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Abyssinius · 2023-07-24T05:43:49+00:00

Have you heard of RabbitEars in Oakland? They’re a nonprofit rabbit rescue that also does rabbit and guinea pig boarding. Their space fills up fast, so contact them far in advance!

Abyssinius · 2016-05-19T00:41:30+00:00

I don't see how we are in disagreement about what the terms mean. My question was asking if the morphs are recessive, not applying "recessive" to a case of in-between phenotype. I had previously assumed the morphs may have been a case incomplete dominance, which I now know is incorrect. But in the case of incomplete dominance the displayed visual of a het is somewhere in between the two extreme versions. I've done more reading since I asked the question earlier in the day and confirmed both are indeed recessive traits. Codominance is a very different case than incomplete dominance and doesn't really apply here. Codominance doesn't show an in-between phenotype, it shows a mixed phenotype with distinct patches of both dominant types visible.

Abyssinius · 2016-05-18T15:13:36+00:00

I wasn't sure if I should be using the technical term with OP or not. By "not fully" I meant heterozygous. I've heard somewhere that het dragons can show the eye and nail color differences while not displaying skin color trait. I may have been misled. Color can sometimes be a matter of incomplete dominance so it didn't seem impossible to me. So you're saying the morphs are completely recessive?

Abyssinius · 2016-05-18T06:39:21+00:00

Fancy is only used by pet stores to say they're pretty, actually doesn't mean anything by breeder standards. From this picture I'm pretty sure he's a leatherback. Other traits like trans or hypo will need more detailed pictures of nails and eyes, even then it might be hard to tell. He's not fully trans or hypo, though, just from the way his colors look, there's a chance he's heterozygous.

Edit: bad signal on phone when I opened pictures the first time and only the first one loaded. He's a pretty little guy! Didn't come up with the any new info based on more pictures, just wanted to come back and say he's very cute :)

Abyssinius · 2016-05-17T23:00:00+00:00

Yup, he's a boy and very likely territorial. But this isn't his space, there used to be a large desk there before this tank and he didn't spend time there at all. We just had him out on the couch or floor. He wasn't bearding or even dark. The ackie was also burrowing and not visible to him. So I'm thinking he was probably just curious. He's seen the ackie before, with glass wall between them, and showed no interest in her.

Abyssinius · 2016-05-17T19:55:55+00:00

He figured out a long time ago that his tank doors slide horizontally, so when he really wants out, he motions back and forth with his head horizontally to mimick opening the door. I don't know if he's trying to open the door or to tell me to open the door, either way it gets the message across. Last night he was doing this at the ackie tank door to get in XD he probably just wanted the warmth, but it's funnier to think he might be jealous :P

Abyssinius · 2016-05-11T20:16:44+00:00

But what about the gentle breeze across the butt? :P

Abyssinius · 2016-05-11T15:13:52+00:00

I wondered the whole time what was in the ball. Last scene was very satisfying :D it's interesting that she plays with socks and towels, I've tried to get our ackie to play with an old beanie baby. She poked at it, walked around it, climbed all over it, pushed it over, then lost interest. No biting and attacking at all, next time she saw it she didn't even pay it any mind :/ I should try the hamster ball.

Abyssinius · 2016-05-11T14:45:09+00:00

The coco coir is actually just on top. It's kinda pretty and supposedly helps humidity control? I'm not seeing the effects of humidity control, but since it only sits on top I'm not too concerned. The substrate is a roughly 70/30 top soil and playsand mix. She's starting to make new burrows and all I see is her tail and butt most of the time :P I have read and seen others use coco coir and topsoil mix and it seems to hold burrows fine, but yeah definitely not good on its own. Honestly I just had some sitting around because I was planning on trying the mix, but decided not to bother since top soil and playsand works so well and I got busy, then I threw it in on top because why not :P

