A Disappointing Setback

The first week of everyone together went pretty well. There were a few incidents of chasing and griping, but most mornings everyone was sleeping peacefully together. This weekend things started to go downhill went Foehn went into heat. There were a couple of ball-ups in the pouch, which of course gets everyone else all worked up.  The vet noted a healing scab on Sprite's chin at her wellness checkup last Thursday, as well as some minor abrasions on her rear foot. Those might have been from running on the wheel (which she does a lot), but she has never had them before that we know of. Yesterday Foehn was chasing Sprite down in the tent again, and trying to latch on to her tail, so we removed her from the tent. M also noticed that Foehn had some abrasion on her face and near her eye, so obviously both were getting their licks in. Sprite is back to being fearful of Foehn again, so we are more or less back to where we where before last weekend. Last night I brought up the small cage and Foehn and Rossby are now together there. We couldn't leave Foehn by herself - Rossby is her man.

Foehn's behavior is getting to be somewhat of a concern. She is constantly trying to mark and she bites on everything from the wheel to the cage bars. Tonight she was intent on getting into the pouch where CB, Flurry, and Sprite were in to the extent she was ignoring offers of mealworms.

We're not sure what we are going to do at this point, but it seems unlikely that Foehn will ever tolerate Sprite. Even though they got along fine for a few days, it seems that once the boys are in the mix Foehn's hormones kick into high gear and she needs to protect her turf.