Happy Easter!

Okay we may be a day late but Easter is very busy in the Flashman house hold with so many fur kids and one human one we have been been run off our feet!

Everyone got a big plastic Easter egg filled with yummy goodies and a plush rabbit toy. . . They also all got rabbit for dinner but I promise it was not the Easter bunny!

As Audrey was making Easter masks in the morning by time Akiko got out of bed Audrey was done and there was allot of craft stuff left over so we thought we would have some fun with the presentation of Akiko's eggs.















The following photos are sort of freaky but they are where Akiko is chewing:

OMG! No Peeps?!


We hope everyone had a most wonderful Easter!

Until next time.

Happy Holidays!

I just wanted to wish you all a wonderful X-mas and a fabulous New year and what better way then with a festive Fennec!

Have a great Holiday season everyone!

- The Flashmans

PS: Not chosen a name for Mr Sapphire yet, will inform the winner when I have but keep the suggestions coming!

The spare enclosure and other news.

Yikes I am SO behind the main reason for which being that my camera has been missing since November and my old camera was in storage. Needless to say is is not any longer.

I believe one of the foxes, namely Harry has nabbed it but I do like to wonder what someone would think if I lost it in a public place and they found it as on the memory card there are photos of Valla and Sprite in the Halloween costumes, Harry and Elspeth's second birthday party and various other photos of just foxes lazing around.

So anyway yes on November 13th it was Harry and Elspeth's second birthday! It amazes me that they have only been with me for such a short amount of time and yet they have shaped my life so very much and changed the way I think about so many things. . . Speaking of which as I type this I am sitting at my desk, at home with five and a half, maybe a quarter socks on my desk, one of my partners slippers and two felt tip pens all of which have been confiscated from Harry, Elspeth and Rudi in the last 45 mins.

The question is would I go back in time and change my predicament so my desk was once more free from their treasures? No way! I love all 9 of my fox kids and I would never have it any other way. I actually asked my partner and daughter the same question and my daughter said the only thing she would change is she would make Akiko sleep in her room so she could be her fox (this might I add shall never happen of else neither of them shall sleep). My partner just wished he could have Freyja back as well as having the others which we all wish could happen. . . And his slipper which he just noticed was among the treasures on my desk.

So what has happened since I last posted. Well ever so much as a matter of fact and as I got my old camera (which refuses to acknowledge it is not July) out of storage I have been able to document some of it in photos.

Now where to begin. . .

Akiko got a wonderful Tinkerbell hammock all the way from America with the help of our friend Dru (whose blog you can find here:  http://illustratedrat.blogspot.com/ ) . Dru is very much into Rats and when she put up a link to a rat rescue I believe it was that made cute hammocks for rats I just knew Akiko would love one and Dru was kind enough to help us get one to the UK.




Akiko loves her hammock and it is just so very perfect for her! She was quite unsure at first though so we had to put it up so that it rested on a shelf at first and the I slowly moved it higher and now she is always in there, if not sleeping she is rolling around it in just for fun.

Harry and Valla have a new favourite food: baby carrots!
I would not have expected it but yep, they love baby carrots. I am pretty sure it is just because they are really crunchy OR because Audrey and I are always munching them but either way it is very odd to see a fox turn down a chicken wing in favour of a carrot. . .

December 5th was Sprite's second birthday! Unlike Harry and Elspeth's birthday with is really the day we brought them home as Sprite actually has documentation of when her birthday is we can actually celebrate the right day. Much like Harry and Elspeth's birthday all the fur kids got their favourite food, Sprite got to go to pets at home and choose some toys herself (the foxes don't do that bit, I don't think it would go down too well).

We built a spare enclosure which we then moved Sapphire into to help us fault find (we chose her for this job as though she is an amazing escape artist she always comes and tells us she is out). This is the first time we have not put something solid down as the base to prevent escape as in Harry and Elspeth's enclosure we used cement, on Sapphire's we used galvanised wire covered in paving slabs which were covered in bark chips which is great but this time we just used galvanised wire covered in bark. It was all going really well until the third day when she had dug all around the outer edge which made me worry (she had not gotten through the wire) so I brought in some paving slabs and put them where the biggest holes were. I later the same day found out why she had been digging as she dug another hole and then after some rummaging around pulled out a large stone and took it inside the shed and there I see she has a collection of them!

The new enclosure is entirely the work of my partner on the designing front. It has a 9ft x 9ft outside run and an shed measuring 6ft by 8ft which unlike Sapphire's enclosure is not inside but instead the run is attached to the front of it as though the shed was a house and the run the front garden.

Though much smaller then Sapphire's enclosure which has been extended yet further it has many of the features including a dog house in the shed which I think my partner mainly did to amuse me and a platform however we made that too tall and had to buy a bale of hay to be used as a step and according to Sapphire it is also to be used to rub and roll on as it smells very nice (apparently).

Here are a few photos of Sapphire hanging out in there:



Sniffing Audrey's shoes:



Looking beautiful! :



Loving her Dad:



Don't try the above at home with a random fox or your pet fox if they are not accustomed to it. Sapphire has been hugged from an early age. I know it sounds odd to add that but there are really some stupid people about, not that I think any of you are but with the Holidays upon us one to many drinks can make people do some crazy things lol.

