I have two girls that we have had them for nearly two years, one, my Zoey is sweet curious explorer that is forever devoted in love and service to her sister. Rhiona, the bigger of the two girls is exactly a day older than her sister and every bit the tyrannical older sibling. We found out later that the name Rhiona actually comes from a word meaning queen and this fits her well. She on several occasions has sent poor Zoey on an errand that she thinks beneath her. Things like "Zoey dear, the slaves are back can you go see what they have brought me?" Or "Zoey I'm too tired to get food can you go get a blueberry for me? Not that one! The big round one . . . No you incompetent child the other big round one!" (Translated loosely from chirp crab crab crab screech)
We have come to love Rhi's Queenisims as my hubby calls them. However we notice that maybe Zoey was getting a little tired of them. So you'll understand why we found it so funny when Zoey decided to turn the tables on her sister. We have a rather large cage on one side is the kissy pouch in which the girls sleep along with toys and wheel and on the other are their bowls and feeding area. On this particular night I had fed the girls their staple food, a honey cocoanut paste with vitamins and big juicey live meal worms. Generally speaking, the girls do not get the live ones, sadly to spite the fact that i think of myself as a evolved, independent, dynamic woman I am self aware enough to realize that when in the presence of live bugs i will always scream like girl. On this night my husband had stopped on his way home from work to find that the local pet store was having a sale on all feeder bugs and got the biggest slimiest ones he could find. Zoey chirped so loud i thought she might have hurt herself. After about fifteen minutes though we notice an odd behavior in our sweet ball of sunshine. She had moved all of the meal worms one by one into the very farthest corner of the cage and stashed them under the hood of the water bottle. I watched with amusement as she double checked the bowl was empty except for one (the smallest one i might add) and then got her sister up to eat.
Rhi being ever disinterested in anything Zoey does sniffed around grabbed the meal worm from the bowl waved it at Zoey, who grunted as if upset, and then ate it in front of her. Zoey "Pouted" for about five minutes until Rhi decided to take her post dinner nap, at which point she literally gorged herself on mealies. She left the husks too so Rhi must have figured out she'd been fooled by morning. I just thought it was so cute and so a fitting pay back. Now Rhi checks the whole cage before deciding that she has the best of everything.
Perhaps Zoey should come out with momma more often to have playtime and be handfed snacks herself?
Each of my girls do get time with mommy. We do tent time for two hours everyday as group play and at least one hour "huggy time" one on one. They get snacks as a sometimes offering but as I still can't get used to the idea of live crawly things, IE being touched, touching, handling, or in anyway coming into contact with things classified as such, no matter how many treats she gets, as long as they are from me they will not be of the live wormy variety.