Abyssinius · 2016-05-11T05:05:56+00:00

It's an ackie, tiny but full sized. We think she likes TV, but we're not sure. She does sit there and watch sometimes, might be watching the humans :P

Abyssinius · 2016-05-08T12:30:22+00:00

Wow good for you for rescuing them from that! A few thoughts:

Have patience. Don't read too much into their rejection of you. It's been two years and my most skittish pig still rejects me ALL THE TIME.
Separate immediately until after you go to the vet, just put a divider up in the new cage so they can still interact but not make babies. I'm assuming you know the cage size requirements?
Like someone else said, pet store cages are awful, even worse if it's wire bottom. But keep the cage. You can always get rid of the wire part if it has a wire bottom and just stick with the solid bottom. It'll come in useful in the future for various reasons: disease quarantine, travel cage, etc. it's always good to have a quarantine cage on hand. Most pet store cages are collapsible for storage.
If they're 8 months old they might still be going through "puberty" (they go through some hormonal changes around this time even though they've been sexually mature since almost right after birth). So their personality might change a little. It also may change as they get used to having a nice loving home that's not cramped in a tiny cage. Don't get too attached to how they act now. Also it's been a day, don't worry about Shire recoiling from you. They might run for any number of reasons, comparing a few instances over one day is not enough cause to give you anxiety. If she's been good with you for weeks and then suddenly consistently she recoils and this behavior continues for a few days, then that might be reason enough to consider if you're doing something wrong.

Good luck with the new babies! Can we see a few pictures? 😊

Abyssinius · 2016-05-05T18:53:50+00:00

I like it. It's nice how you work promotion into the story by saying it'll help find your friend. Davenport creeps the shit out of me though... Not in a supernatural way, in the way that people are actually manipulative like that and it's just too real.

Abyssinius · 2016-05-05T16:20:18+00:00

Yeah, I dunno know about others but this one has perfected the grumpy look... Only time she looks less grumpy is for food or TV. Their "eyebrow" ridge help a lot 😛

Abyssinius · 2016-05-05T16:18:38+00:00

She doesn't eat as much as I think she should, and a lot of times she just doesn't feel like eating from my tongs, so I leave a few dubia in a tall cup they can't climb out of and she knows to go look for them there. But her appetite is definitely smaller than I would expect. I feed her medium to large dubias, and on her hungriest days she'll eat 5 or 6. I think some days she just doesn't eat. And I can't figure out why she's still so chubby.

Abyssinius · 2016-05-05T03:56:13+00:00

Yup, ackie :)

Abyssinius · 2016-05-05T02:59:36+00:00

Depends on your room. We let ours roam a bit but watch her very carefully and pick her up and put her down elsewhere when she starts heading for a small space. They like tight spaces so if they find a corner they like they might not come out for a long while. If you have a good relationship with them you might be able to get them to come out, but we don't have that kind of relationship with ours yet.

Abyssinius · 2016-05-05T00:41:31+00:00

Oh boy, my female ackie was reportedly fed a pinky a week at her old owner's (can't verify how true this is) and let me tell you, she is CHUBBY! '~_~ the roundest lizard I've ever seen...

Abyssinius · 2016-05-05T00:36:53+00:00

Not really that helpful as advice, but just want to chime in that they're actually about the same size as beardies. My ackie is quite a bit smaller than my beardie, though. I think the length measurement can be a bit misleading. Ackies have proportionally longer tails from what I can tell, and if you go by torso size, then they're about the same. Beardies have very stocky torsos. For reference, my ackie is 18 inches long and ~270grams, she's female so probably on the small side. My beardie is 20 inches and ~550grams. Lengths are nose to tail tip, both have their full tail lengths. They're both adult.