Seeing as I love foxes so much it sounds normal for me to have a random extra enclosure for no apparent reason just sitting there waiting to be filled with the next wonderful critter. We actually built this enclosure as there is somewhat of a distemper epidemic sweeping Britain and we were readying for a new member of the Flashman household.

You may remember my partner was not too pleased when I got him to move Sapphire outside. Well since she moved out I have been told daily that she needs a friend and that she is lonely and I have been asked just as often if she can come back inside as she really does not smell now.

Well, though Sapphire actually smells very little now and she does seem to live for when we went out to see her and take her for her walks I just did not wan't to move her back inside.It's not because I am mean which my 7yr old daughter informed me but because we have the heating on so much now she would cook with her winter coat. Long story short I agreed to look for a friend for her.

I looked high and low and was offered a few but then I found one that seemed to really need a knowledgeable home.

I would like you all to meet "Mr Sapphire":



Mr Sapphire is a blue phase Arctic fox just like Sapphire is just he has had a bad start in life.

Mr Sapphire's first owners basically has no idea and fed him on potatoes, no meat to keep down his "foxy smell" and bathed him every day using head and shoulders! (Neither of this would keep a fox from smelling "foxy" might I add.)

His second home did not have him for very long at all.

The day we brought him home we stopped in the kitchen to fix him some dinner before heading into the garden to take him to his enclosure, that was when I took the above photo.

Once he had finished his dinner we wandered outside to the enclosure, went inside, set down his travel cage, opened the door and POOF! there was Sapphire sniffing his nose!

You see little did I know that though we had the night before moved Sapphire to her enclosure that during the day when we were collecting him "someone" (I shall not name names hehe) took her for a walk and put her back in the wrong enclosure! We had not seen her as she was sleeping in the shed.

So anyway there was out great plan of segregating them gone and a gradual introduction gone but thankfully as all of our animals are inoculated against parvo and distemper and regularly de wormed it was not actually too big a deal for them to meet, it was just not how I expected it to go.

In all honestly I could not have expected it to go as well as it did!





After sniffing each others noses and all over each others body they took off together with Sapphire leading the way showing him around his new home, she even showed him that her humans are tame hehe.

As Sapphire is a total foodie I did not expect her to be okay with him licking the bowls but she was fine and showed no aggression at all towards him. They his it off wonderfully.

After about an hour sat with them we retired inside but checked on them regularly. I saw one of the most adorable things I have ever seen on one of the times which was the two of them sitting atop the platform licking each others tongues! I thought it looked very odd at first the two of them "kissing" each other with their tails wagging like mad but at the same time it was so cute to see them both being so happy!

Now though I am not done updating you all I must go as I have the flu and I feel totally, utterly gruesome so I shall bid you all good night and return tomorrow with the rest of my news. My photos are already on my P.C. so even if my camera should vanish I shall be able to continue.

Good night all!

Happy belated Halloween

Firstly I would like to say HAPPY HALLOWEEN for yesterday, as would young Akiko the fennec fox:



Yesterday was a wonderful day here in the Flashman household with many more treats then tricks. Valla and Sprite sported matching Halloween costumes of which both girls were very happy, Valla even more so then Sprite as she had cloths that were hers this did however not stop her from trying to take Sprite's too but what can I say, she is a fox and they do very much like to have belongings.

Though none of the other foxes got to dress up they still joined in the merriment with treats of various luxury meats mixed into their normal food such as venison, duck, pheasant and such which they very much enjoyed!

I have taken many, many photos for you all however I have misplaced my camera so I shall when I find it I shall post the photos as soon as possible for you all to enjoy. As for now to keep you all amused have this video if Sprite and Akiko playing:

It is quite long next to our normal videos but I urge you to watch right until the end to see the magic which is Akiko swapping from a white mouse to a black mouse without anyone noticing and no camera trickery at all!

When I said that none of the other foxes bar Valla got to dress up I might have lied a little but only the tiniest little bit. You see Sapphire has donned her fall coat which we have been joking makes her look like she was dressed as a ghost for Halloween.



You will have noticed that I said her 'Fall coat' which will have puzzled you as you, being a lover of foxes will know that they only have two coats; one for winter and one for summer. Well, I have dubbed Sapphire's current coat her Fall coat as whenever I think she is as light as a blue phase Arctic will get she gets lighter so I am not totally sure if she is quite done her transformation yet.

This photo was taken on October 17th:


And this one on October 30th:


I think you will agree that she has changed a fair amount in a very short time frame.

I must say it is very odd to think that this large pale grey creature was once the tiny little black one depicted here:

Well I shall go now to find my camera, it must be here somewhere but I suppose the question as always is where. . .

TTFN!

Fennec fox Vs Papillon round 1

Sprite, the papillon has become more and more fond of playing with Akiko the fennec fox the bigger she grows. I think now Sprite is not as worried as she was before about breaking the tiny delicate little fennec.

As always Sprite will only play rough on a bed or sofa which is great as I am quite sure that if they played on the wood floor someone would get hurt. 

