You'll have to wait until my phone charges for pics as it's my only camera right now and wouldn't recognize the car charger but I needed some advice to start treating some rodents. A busy end of the week finally concluded with a trip to pick up a new lavender corn snake to potentially breed with our lavender female if I decide to go through with attempting snake breeding. Very tame little guy. My first corn snake acquisition that didn't start with "aggressive" even if it wasn't an accurate description. I do prefer the bigger pituophis species but my husband likes the smaller NA natives in the king snakes and corn snakes so he called up to ask about any remaining from a lavender clutch I saw posted and some new feeder rodents. Actually African soft furred "rats". Not really "rats" or "mice". There's not much of an info source for these specifically so general small feeder/meat animal advice for clearing up some unknown origin of eye irritation. I was going to grab terramycin ointment as my standard but if they have more irritation than established infection I was wondering if something like vetericyn wash wouldn't be better? http://www.calvetsupply.com/product/Vet ... edications Might actually be on amazon unlike terramycin or stronger meds. Then I can get free 2 day to me and maybe get them by with saline rinse until then.
I reduced nearly all my typical feeder rodents because of allergies/bronchitis and have been trying to get African soft furred rats. Those and gerbils seem to not set off my allergies and I haven't actually kept european rats or any mice species before this year when I had allergies and bronchitis flare up. Gerbils don't produce enough for my critters though given the size of meal they make with little else in the range between gerbil and rabbit. Plus maybe my gerbil addict 6 1/2' bull snake will find it an ok substitute so I can stop tricking him into eating his rats. I found some 4hrs from here but I haven't traveled that way lately and this pet store/bulk animal dealer with a broad range of animals was a convenient double stop. He ended up only having 1 pair on hand though. Don't know the whole story but they weren't marked for sale and he gave them to me with a new breeding pair of gerbils because they have eye problems. 1 has gunk in an eye but otherwise it just seems to be lots of surrounding redness and irritation like they got put on bad bedding or crowded with urine fumes around other feeders for awhile. I'm not familiar with these but their weight seems fine, otherwise clean, droppings look normal for various small rodents, no nasal drainage, no sound of respiratory problems, and their energy level is less than a gerbil but doesn't seem lethargic and it's hard to equal a gerbil for energy. With little around for them to potentially infect I decided to go ahead and get them anyway to see if I could clear their eyes up and get a litter until I can pick up more quality stock. The older guy overseeing things thinks the female is pregnant and will be producing soon.
The place also overall wasn't bad for the amount of mixed reviews. Lots of animals, few people managing things for the past few days and the result that comes from that but it smelled like a collection of animals on clean bedding and I've seen places that were much dirtier or run down around the animal cages keep generating business. It barely irritated my sinuses despite all the rodent cages and the aquariums gave off humid, heavy air but none of the smell of being too far past water changes. My husband complained the chinchillas were combined with the main warm, humid area of animals and aquariums when they need cool and dry but otherwise everything was housed well. The attitude was kind of that no one bothers to walk in here without just walking back out empty handed if they don't know enough to pull out an animal and check it over themselves. Usually stores get upset at their cages being opened at all but they were like "ok, pull them out" as both people ended up on the phone. We exchanged stories of some various law stupidity across the state, the knowledge level of animal control (apparently AC in that town are the volunteers from the local animal rescue), and he's actually been asked to advise lawmakers on groups of species when they can't determine accurate info. He knows the people that caused some of the exotics laws blocking our keeping of sugar gliders again or getting flying squirrels and various snake species paranoia to appear in my county. You can guess what a large animal dealer anyone can walk in and see everything gets from an AC made up of self educated, mostly anti-breeders from the local rescue. Not that it isn't one of the better rescues in the state and quite important for difficult cases but the difference in mindset and sources of info is an obvious headache. Personally I'd take that place over what makes it's way to the visible cages of petco/petsmart. Their sources all seem to be breeders devoted to specific species, their own breeding, and direct imports.
I reduced nearly all my typical feeder rodents because of allergies/bronchitis and have been trying to get African soft furred rats. Those and gerbils seem to not set off my allergies and I haven't actually kept european rats or any mice species before this year when I had allergies and bronchitis flare up. Gerbils don't produce enough for my critters though given the size of meal they make with little else in the range between gerbil and rabbit. Plus maybe my gerbil addict 6 1/2' bull snake will find it an ok substitute so I can stop tricking him into eating his rats. I found some 4hrs from here but I haven't traveled that way lately and this pet store/bulk animal dealer with a broad range of animals was a convenient double stop. He ended up only having 1 pair on hand though. Don't know the whole story but they weren't marked for sale and he gave them to me with a new breeding pair of gerbils because they have eye problems. 1 has gunk in an eye but otherwise it just seems to be lots of surrounding redness and irritation like they got put on bad bedding or crowded with urine fumes around other feeders for awhile. I'm not familiar with these but their weight seems fine, otherwise clean, droppings look normal for various small rodents, no nasal drainage, no sound of respiratory problems, and their energy level is less than a gerbil but doesn't seem lethargic and it's hard to equal a gerbil for energy. With little around for them to potentially infect I decided to go ahead and get them anyway to see if I could clear their eyes up and get a litter until I can pick up more quality stock. The older guy overseeing things thinks the female is pregnant and will be producing soon.
The place also overall wasn't bad for the amount of mixed reviews. Lots of animals, few people managing things for the past few days and the result that comes from that but it smelled like a collection of animals on clean bedding and I've seen places that were much dirtier or run down around the animal cages keep generating business. It barely irritated my sinuses despite all the rodent cages and the aquariums gave off humid, heavy air but none of the smell of being too far past water changes. My husband complained the chinchillas were combined with the main warm, humid area of animals and aquariums when they need cool and dry but otherwise everything was housed well. The attitude was kind of that no one bothers to walk in here without just walking back out empty handed if they don't know enough to pull out an animal and check it over themselves. Usually stores get upset at their cages being opened at all but they were like "ok, pull them out" as both people ended up on the phone. We exchanged stories of some various law stupidity across the state, the knowledge level of animal control (apparently AC in that town are the volunteers from the local animal rescue), and he's actually been asked to advise lawmakers on groups of species when they can't determine accurate info. He knows the people that caused some of the exotics laws blocking our keeping of sugar gliders again or getting flying squirrels and various snake species paranoia to appear in my county. You can guess what a large animal dealer anyone can walk in and see everything gets from an AC made up of self educated, mostly anti-breeders from the local rescue. Not that it isn't one of the better rescues in the state and quite important for difficult cases but the difference in mindset and sources of info is an obvious headache. Personally I'd take that place over what makes it's way to the visible cages of petco/petsmart. Their sources all seem to be breeders devoted to specific species, their own breeding, and direct imports.
