Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Aunts

M refers to the gliders we adopted two days ago as the "aunts".  They are both about 7 years old and sisters. (Foehn and CB are only 10 months old.)  I haven't seen much of the "aunts" in the two days we've had them as they have been sleeping when I have come out in the morning, and still sleeping when I've gone to bed. They have something of an odd schedule, as they have been active through late morning the last two days.

We've named these girls Virga and Cirrus. Their previous owner had them checked by their vet just before we picked them up, and the vet indicated they were "bright, alert, and in good health". The most striking thing about them was the difference in their weights.  Virga is 80 grams, about the same as Foehn and CB.  Cirrus, however, is just shy of 60 grams and is a  little glider and one of the reasons we named her after the thin, wispy cirrus clouds. From our brief observations it appears that Virga is a little food dominant and may be why Cirrus is underweight. The other night I gave a small carrot stick to Cirrus and Virga swiped it from her within a few seconds. Cirrus seemed resigned to this. (Foehn will take something from CB but he will turn around and try to take it right back). We've seen a few other signs of Virga's "me first" attitude when it comes to food. There may be hope for Cirrus, though. M was feeding them both some meal worms today and had given one to Cirrus. Virga came over like she was going to take it, but Cirrus turned away from her as of to say "You're not getting mine!" and finished her treat. We are taking both of them to our vet this week for a baseline visit and to make sure that nothing else might be going on with Cirrus. We're pretty confident her low weight is her sister's food dominance. It's likely that has been going on for some time and otherwise they both have been healthy.

No photos yet of our new additions, but I hope to have something to post in a day or two.

No comments:

Post a Comment