Sorry if anyone has been looking for news on Laki and Lele ... things have been a bit hectic.

At last posting, I'd tried to intro them to my other two gliders, Anson and Judah, a bit too hurriedly. I was hoping they could enjoy the large six foot cage along with Anson and Judah and get out of the smaller cage. Alas, not onliy did that intro not work out but it doesn't look good for the future. Laki is pretty mellow but Lele still freaks and crabs at just about anything. Judah still goes into maximum scent mode every now and then at the part of his cage closest to Laki and Lele's cage.

I replaced the Wodent Wheel in Laki & Lele's cage with a Stealth. Laki loves running on it, Lele rides once in a while. They enjoy bell peppers and Asian pears but really go nuts for peas. I put a mix of fruit and veggies in the cage with the peas buried underneath (still frozen) and saw Anson come out of the pouch and start digging until he got to the peas. Frozen or not, he went to town on those peas!

About the only thing that competes with peas is fresh ripe mango -- haven't had both on the same night so not sure which one they want more. They DO love their LGRS Suggie Soup -- they'll dig and nibble at it even while still frozen.

Tent times have gotten better -- they still don't want to be held or even touched but don't mind using me as a tree. They've gotten quite good at holding onto PVC pipe even without a covering so I'm looking at making some more climbing structures with PVC.

I was really hoping to get the pairs to bond together but at this point I'm thinking I should build or buy another large flight cage so neither pair has to feel cramped.

I think things went too fast for them. I had felt it would be better to meet and greet sooner rather than later because I wanted them in the same cage over Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm going home for both weeks and the girl next door will be caring for them; I'd feel better if she only had to think about one cage and one set of meals but I think Lele is just too traumatized right now.

If I anthropomorphized the situation, I'd say Lele is like the little kid who thinks the whole world is picking on him and reacts accordingly. Judah appears to be a bully but Lele was standoffish even with Anson who wants nothing more in the world than to sleep and eat and run in his wheel. If Judah was human and could understand, he'd get SUCH a spanking for being such a turd but as it is, I just have to keep them separated until they decide they can be friends.

Laki, Lele and Anson spent last night together in the big cage so they got to play with the Stealth and Custom Cruiser and have more room to bounce around in while Judah took a time out in the smaller cage but everyone is in their normal cages for now. Laki and Lele crabbed up a storm while I was moving them -- the clatter was probably too much for Anson because he came out of the pouch looking for somewhere else to nap so let him go back to the main cage where he crawled into Judah's pouch with nary a peep.

In the meantime, I moved Laki and Lele's cage away from the main cage so Judah can't intimidate them through the wire mesh. It's still in the same room so they get accustomed to the sights and sounds and smells but they'll get some relief from Judah.

So I thought tonight would be a good time to try introductions between my original pair, Anson and Judah, and the Hawaiian rescues, Laki and Lele. Both Judah and Anson seemed very interested in their neighbors the past couple of nights with Judah clinging to the cage side and shaking it, even trying to bite the wire. I interpreted that as eagerness to get to his new friends.

Not!

I got both pairs in separate bonding pouches and let them loose on opposite sides of the bathtub. Well ... "let them loose" is a not quite the right phrase as it was a struggle to get them to leave their pouches.

Anson seems to get along well with Laki and Lele but Judah is a whole other story. The one good thing tonight was how he seemed to see me as a position of safety (for the first time). Judah has Laki and Lele frightened -- he got into a furball with Lele four or five times tonight (only a couple seconds then they separated) but it's not looking like those two will ever get along.

I'm trying to figure out what to do now. Can I have them exchange cages for a day or two to get used to each other's smell? At this point I think it's more a dominance thing than the smells. Judah had Anson completely buffaloed and wants Laki and Lele to submit too. Lele isn't having any of it although it doesn't seem like he's trying to dominate Anson.

I tried a brand new neutral pouch and Laki and Lele would NOT go in it with Judah in there and even took about 20 minutes to decide to try it out with Anson inside (I let Judah get inside a bonding pouch and then closed it so they could try to make friends with Anson).

This has been my worst fear. :(

Putting both sets of gliders together has been my greatest worry. They're 2 days shy of completing 30 days quarantine but I've been dying to see how they get along so I broke quarantine by having both pairs in separate bonding pouches, back-to-back so they couldn't see each other but with a little fresh papaya for each of them.