Akiko is getting quite good at understanding how to play, she knows that is Sprite squeaks she should let her go. 

I took a few photos of the two of them last night along with the above video, I hope you guys like them!:

In the last photo Akiko's eyes are the oddest colour, they are not like that normally before anyone asks.

Though Akiko may understand that when Sprite squeaks it means to leave her alone she has yet to learn that when I squeak I mean the same:

My poor toes! 

You may have noticed the red patch on Akiko's thigh? That is from her red feather cat teaser, she slept next to it the other night and it dyed her fur and I cannot wash it off so she is stuck with this red patch for now. I do not think I would mind so much if it was a funny colour but that it is red makes her look wounded! Maybe I can pass it off as a Halloween costume on the 31st? hehe! 

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! 

Valla - Britain's next top model

Last night when I stopped blogging and decided that maybe it was time for bed Valla did something I had never, ever seen a non human do. . . She bit her tongue!

Now you may giggle, I actually am right now and it did look funny when she did it as it was like she forgot to put her tongue away BUT having such very big, sharp teeth it actually was quite worrying. There was blood, not much but blood at all makes me worry with my kids, mostly with my fur kids as with Audrey my only non furry kid I can sort out but with my fur kids the exotics vet is over an hour away and is not open in the middle of the night.

ANYWAY the blood that was coming from her tongue looked like far more then there was as she is blonde and it had gotten on her fur and combined with her drool had covered her face. She was a bit freaked out so ran to my room and sat in my closet. (She likes hiding under my dresses when she is in a mood.) When I picked her up out of there she snuggled into me and started licking my hands. It did not take me long to notice she was licking my hands as she could not lick her own tongue so this was the best she could do as the blood from her tongue was going on my hands and she could lick that off. A little while after she stopped licking my hands she decided to try to lick in my mouth as she did not see why I was not licking her poor tongue better! This was a wee bit too much so I passed her onto Sprite who was more then happy to help her best friend.

So Valla is all okay now, she was just a bit worried as was I but she was back to running around with Sprite a few minuets later however she still felt a bit sorry for herself.

Prior to the tongue incident Valla had seen me putting a jumper on Sprite who wanted to go in the garden but was so very cold. Valla did not understand why she was not being treated the same, why she was not being put into a jumper so she decided to run off with one!

It was very, very funny as she looked at all of Sprite's clothing for a while until she decided that the brown jacket would be perfect for herself. (I think it was the golden coloured buttons that closed the deal.)

I called Valla back to me and she came, reluctantly as she was quite sure I would be upset with her. I then went to get the coat from where she had hidden it.

As Valla sat on the bed watching me as I put the coat away I decided to let her try it out. I was being unfair not letting her join in and she seemed to think I had decided Sprite was now my favourite as she looked very unhappy.

Foxes normally do not care if you want to involve them in things but Valla really hates it when Sprite does anything she is not allowed to do or gets things she is not allowed to have so we normally make sure not to do that, the girls always have the same things.

SO I put Valla's new harness on her which seemed to be a hit as it has little diamanté bit's on it and then I put the jacket on her. I would NEVER have thought a fox would be so happy to join in with a dog wearing clothing!

Valla spun around on the bed and ran down the hall after Sprite, I would suppose to show her how she was doing the same thing. Sprite seemed confused as to why Valla was so excited about just wearing a jacket and retreated back to my room. Valla was not far behind.

As I had my camera on my bedside cabinet I decided to take a few photos.













I posted a few of the photos on Facebook and a friend said that Valla would look nice in pink so as Valla was already having such a good time trying out Sprites wardrobe I let her try on a pink jumper too:



As you can see I was not holding her lead, she was too busy bouncing on her favourite trampoline in her stylish new togs to care hehe.



Valla noticing that she had her lead on.







Oh no she's found Sprite's morning treat bag! I just love the 'hunting' foot hehe.



Practising her zombie eyes ready for Halloween.



Her show dog pose. You have no idea how hard it is to get her to stand like that. It involves allot of treats hehe.

And here is my beautiful girl in just her new harness:





Her brush is so fluffy! It is not as long as Rudi's but it is so poofy I just adore it!

I just wanted to say that I would never have put Valla in the cloths if she did not want to. Unlike Sprite she has a winter coat on her naturally and thus has no need for winter wear, I just let her try them on to join in with Sprite and as you can see she enjoyed it.

Valla's new harness is the same as the one Freyja had but in black opposed to pink. It is mean to be for adult cats but it is still way too big for Valla even on the smallest settings. You can see how much of her is just fur.

Poor Akiko, like Sprite has no winter coat but also has no winter coats so she has stolen my stripy hot water bottle:



Earlier today I had quite a shock as I was peeling mangoes to dehydrate for Audrey's lunch and Rudi jumped on the kitchen counter, took a mango skin and ran off! I was totally amazed that he managed the jump with but 3 working legs and more amazed that he managed to land on his 3 good legs!

He does not seem to impressed with him mango skin but he will not give it up for anything, not even a chicken wing as I think he is proud of himself for getting it. . . I must be honest, I am proud of him too.