Well, the little tyke that survived his father's confusion has made
it almost two weeks now. He's obviously going to be a black, as I
suspected, for when I bought Trinity she was in a tank with another
(brown?) female and a black male.
I'm not getting my hopes up, but the little guy is still rather
active, and chirps incessantly when Trinity comes back to take care
of him from one of her breaks.
I tried giving him some supplemental milk, but he doesn't seem to
want to take it. A horror happened the other night when I tried. He's
a squirmer and won't stay still for anything. I had the dropper near
his muzzle, ready to touch a bit of milk on his lips, when he moved,
and his whole face got shoved into the milk drop. Before I knew it,
he just stopped moving completely, and I felt his little chest and it
wasn't even moving. Here I am thinking, Oh Crap, Trinity is gonna be
sooo upset at me. I look down at his still little body, and think,
Heck, you can perform CPR on other animals, why not gerbils? So after
a few gentle puffs and gently rubbing his back, the little tyke came
back to! You don't know how relieved I was! Of course, Trinity took a
bit longer to take her pup back up once I put him back in the cage.
I'm sure he smelled kinda odd.
I have some questions though;
If this lil pup manages to get through the first 4 weeks, there's a
good chance he'll make it, right?
How old should he be before I offer soft foods in the tank for him to
nibble on?
What should I offer?
I know he's not getting his fill of mama's milk, but other than
looking just slightly underfed (the tips of his shoulder blades show
just a little, as well as his hips bones), he shows no other signs of
starvation. And after the other's night escapade, I'm a little leery
of trying to feed him by eyedropper again. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
-Jackie