Anson and Judah did a bit of chirping but Lele was having none of it. Of course, he crabbed the moment I tried to put him in the bonding pouch but he was REALLY not happy about it. Every now and then Anson or Judah would move in their pouch and Lele would let it rip.

After an hour or two of that, they were squirming to get out. I figured they needed to pee so I moved Laki & Lele's cage into the living room next to the main cage so they could get acquainted without ripping into each other then let them out into their respective cages. Both pairs are excited as heck. Anson is jumping all over the cage trying to get over to Laki and Lele. Laki is likewise swarming all over his cage -- I don't know if it's because of Anson or Judah or because he can see a MUCH larger room than my bedroom. Every now and then one or more of them will go to the wall(s) closest to each other and sniff around.

Right now Lele is just sitting on a branch but he didn't jump into the pouch immediately like he usually does so maybe that's a good sign. His position on the branch is closest to Anson & Judah's cage. :D

Oh yes, both pairs got a treat today. I made up a batch of Wombaroo Suggie Soup (can't call it LGRS since I used Wombaroo instead of Trader Joe's) ... well, almost suggie soup. For the life of me I can't find the dehydrated fly pupae powder that Ed and Gail gave me! However, it has the mango-papaya taste Laki and Lele have been missing and Anson and Judah never knew. All four guys seem very happy to have it.

Both pairs have been such sleepy heads the past couple days. The only time I've seen them stir was when I woke up in the middle of the night!

Just got a new dragon set in from Val Betts. I decided to hold it for their introductions in a couple weeks but this is what she sent me:



and we'll break this Fundango in when we have combined tent time (assuming all goes well with intros!):



I forgot to mention -- the other night I saw Laki drinking from the water bottle. Yay! I worry when the only source of water is an open water bowl since they sometimes ... mess it up ...

I mixed a little green juice in with Laki and Lele's blend last night -- Anson and Judah lap it right up when I do that but Laki and Lele didn't seem to care for it, spent all their time on the papaya, bell pepper and green peas.

Both Laki and Lele are willing to come to me for yogies albeit hesitantly. Lele didn't want to come out of the hammock to get yogies last night but this morning was willing (albeit slowly and hesitantly) to snatch one from my fingers (the way he was crabbing as he came forward I was afraid I was going to need some bandages!).

Hope I can get some more pictures of them this weekend.

Had our first tent time tonight, just 2 hours, the first 60-90 minutes of which they spent hiding in pouches. I tried coaxing them out with yogies but Lele would crawl out hesitantly to the yogie in front then grab it and scoot back to his pouch.

Lele is SUCH a crabber. He didn't like leaving his cage, he didn't like being in the tent (at first), maybe he just misses Ed and Gail!

As promised, here are some pictures:

Laki looks out from his pouch






Lele sneaks out for a yogie






Lele hides near the Custom Cruiser






Laki looks at his pouch from the PVC frame

The similarities and differences between Laki and Lele and my original two, Anson and Judah, are quite interesting. In both cases, one of the pair seems to be a crabber -- loudly making his displeasure known when he's disturbed. Judah was my original crabber but Lele has taken up his slack. The other in the pair (Laki or Anson) seems to be more playful and less interested in hogging the food.

Then again, my first pair just don't want anything to do with green vegetables other than peas. I've tried bok choy, Chinese broccoli, baby spinach, green bell peppers, cucumbers, zucchini ... nothing. Cut to Laki and Lele and they loved the Chinese broccoli and devoured the green bell peppers.

Monday night I replaced their cage pouch with one of Karen's hammock pouches (I forget what she calls it) and a small pile of cut up fleece so they can burrow to escape the light. A little later it seemed like Lele had kicked Laki out because I saw Laki come bounding out and scurry all around the cage. He dove into the basket filled with pompoms, burrowed around for a few seconds then charged out and raced around the cage a bit. Eventually he must have returned to the hammock pouch because he was sleeping there the next morning.

Laki and Lele seem to have discovered the water bottle but don't drink from it a lot. The water (I should say juicy water because there was a tiny amount of apple cider added to give it smell and taste) level IS going down but very slowly.

Unfortunately, didn't get the tent time in as I need to wash some of it from Anson and Judah's last time in the tent.

