Day 29 and 31

Day 29

Prior to this day, I was scouting for a huge plastic container in random general stores so that I could put Mandark inside a new home. I found a few which cost at least $20 for a decent one. But then, I was like, "I wonder if I could find anything inside my house."

I scavenged for boxes, containers, cages from under the stairs, outside the house, but none to fit my criteria. I was eyeing the toy boxes Ilyaas has for his Legos and toy cars, but my mom warned me not to touch them. So I was like, "OK. :("

I woke up one morning, sat up on my bed and rubbed my eyes and in front of me all along was a huge ass container filled with files of past school works.

"CONTAINER!" I shouted. Soon after, I cleared the stuff out from the plastic container which had Nickelodeon stickers and a name label where my sister's name was written across it. Well, it was in my room, so I'm guessing I can use it. LOL.

I began spreading out new bedding for the home and tore up newspaper articles for the base. I laid out his big wheel, which sat perfectly inside the container, his igloo and a pink ball where he can roll that shit around whenever he wants to. What was missing was a cover for it. I was afraid that those annoying house lizards might have a holiday inside the container whenever they feel like it, so I'm like, NO.

I asked my mom if we had any wire-mesh strewn around the house. Mom relayed it to dad and daddykins saved the day and made one for me. Bless. <3 Perfect. Now, the new humble abode is all nicely spruced up and Mandark can have a partay in it. OWH YEAH.

Here we are without the wire-mesh. Look at him all curiousss.

With wire-mesh. Dohohoho.

Day 31

Usual routine! Clean wheel, play time! Also, he's slightly getting bigger.

Early morning play-time!

Pooping on my books.

Dunno what he was trying to do under that mesh.

Inside the container! I hope yer happy lil one.

D'awwwww.

Day 22

It's been a long time since I updated, because it's been a routine. Clean wheel and feed and play. Pretty good progress, he's still as social as ever.

However, another problem persists as the aquarium is a tad too small for him now. Green wheel is definitely not gonna fit him anymore. So I'm using the big huge wheel and it cramps up his style.

So I'm gonna need to buy him a bigger cage. Can't do that this month because apparently I blew my money on a Nintendo 3DS L M A O.

I changed the bedding for the third time since I got him (I think) because it was becoming smelly and he smelled too... I'm thinking he literally did roll in his own piss. So I bathed him and gave him baby shampoo and he smells NICE. Refilled his water bottle and I'm gonna cut back on giving him mealworms, been giving Mandark those on alternate days. Not good. Hahaha. Needs more exercise.

Anyhow, please endure 3 weeks getting stuck in that aquarium, little one. Or I'll try to scrounge up some make-shift bigger place for you to stay. :D

Day 13

I got a little worried this morning. I switched out the big wheel for the smaller one, but I saw only 2 poopies. Also last night, I gave his dinner late because I was out with the TESL peeps.

So anyways, this morning, I made him run around in the big wheel and satisfactorily he did his business.

Yeah, I'm gonna get him a ball soon. Or not. LOL. Biar tia. Run around the house nekkid with no protection. (I just saw the forums whether or not hamster balls are good for them). I'll let him play in the playpen then.

I just got back from tuition, which I fed him before I left. Saw that he ate half of his dish and ran in his wheel, cuz of his big ass poop stuck on it (I'm guessing that's what's left of the mealworms HAHA, ew).

And now he's back to sleeping mode. Lazy ass.

Extra tidbits

Oh, Michielle visited lil Mandark on Saturday. He was huffing for a while, but his defenses were down afterwards. Even when there are people around, I am glad he's still as curious as a cat -- hedgehog. :p

Day 11 & 12

Day 11

I was supposed to write an entry yesterday, but I was a little tired and I forgot.

Yesterday, I purchased a container-ful of mealworms from an aquarium fish shop in Batu Besurat (they ran out in Petlink in Kiulap).

I went home and cleaned the wheel and woke the hedgehog up for some mealworm time. I didn't get to play with him in the morning because I had to leave for work at 7:30am.

I set loose 3 mealworms and he devoured them all. Hahaha. It was the first time I saw Mandark being so aggressive!!! It was amazing!

