Akiko's tower.

It is not just Sapphire who has a new house, she is not even the only one to have two new houses as young Akiko the fennec fox has moved up in the world quite literally:

I had ordered her a ferret nation over a month ago but the company seem  to have never sent it but thankfully they gave me a refund which was great as the same day I managed to scoop a critter nation which is basically the same cage for half the price! Until the Critter nation arrives young Akiko has my sisters old ferret cage which is okay for now but I would never go out of my way to buy one for a fennec. There really is not much room to play and it is hard to get her out without encountering a ramp on your way.  This cage is great as a gap filler though. 

One of Akiko's favourite things is the tiny new bed I got her:

It is meant to be for rats and chinchilla's but it seems just perfect for a young fennec:

Look at those ears!:

I was really worried this morning when I went to give Akiko her breakfast of live Moreo worms as when she stood up one of her hind legs was all red! I thought she was hurt but then I noticed that the red that was on her leg matched the red of the feathery cat teaser that I have dangling in her cage, above her bed! Sometimes I think my foxes have a competition to see who can worry me the most. 

As Akiko gets through 24 moreo worms per day at least and her parents get through twice that my partner decided to try his hand at 'farming' them, he has been doing this for about a month maybe. He is also growing meal worms. 

The meal worms are going really well however the moreo worms just seemed to be getting bigger but not changing into pupae so we read up how to encourage them to do this and long story short he now has 4 huge, disgusting white pupae. When he showed me I ran out of the room screaming. I had thought spiders were the only thing that could do that to me but apparently not! Learn something new every day. . . 

I would end this entry by showing you all a photo of these disgusting, wiggling things BUT as I will not go near them let alone plaster their images all over my blog I will end today with a photo of Inari who, like the pupae is nearly white but he is awfully cute;

Even if he was being a grump! 

The fennec formerly known as ' Princess '

So as 'Princess' go older and we had to use her name more often ("Princess, drop the sock!", "Princess don't poop there!" etc) we decided that we really had to change her name.


We had planned to for some time but it had become quite urgent as Valla, Sprite, Elspeth, Sapphire and even my 7yr old human daughter Audrey were becoming increasingly annoyed with me telling them off for things they did not do as I have a habit of calling all my girls 'Princess'.


I tried many, many names and none seemed to stick and I constantly caught myself calling her 'Princess' so I asked for help on Sybil's den (http://www.raskbb.com/sybilsden/) and Facebook where many people gave me many ideas but none quite worked until 'the_unstable' on Sybil's den posted a link to a website with Japanese names.


After many hours sat there with 'Princess' on my knee I tried many, many names and eventually narrowed it down to two: Akiko which means Autumn or Bright child or Kimiko which means happy beautiful or noble child.


With the help of Kimberly Deverell and her Japanese language skills she was able to tell me that the meanings were correct and I chose Akiko (Bright child).


SO without further a-do here is Akiko the fennec fox kit:

We also gave her a brand new (also her very first) collar to go with that new name: 

She looks like she 'belongs' now. 


The weather has been so very odd here as of late, this time last week it was 27 degrees and yet now it is so very cold! When it was hot Harry, Elspeth, Rudi, Valla and Sapphire were so very moody as they have their winter coats on and just could not cope with the heat. The fennecs were in their element and were so very happy with the extra days of sunshine. 


Thankfully for our winter wear foxes it has cooled right down which has now upset the fennecs, I just cannot win! Akiko has decided that a cushion on the radiator or one of the cat beds that hooks on are perfect for her: 





Her parents have decided that sleeping atop each other is more their sort of thing. 


Sprite the Papillon is also a fair weather critter and seeing as she has no undercoat and unlike the fennecs does have to go outside to go to the bathroom and go for walks I got her some jumpers and coats: 














When we were getting Sprite her Winter attire we saw the most adorable cat toy which we thought would be perfect for Akiko. It is a cube covered in the same stuff as a cat's scratch post with the shapes of cat heads cut out on four sides with mice hung in the cut outs on elastic. 











I am very glad to say that it is a hit! 

However so too is a the top of a juice carton. . . 

Oh well, whatever makes her happy! 


I must be off as Sprite and Valla are arguing over a jacket hehe. 


TTFN! 

Mummy, I am all ears!

So two days ago the Phoenix kits ears started to rise, then then yesterday they were a little more upright and now one of them has her ears the whole way up and the other 3 are not far behind her!

Little girl last Tuesday 21 days old:

Little girl today at 27 days old:

(She is the one on our left.)

The little guy in the back on the one below is called Churchill, he was 'Grumpy' but now he is not at all grumpy but he just looks like a Churchill.

I am sure when he goes to his forever home his parents will pick a much more adorable name for him but for now Churchill suits him to a tee!

Here is Churchill leading his 'troops' out of bed and to breakfast, the other three follow him everywhere!

Today the kits tried solids for the first time, they had turkey mince (the same sort us humans eat) and Greek yoghurt. They seemed very into the yoghurt but not so much into the mince, I am sure they will like it more when they work out that you eat not walk through it! 

At the moment the are sleeping most of the day and all the way through the night which is really good. After walking the 7inches to their yoghurt they were exhausted and went right back to bed once I had burped them and there they fell to sleep for AGES before coming back out to explore and have some milk. 

Phoenix kits: First photo

So a few days after my last post our fancy IR nest box camera with sound and all of these other high tech things arrived. I was very excited to give it a try so when I fed the fennecs I set it up.

I tried to put it on the edge of where the kits are and Inari attacked it so then I decided to put it on a tripod away from where they are but looking in. Inari lunged at it allot though could not reach it. He then picked up all of the kits and moved them! I was so worried he was going to kill them so off and away went the camera.

The next morning they were back where they began snuggled up to their Mummy thank goodness! That is my lesson learnt for now, no filming baby fennecs.

So I more or less left them alone for a could of days bar feeding them and checking to make sure they were all okay. They moved the kits from the rabbit hutch to their ferret nation that was in my office before. The doors are always open with ramps attached so they just come and go as they please.

As they did not mind me looking at the kits so long as I left when Inari told me to I decided to take a photo.

You can only see three kits in the photo as the third is below the very harassed mother. For some reason they have shredded a puppy training pad and put it in their bed, if I was them I would have used one of the old towels or blankets as bedding but I think with how often the kits cry for them they must have such little sleep that they just used whatever was closest.

A few days after that I decided to use the super duper fancy camera to film them for a moment. The video is really, really bad but at least you get to see them.

Yesterday they turned 2 weeks old so I decided I would play with them for a little while. Their parents did not seem to mind me picking them up too much. They are so very cute and very. . . chunky shall we say so their mother is doing an amazing job with them! Two of them have started to open their eyes, the other two have not but that is nothing to worry about. It is so hard not to play with them all the time!

I shall try to get some more photos soon.

I have also made the foxes their own website! Please become members and let me know what you think in the guestbook. I shall be attempting to upload all of my photos onto there over the coming weeks.
Here is the link: flashmanfoxes.webs.com