Less one little bugger...

Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I take care of a rather large family of gerbils, ie. African rats (which are smaller than normal rats, and don't bite fingers with vehemence, unlike some crazy hamsters). The family is large enough that I could've had a football team of gerbils, if I hadn't given a couple away and one adult died years ago due to unfortunate circumstances (which is a whole other story altogether!).

Anyhow, I've been keeping 3 males and 4 females for the past couple of years, whom I know all by name though they don't really know their own name, and so far they've all been really healthy... except the oldest female gerbil which gave birth to all the other gerbils. A few months ago, I believed she was attacked by one of the other female gerbils for reasons unknown. She sustained quite a few wounds and I even took her to the vet to get some medication for the poor bugger... and since then, thankfully the other gerbils don't attack her anymore. However, she really looks like grandma gerbil now coz' her fur is dull, her body is scrawny, and one of her legs seems to be eternally cramped, so she can't walk properly and can no longer climb up the cage tunnels. I was expecting her to kick the bucket soon after she got attacked... but until today my grandma gerbil is still going strong, even though I think she's more than 3 years old now, which in gerbil years means she's ANCIENT.

Sad to say, one of my gerbees actually did kick the bucket. But not the one I expected.

Yesterday morning, before heading to work, I sat down at my gerbil cages to give them some bits of apple as I usually do, coz' the little buggers just love their apple bits (but not as much as sunflower seeds!). The past few days, I hadn't had much time to play around with them, so I had only checked their cages for water and food, and wasn't really paying attention to my gerbils themselves. So while giving them apple bits, usually if they're asleep, all I need to do is make that 'tsk tsk' sound or the midly annoying lips pursing noise, and that will wake them up in a jiffy so they will come to the side of the cage for their food. After feeding almost all my little buggers, I noticed that Peanut, one of my male gerbils wasn't coming to me. And the cage for my males is quite large, so I had to poke my head around a bit to see where he was, and I saw him lying down at the bottom of the cage where it was difficult for me to look into from where I was sitting. So usually, if my noises don't wake up my gerbils (sometimes I suspect they have hangovers from the night before), then I knock gently against their cage to wake them up. And I thought Peanut was asleep, so I knocked the cage. No reaction. So at the this point, I was thinking Peanut must've REALLY had a big hangover the night before (note to self: no more putting beer in my gerbil's water bottles).

So after that I got up to have a closer look at Peanut, and as I walked around to the other side of the cage to get a closer look, I saw... (cue Psycho movie theme song NOW), the other side of Peanut's face had already been half eaten out by ants!

And a piercing scream of horror filled the morning air surrounding my condominium.

Ok, ok, I wasn't that dramatic. But of course I was shocked. And in disbelief. And I made quite a few weird whining noises while calling Peanut and hoping that he would miraculously get up. But he didn't. And that would've really freaky if he did with his face half eaten out. But after a few minutes of making weird whiny noises and getting over the fact that Peanut was dead, I had to do the dirty work of cleaning up the body. And that's never a fun thing to do. Especially with the whole half eaten out face thing. I could hardly bare to look at him. But I did manage to gingerly pick him up with a paper towel in hand, and then wrap him up with a newspaper. I would've have liked to give Peanut a proper burial, but living in a condo and having to be at work soon (I highly doubt the idea of giving me time off to mourn my gerbil's death would've gone down well with my boss), I had little choice but to unceremoniously dump Peanut's body in the trash outside.

The thing that bugs me is that Peanut was perfectly healthy, and he didn't seem to have any problems the few days before when I was playing with him. And he was one of the younger generation of gerbils in my brood of little buggers. So I have no idea what happened to him, and I kinda wished I had checked properly on my gerbils the few days before, then maybe I would've noticed something wrong. *Sigh* Well, the only theory I have is that Peanut died of some sort of cardiovascular disease, coz' he was the fattest gerbil of the lot. So much that my nickname for him is Fatty. But my mum has a theory that he may have choked on the food. *Sigh*

Anyhow, I remember when he was still a teenage gerbil, and I was keeping him around the females for a while, he was pretty small compared to the other males. I thought he would stay that way, until eventually I moved him to the male gerbils cage where he belonged... then he gradually grew until he gained his status as Fatty. He was a very 'kwai' fella, every time I held in my hand and gave him a nice head and ear massage with my fingers, he would just sit there and enjoy it. Well, most of my gerbils enjoy it too, but after a while they get active and start wanting to jump off my hands... not so much for Peanut though.

Anyway, he was a beautiful, big, fat but cute gerbil and I am saddened by his mysterious death. Bye bye Peanut! May you enjoy an abundance of sunflower seeds and apple bits in gerbil heaven, if it exists. If not, then, well, errr.... you be a good floating gerbil spirit, and don't go haunting your gerbil friends now (I hope my pastor doesn't start rebuking me for this...).

Sorry if this post is a bit emo because of one rat, but yeah, I am rather sentimental about these things, especially since I had Peanut since he was born. I'm not quite sure how to deal once the rest of my little buggers start dying too. Good grief. I'm already traumatized by the thought. :-(

However, there's always a little silver lining, and today I noticed my grandma's gerbil is walking around better, which shows her leg is healing well. That cheered me up quite a bit. Keep going strong, grandma gerbil!!! Woo!

Less one little bugger...