsters - Raffy (Syrian hamster approximately 16 months old) and Pip (Roborovski hamster approximately 22 months old), plus the occasional other random thing going on.

I have just got this out of the freezer. It's a sunflower head. I had decided to get one after seeing the one Rainbow got This will be for Raffy and it will be interesting to see what he makes of it. You could order various sizes by weight, and I had no idea how to gauge how big each one was so I plumped for one in the mid range. It's actually smaller than I imagined it would be and the sunflower seeds look quite small, so I wish I'd gone for the biggest one now. But hopefully it will still go down well.

From the back I think it looks a bit like a mushroom!







I also made a digging box for when Raffy is out of the cage. It's an Amazon box with Finacard in it






Raffy waiting to come out of the cage at night

 

[Maz]

He went running off once he was out so I put the dig box down with a few sunflower seeds mixed in. Despite the fact he was nowhere to be seen he must have realised there was something new on the floor and appeared from somewhere and went straight over to investigate it and climbed in. He set to foraging for the pumpkin seeds and filling his pouches but wasn't interested in digging.











I think he looks really cute on the second photo Baby like.

Once his pouches were full he sort of ran around not quite sure what to do - I suspect he had a dilemma - he wanted to depouch but also wanted his out of cage time. He was happy to walk into his tube so I took him back to the cage again where he went off to empty his pouches in his house.

Here he is with full pouches wondering what to do.

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While he was in his house I put the sunflower head in his cage and when he came out of his house he found it quite quickly and attacked it with gusto!




A video of him enjoying the sunflower head! It fell off the shelf a couple of times . He then wanted to be out again for his free roaming time.

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[elusive]

Lovely to see more of Raffy, he looks so cute & makes me laugh, the pouch dilemma was really funny, he needs a stash for out of cage time! He made me laugh when the sunflower head fell of the shelf too! He’s really loving that.
Looking forward to the rest of this week now.

 

[Member ID2]

What a great start to your week. Raffy is adorable. I especially like the first photo where he's waiting patiently to come out of his cage. I've also been thinking to get these sunflower heads. Where did you get them from? Looking forward to the rest of the week.

 

[Frida]

Lovely first day. The videos of Raffy made me giggle. He's such a beautiful boy Looking forward to the rest of the week.

 

[RainbowBrite]

What a lovely start to reading all about your week. I am so looking forward to this. Raffy really loves his sunflower head and it will be a lovely puzzle for him. All the pictures you took are beautiful too.

 

[Coco61]

Great start to your week Maz. Good to see Raffy having so much fun with the new sunflower head.

 

[Maz]

Thank you all . Raffy seems to be really enjoying his new cage and using all of it. The stance, waiting to come out, is a new one! He is clearly very in tune with what I'm doing in "his" space when he's out of the cage! He appeared very quickly when I put the dig box down, seemingly from nowhere.

Beryl - I got the sunflower head from the same Etsy shop that Rainbow mentioned. I've linked it below but they don't seem to have the Sunflower heads on their list any more. There are other places on Etsy that sell them though. I bought it to go in his new cage, but only just got round to putting in the freezer just over a week ago. I'm glad it was ready for this thread as he really enjoyed it.

HamstersWeLove - Etsy UK

Shop Hamster Accessories, Sprays, Forge, Treats and more by HamstersWeLove located in United Kingdom. Smooth dispatch! Has a history of dispatching on time with tracking. Speedy replies! Has a history of replying to messages quickly. Rave reviews! Average review rating is 4.8 or higher

www.etsy.com

 

[Maz]

Day 2 - Friday

Today I have an update on the premature lamb, who has now grown into a larger, chunkier lamb and is well and healthy. The blue cast on his leg is now a much dirtier colour The cast is due to come off in about a week's time. His other front leg is slightly deformed as well but he is active and it doesn't seem to bother him. His little horns have grown bigger now too.