At night, I chose to switch out the smaller wheel for the bigger one. It cramped up the aquarium, but I wanted to see how he fared with it. I had to sacrifice on leaving out his igloo though.


Day 12


So in the morning, I saw that he did use the big wheel, though I'm not sure what happened to his poop, they were flat as shiet. I guess he kept stepping on them last night. In the end, he squeezed himself behind the wheel for his sleep time... was what I conjured that morning because he slept behind it.

I woke him up for the usual play time. And cleaned his bedding while I was at it.

Day 10.1

I gave Mandark a bath! His quills were dirty a little, with dirt and his nasties, so that was why. He didn't seem to mind the water, though he was curious enough to want to get out??? Thank goodness for slippery sink. HA!

He's cleaner now, though I didn't use shampoo, I only cleaned the dirt off his quills.

I warmed and dried him with a towel afterwards and now he's back in his dream world. OK, now back to work. Hur hur.

Day 10

Good morning. Just a quick update.

Eeto... Just checked his aquarium this morning to find his wheel fell over. Er, I guess he's getting a wee bit big for that, so it's time to switch to the bigger one. ^_^;

I do hope he wasn't hurt during that time when it fell over. D:

Alrighty, standard morning procedure commence!

Clean wheel, clean poop, clean dish, play with Mandark!

Day 9

Allo.

The journal entries are getting sparse. Huhu. But anyways.

I'm not sure when I realised it, I think it was either yesterday or today. I realised that Mandark is bigger than usual. I thought he was fat, because when he sleeps, he curls up, then if I wake him up for food, he would not take up so much space under the igloo. Now, he does. Not to a point where he can't fit into his igloo. He can still sleep in there, nice and comfortable, it's just that he takes up more space than usual.

He's not fat either. I tested it out while I was playing with him this morning. He could still curl up into a ball, thank goodness. Rofl. In other words, he's just growing bigger. Still, it worries me, because I'm still letting him use the green wheel. I'll let him use the big wheel soon.

He's getting into the habit of waking up in the morning and playing with me. :)

Day 7

Daily routine, clean the cage, clean his food bowl, refill water. Actually today was the first time I refilled his water. In other words, it takes him one week to drink the whole water bottle set aside for the M to the A to the N... D A R K.

After that I played with him again and used the cardboard box to limit his movements. The cardboard box is pretty wide spaced, as I've mentioned before, but the fence around it is only 3-inches high or so and after much exploration, Mandark could easily go over it and roam the room. The only reason why I provided a cardboard box is because I want to let him shit out all his shit before attempting to go and have a journey around the house.

True enough, it worked. As he travelled the perimeter of the room (filled with spiderwebs and tahi cacak), he successfully did it without his crap messing up the floor. Ho ho ho.

Righty, release the krakken of the pictures! (Though there're only four pieces...)

Here's the mess he makes every morning. Easy to clean, but goodness me, stepping on poop over and over again still weirds me out.

Good morning, Mandark!

Er, good evening, Mandark! I had to wake him up for dinner last night.

Lastly, in his play pen.

He's wonderful! :)

Day 6

I didn't get to post anything yesterday. There's nothing much going on yesterday anyway. Little Mandark pooped all over the wheel and made an even bigger mess than before, most probably because he was on the wheel longer than before so he stepped on more of his own crap. LOL. Haihhh.

I'll take that as a positive thing since he does his exercise.

I didn't get to interact with him much yesterday because I was a little busy.

However, this morning I decided to do a little experiment, awww yeahhh!

Now, we all know that it's a poop machine after it wakes up, so I came well prepared and set up a wide-space box with fences around it so that it won't stray far (like going and sniffing at lizard poop on the wall, or hide under chairs in the computer room, there're like a lot of hiding places in this room!). I padded them with a layer of newspaper so it's easy to clean any uh 'gifts' from him.

I let him roam around and he pooped about 5 times in the frame of 5 minutes. Well done. He also pissed once. But anyhow, he tried to find me and he did and tried to climb onto my lap. Alas, my little adorable nephew wanted my attention, so I had to set Mandark back into his aquarium. :(

Will do this again tomorrow. Or later, after class. :D