He absolutely loves the pillow I use for my knees when I clean their cage, he'll often pancake on it for 30-60 seconds, and just lay there staring at me, then stretch and yawn and go sniff my feet, he is a silly little man.
I had literally just spot cleaned and replaced the top 10 cm of their bedding, while they were free roaming around me for 30 mins+, but they were back to begging to be let out right after they both had a quick drink... and yes they got another 20 mins right after.
I usually give them some sheets they move around in their bedding, Pip couldn't wait apparently.
He's been randomly sitting there for 10-15 minutes at a time, just watching, looking kinda proud/observing and relaxing, tomorrow I'm starting on some mods for Tims detolf, it needs a better splitter and some improved floors, and then I'll hopefully have them both in the detolf sometime this weekend for some splitcage bonding.
I decided on calling him Bumle, it's sort of the "pet name" for bumblebees in Denmark, and I'm pretty sure this is the first time he's had a wheel, he had a spinning tree disk that didn't work when I picked him up.
I was aware of this little man for a while, but I didn't have room, with Teddy being sick and me actively having 3 huge cages in use, but now there was no excuse left to not rescue him, he's about 11 months old, and lost his tail from a failed bonding attempt, he's been solo for at least 4 months, and I will be start bonding him with Tim in a couple of days, I was thinking about naming him hamster, but honestly that's a bit too silly, so I'm open for suggestions.
He was going in for an x-ray/camera examination this week, to see if he has an aural cholesteatoma, the only reason why I waited, was because he'd gotten a bit sick after his ear flush Monday, I wanted him to be healthy before we started anything that possible had a major impact on him.
When I woke him up this morning, I noticed he had more problems moving around than usual, and he hadn't touched his broccoli, so I knew something was wrong, I took him out and he seemed to have some major balance issues, I gave him his pain medication, dropped his ear, and gave him his oral antibiotics, while I observed him trying to free roam, which had some issues for him, he stayed on the blanket I usually have under him when giving him his medicine.
So I prepped one of my temporary cages for him at first, with some blankets and a heating pad, and he slept there for some hours, then around 10am I tried to get some emeraid intensive care in him, with some luck, but he didn't want to leave my hands, so I literally sat with him for 3 hours (picture 1+2), then I had to go do some house work and put him down in his temporary cage again, this time with everything he loves - banana, broccoli, some blueberry and a teaspoon with some baby food, but when I came back 2 hours later, he hadn't touched any of it.
So the rest of the day I spent on trying to force feed him with emeraid, getting some more pain medication in him, and watching him deteriorate, by 8-9pm it was pretty clear, that he most likely had an aural cholesteatoma, and it had most likely ruptured and was pushing on the bones in his ear, he had lost most of his balance, there was some very visible puss coming out of his ear, and he started squeaking a bit when I pick him up.
I wanted to take him to an emergency vet for euthanasia, but the closest is more than an hour drive away, and I feel like that would just be even more torture with a long car drive and every bump on the road hurting him, so instead I spent the night with him, with him sleeping right next to me in a warm and comfy little cage, squeaking a little at times when he wanted to be picked up, with all of his favorite treats which he never touched, I hoped to be there if he left me, instead I got to sit with him a lot, I've probably had him in my hands for 7-8 hours of the last 24 hours, sometimes he just napped for an hour.
He was a very special little man, he was unwanted by the pet shop I got him from, he was the last remaining from a group of boys, and they tried to just put him in with another group after, he of course got attacked, and when they removed him from the situation, they hurt his left back leg, he was deadly afraid of hands when I got him, and it took me 6 months to get him used to taking treats from and feeling safe around my hands.
I bonded him with another rescue a couple of months after I got him, sadly his friend died September last year, shortly after that my previous vet (which I've developed a lot of malice towards), dropped him on the floor and lied to me about it, he had a broken left side leg and paw when I came to pick him up after a routine checkup, it was supposed to have been the last step, before I would have started bonding him with 2 pups I'd gotten for him.
He's been solo since he lost his friend (my other goodest rescue boy Panda), the broken paws and legs prevented me from bonding him to the pups, by the time he'd healed they we're 13-14 weeks old, and the 2 young ones almost balled up in rage at my first splitcage attempt, it was super stressing for both parts, so I quickly gave up on that, and at the same time I was dealing with a scent gland tumor in another one of my boys, so by the time I felt ready to look for a single pup for Teddy, his ear problems started showing up.
Sorry for the wall of text, I'm trying not to ball up in tears as I am writing this, he's going in for euthanasia in 2 hours as I write this, earliest possible time sadly, he's mostly sleeping, but will twist in pain at times, I gave him a double dose of metacam 2 hours ago, with little effect, I was ready to give anything to save him, but he deteriorated too fast in the end, all I can do now, is to give him peace, and remember that he'll rejoin Panda over the rainbow.
He got his ear flushed again Monday, and he always get a few days with some sniffles after, but he's on antibiotics and pain medication, so he should be over it in a day or two again, this is the 4th time he's going through this, next week we're going in for an x-ray of his inner ear, so we can see what exactly is going on.