Laki and Lele have been here just about 2 weeks since I picked them up from LGRS. The first week we just got adjusted to new surroundings so I largely left them alone in the cage. The second weeks we took some sporadic time out of the cage in a bonding pouch without anything more than a few mealworm feedings (Laki snagged them all) and occasional cuddling through the pouch.

Yesterday I got in a load of fresh eucalyptus so put a couple young branches (with round leaves) and a mature branch (with crescent leaves) in each cage before I went to make everyone's dinner.

This time, I got to see Lele come out of his cage pouch to eat right after I'd put some fresh asian pear and Hawaiian papaya in their dish. Usually he scoots right back into the cage pouch when he sees me but this time he came inching out of the pouch. He peered over the edge, looked at me and hesitated but then he crawled slowly out of the pouch, keeping an eye on me all the time.

Once out of the pouch, he made his way over to the fruit dish and started digging into the papaya, completely ignoring the eucalyptus and pear. He was chowing down like I hadn't fed him in days (I did, honest!) and specifically targeted the papaya.

A few minutes later, Laki came out of his pouch but he investigated the eucalyptus first. He meandered over the cage like Billy in Family Circus and finally made his way to the fresh fruit where Lele blocked him out from the papaya like William Perry protecting Jim McMahon.

Cut to this morning. I figured I'd try to make friends with Lele with mealworms (again). Previously, he's huddled in the base of the bonding pouch crabbing away while Laki snagged all the mealworms from my fingers.

Today, same results at first but a little later I felt Laki squirming and digging near the zipper. That usually means he needs to pee so I took him back over to their cage and let him out then locked the door and took Lele back over to the mealworm bucket.

Lele was still not a happy camper about this so I dropped the first few mealworms one at a time near his head. It took a few seconds but he'd finally find one and chow down on it then I'd drop the next one. I never did get him up to crawling up the pouch to snag the mealworms from my fingers like Laki but he's starting to get it.

Tonight we're going to try some tent time and yogies!

Wow, they were big eaters yesterday! They had a double portion of blended food AND healthy helpings of yam, papaya and apple. Interestingly, they are definitely eating some of the dry food during the day; oh well, I enjoy the occasional snack of potato chips or worse.

I stopped off at Hobby Lobby on my way home, hoping to spruce the cage up a bit and give them something more to do than run in the wheel and sleep in the pouch. Found some nifty plastic baskets that I loaded up with 1-inch pom poms and fruit-shaped rubber (really silicone) bands (on clearance for 44 cents per dozen) then set hanging from the roof of the cage.

I saw Laki investigating the basket last night when I got up momentarily. Lele was too busy chomping on apple to care -- amazing because he usually runs for the pouch the moment he sees me. So far, Lele still hasn't got any mealworms here because he crabs and hides when he sees me -- but hey, Laki's more than happy to be the center of attention at worm time.

This morning there were a couple pompoms on the floor of the cage and one lonely pineapple band (how appropriate!) sitting out. Looks like the other 11 bands probably went into the pouch with them but I didn't want to peek because just turning the light on got a short crab from Lele.

Took Laki and Lele out of the cage for a little bit yesterday. Wow, did they ever carry on! They did NOT want to leave the cage pouch to go inside the bonding pouch even though I'd put some lovely fresh blueberries in the bonding pouch for them.

They didn't want to exit the cage pouch at all so I ended up inverting it so it opened into the bonding pouch and only the bonding pouch but they clung to the top (bottom?) of the cage pouch and didn't want go down. I had to carefully coax them by taking up any slack in the end of the cage pouch and carefully moving them down.

Once they were in the bonding pouch they quieted down and purred a bit but wow what a fuss going down!

They spent a couple hours with me in the pouch before I returned them to the cage (one, I think Laki, moved up to the top of the bonding pouch and was "scratching" at the top so I figured they wanted to get out and pee). Laki sped right out and did his business but Lele couldn't decide whether he wanted out or was scared to leave the pouch more.

Once he decided, he was out of the pouch, did his business and then into the cage pouch like lightning.

I guess the silver lining (for them) was that they got fresh Hawaiian papaya and Asian pear from Korea with dinner. They seemed a little indecisive with the Korean pear, preferring to finish off the remnants of an apple slice before trying it but they were all over the papaya! too bad they had to leave Hawaii as my mother has a papaya tree just outside the kitchen.

   

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Paani
Member since: Feb 24, 2010
Posts: 91 View my pictures!

   

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