The Game is Afoot...

I was probably too optimistic to think that the displacement of the water bottle in their cage was just an "accident". On Sunday night I used a long twist tie to secure the tube to the side of the cage. The tube sits in a small holder from which extends a small trough that holds the water, and it fits in the holder pretty tight. That combined with the twist tie means it would take a pretty concerted effort to dislodge the tube. Well, this is what I found Sunday morning.

The yellow cap on the tube fits entirely in the yellow cup. They really had to work to lift the tube up out of the cup and off to the side.  The twist tie is the only thing that kept the tube from dropping to the bottom of the cage.  Of course, any water in the tube ended up in the cage tray. We have always had two water bottles in the cage, so they aren't in any danger of not having water. The other water bottle is the more conventional tube and ball type. If we want to keep using this style of water bottle, I'll have to figure out some way to mount the bottle on the outside of the cage. Kids.

Our curiosity is piqued, and now I really want to get the video camera set up to see what is going at at night.

Games Gliders Play

Well, finally...the first post of 2012. The last three weeks have been a little crazy around here, and on top of it all the furry four haven't been all too inspiring.

I wrote recently about how one or more gliders moved three small stuffed animals off of the top of their cage over the course of the night. Over the past two weeks I've had numerous occasions to be up in the middle of the night and pass their cage.  The times have ranged from around midnight to 4:00 a.m., and each time the stuffed animals were laying on the floor.  I started placing them back on the top of the cage at these times, and sure enough, in the morning they were on the floor again.  They must certainly enjoy the challenge of working the stuffed animals across the top and off onto the floor.

Now, we think they may be up to some new "tricks' in the cage.  About a week ago M found their water bottle knocked out of its holder and emptied. This is the type of water bottle that feeds a small trough that they can drink from. We figured that perhaps we didn't have the water container set in the holder adequately, although we have never had that problem before. Well, since then it has happened two more times, and now I'm thinking one of the gliders sees this as a new game. The next move on our part will be to further fasten the water tube to the side of the cage with a twist tie to prevent it from being easily knocked out of the holder. We'll see how that goes.