Here is Mama sheep




Here is the lamb (now much larger) with Mum








Here's a video of him and his swishy tail

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Also a photo of Pip eating some spaghetti, with his eyes closed, from yesterday. Pip's cage is in quite a dark area of the room, so it's always tricky to get a sharp picture - even if he sits still for a few seconds! I think he may have closed his eyes because there is a little light comes on on the camera when it's low light (not flash but a kind of guide light). Shortly after this Pip almost did a kamikaze on me. I had the door open to put food in his food bowl and he decided to sit half way down his ramp and lean forwards as if about to jump. So I moved the food bag to block him and he looked like he was going to jump into for the food bag! He could clearly smell the food! So with my other hand I put the spoonful of food in his bowl and he followed the spoon and walked away from the door. He just wanted the food! One reason to put the food out before he is out and about! He is still a very tiny robo. Every time I see him I can't believe how tiny he is. Our previous robo was average size and much chunkier generally.



And here is Pip's special little teaspoon (retrieved from the cage after he'd had some scrambled egg). This is one of the very small ones I use for him - there are also some similar small coffee spoons (which I just call small teaspoons) although strangely I can't find any of those! It's actually smaller than it looks - the photo makes it look bigger.

 

[elusive]

Lovely to see the little , or not quite so little any more, lamb again, I had been wondering how he was doing.
Pip does seem to enjoy giving you a fright! He’s such a funny boy, very sweet too eating his spaghetti.
I wonder where all those spoons went to

 

[Frida]

Sheep are one of my favourite animals so it's lovely to see Lamb with his lovely mum
Pip looks so cute eating his spaghetti. Maybe his eyes are closed because he's enjoying the spaghetti so much

 

[RainbowBrite]

Aw, the lamb really loves his mum! They are both so beautiful. I would love to cuddle the lamb. So good to hear he is doing well and back with his mum.

How adorable little Pip enjoyed his piece of spaghetti so much. I agree with Frida that he closed his eyes eating it in sheer bliss.

I laughed at Pip thinking of jumping into the food bag and then being tranced seeing the spoon and stopping! He really does love spoons.

Pip never looks small to me but I think he and Orko may be similar build. Orko is so small and not chubby at all despite his healthy appetite. Pip always looks healthy and well.

 

[Member ID2]

Lovely update on the lamb. I was also wondering how he was doing. Great to see him with his mum.

Pip is so cute with the spaghetti. I have this very visual imagine in my head now of Pip jumping into the food bag.

 

[Maz]

Thank you everyone Yes maybe Pip's eyes were closed at the sheer bliss of the spaghetti . Ha ha Rainbow It was a dessertspoon with the food on and I suspect he was more entranced by the food on it than the spoon itself - although - maybe it's a bit of both! It is hard to see how big or small robos are from a photo sometimes and I can't always gauge it when I see Orko either. Pips face always looks smaller than most to me, I always wondered if he might be a runt. But don't tell him that

I also have another little video for today - this is Raffy last night.. I think he has virtually demolished the sunflower and removed all the seeds, from what I can see. It has certainly been a big distraction because he would normally be pestering to come out - instead he spent ages vigorously removing the seeds from the sunflower. Even with the door open! He had very full pouches! He then decided to come out because the door was open so I put his tube in front of him and he walked in and ran off, still with extremely full pouches! I thought surely he will have to empty them somewhere. But when he reappeared a few minutes later, he still had very full pouches - so I thought he'd better go back in the cage to empty them again and offered him the tube which he happily walked into. And disappeared into his house. He then didn't come out again for quite some time so I went to bed.

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[RainbowBrite]

Wow, Raffy got all the seeds out of the sunflower so quickly! He really enjoyed that. It was a nice puzzle for him.

 

[Maz]

It was a big distraction. I think both nights he was torn between coming out and staying in to finish the job.

 

[elusive]

He really is going for it with the sunflower head! Great to see him in action & those are pouches to be proud of Raffy!

 

[Member ID2]

He was making sure that nobody else gets them.

 

[Maz]

He is definitely a food loving Raff-monster. That is what I keep calling him these days - little Raff-monster. Not in a bad way obviously - but he does everything in extreme!

 

[Frida]

Raffy obviously had no intention of sharing the sunflower head with Pip