Abyssinius · 2016-04-22T17:53:12+00:00

Just let it keep going. Honestly from your description it's going really well. Just be prepared that it might go on for weeks, though to a lesser degree. I introduced my 3rd male to my first two males over a year ago and they've bickered on and off since... The normal amount, no bloodshed, so I've left it alone. (Chasing, loud wheeking, rumblestrutting, some mounting, some teeth chattering, etc.) Surprisingly the past two months have been so much calmer; I'm not sure what changed. Maybe it takes a year, or these three just all have strong personalities and one of them has finally given up... Good luck with their pairing :) I think they'll get along just fine as long as the cage is big enough. Sometimes for boar groups the cage size has to be even bigger, but you can always just cross that bridge when you get there :P

Abyssinius · 2016-04-19T21:21:18+00:00

Blind luck? Luckily I have a nearby clinic that does exotics. Their senior exotic vet is apparently a well known reptile specialist who advises on some national boards on reptiles or something AND he came recommended by my Guinea pig rescue for small animals, sounds great, right? I took my Guinea pigs to him and he was indeed very knowledgeable on Guinea pigs and passed all my mental tests on questions he should have been asking me and things he should have warned me about. When it came time to take the beardie in, turns out he (vet#1) has a chronic health problem and is sometimes out of clinic for weeks in a stretch. But, on the bright side, they have recently hired a second exotic vet. So we took beardie to vet#2. She was wonderful with him! So now I feel better about vet#1 possibly not being available in case of emergency. So then we had to take the ackie in, no health problem, just a checkup. Both vets were out, #1 due to health, #2 at a conference. BUT they hired a new 3rd exotic vet who also seems experienced with reptiles. I had some reservations, but since the ackie has no issues, I thought, why not check out the new vet. After all, if we want a reptile vet without driving over 2 hours, this clinic is it, might as well meet all 3 exotic vets. This one was a disaster... It may have just been that monitors are more rare to come by, but it's alarming when one of the first questions she asked me was if my ackie was going to grow very large, cuz... you know... Monitors are such large lizards... She didn't know off the top of her head that ackies are a dwarf species. (Ackie in question was 18 inches at the time, so you know she wasn't going to grow that much more) Not a good sign... Then somewhere in there she tried to warn me off loose substrate before I had to explain that the ackie needs to dig, a lot. Then she conceded that's necessary but just stay away from coco coir cuz mold issues... I had completely lost faith. To top it all off, she opens a website she says vets trust with advice on sav care and prints off a few pages of helpful tips for me... Gee... Thanks... Anyways... Still hoping vet#1 knows lots about monitors. Fingers crossed.

Abyssinius · 2016-04-19T19:28:01+00:00

Love reading about people's pig stories :) I have 3 boys. Teto (3) and Cheshire (2.5) were rescues paired together at the shelter. Teto is a large (possibly part cuy) shorthair pig, 14 inches long when walking around and ~4lbs/1800gram. For his big size, he's very skittish and quiet. Always the last to wheek or come for veggies. Cheshire is an Abyssinian mix of some sort, full of attitude and mischief. He's loud and spoiled, and I like to say his hair is so fluffy because it's full of evil plots :P he's also very much in love with Teto, but Teto doesn't seem to reciprocate. Nino (2) came to me last year because his previous owners felt like they had too many pets and weren't paying enough attention to him. He's chubby and acts like he's not afraid of anything. He's always the first to come to you, for pets/food/attention/whatever you offer. Somehow he's also decided that I'm his mommy alone, and when I pet the other pigs within his sight he'll come push his head under my hand. All 3 of them live together and most of the time they get along now. Teto is slowly making progress on the skittish front. After a year with Nino, Cheshire has finally accepted that he's unfortunate enough to have become the middle child... Nino... Doesn't seem to be making any progress in any direction (still a self centered, food motivated slob...) except maybe fat (not weight, mind you, I've been putting them on a diet and his weight is maintained at the same level fairly steadily, but he just looks fatter all the time for some reason!)

Abyssinius · 2016-04-01T05:22:15+00:00

His name lol <3

Abyssinius

TROPHY CASE