Not another self-loathing post & KITCHEN SCALE
I still need to do their ears, and do their nails again (more often now since I've been lazy about nails again and I don't want to add to the risk of cutting into the quick), but I've been a gazillion times better about food and cleaning.
Hehe yesterday I was looking at an old IM with a friend, in the days leading up to adoption of the diggies.
me: do i really want to clean piggy cages and spend hours with them for the next decade?
friend: not likely 0.0
Rereading that bit, I was talking about it with jkxx:
[15:01:03] me: q: do i really want to clean piggy cages and spend hours with them for the next decade?
a: yes. i definitely want to clean cages instead of the whole room. i loved cleaning cages compared to cleaning rooms.
[15:01:12] jkxx: lol
[15:01:16] me: i'm serious
[15:01:21] me: when they lived in that 2x4 life was so easy
[15:01:25] me: but then they liked having more space
[15:01:32] me: so i thought, why not 24 hours a day instead of 1 - 4?
[15:01:51] me: (the answer is "because it's going to be hell maintaining it and i'm lazy")
In the end, overall I think it's better this way still. Not just in terms of how much the carefresh ultra costed in dollars, but really, the space they have. Their pen here is larger than it ever was in Sunnyvale too ^^ Just that one time was really nasty. One day I stepped into the room and it stank of ammonia. I thought "I know I call myself horrible all the time, but really, what am I doing? What is this doing to their quality of life, having to smell this 24/7, not to mention...what is this doing to their lungs?" I am determined to never let that happen again. I'd probably be in jail or something if the girls were human children, as I told my friend (same one as mentioned above). No matter what's going on with me, there is only so much I can compromise. I crossed that line that time.
And it would have been way worse if jkxx didn't volunteer his time to take care of them. Sometimes I'd be lazy in the mornings, then busy the rest of the day, and go to sleep, and jkxx would be the one feeding them and dumping poops into the trash. Sometimes for days in a row. Without him, it would have been a lot worse for both myself and the diggies. I really think I've been getting better somewhat, but he still does a lot of the work. I think his efforts improve their quality of life as well as making it more convenient for me, but now I'd be able to perform the most necessary tasks if he didn't.
As far as food goes, it's been up and down, but mostly up. Choices are very limited since there's only one store within walking distance for veggies instead of five, and this particular store sux, but we pick out the ones that can be salvaged (jkxx has been quite the blessing in this department also). There's usually plenty, even if limited in variety. Anti and I are hoping we can make it a habit of taking the bus (for hours on the buses and standing around at bus stops, sigh) to better stores every week. That would cover at least half the week if we find better veggies there.
Two things have me worried. The first was that the usual white calcium expelled from urine got...higher. I wasn't sure if it was normal for the calcium to clump together if there was a lot of it on one spot, but the calcium did come apart in small bits when I scratched at it. I'm really bad with these things but I figured it would be considered more "grainy" than "smooth" like this (really, genius?) so I got really scared. (Didn't help that Kitty had struvite crystals recently. To my credit, I did realize that he was in the litterbox a few moments ago and was still there when I passed by again. I did decide that making sure he's ok was a higher priority than spending a few moments doing something else, probably something like playing WoW or surfing. I did watch him until he left the box. I did check the clump and see that it was red. I did insist he see a vet that day, even though it was afternoon already. I did check vets until I found one with an open slot. Poor Anti was the one carrying this heavy cat in a carrier onto buses and running through snow though hehe. Unfortunately struvite crystals were my first thought when I saw the longer stay in the litterbox and especially when I saw the blood; struvite crystals were my greatest fear; and struvite crystals were what he actually had. But now that we know we can prevent it from happening again...hopefully. Anyway I really went off on a tangent there.) So anyway I cut way down on their calcium. I looked at the nutrition charts again and realized I was overdoing the parsley. (I haven't used it since. I think it's rotting in the fridge.) I decided I need a kitchen scale so I can monitor how much of what is going into their diet.
Say hello to our new Escali Primo. It arrived yesterday. Using GL's Calculator, I realized their CA:PH ratio has been less than 1:1 the past few days. That has to change but hey, at least now there won't be problems with excess calcium! ...Right. There was just one area with a lot of white but it was very white indeed. And very strange but I don't need to get into that here.
The other thing is small and/or tapered poops. When I noticed this (earlier than calcium chunks), I started giving them lots of lettuce, carried in bowls of water so they don't dry out, morning and afternoon. Now there's very few of these, but they're still there. I got a new water bottle, but they didn't use it as much, so I changed its location today. I've been keeping the hay rack close to water bottles so they don't have to bother running across the room if they get thirsty.
I posted on GPC and hope I can get all this figured out.
Hehe yesterday I was looking at an old IM with a friend, in the days leading up to adoption of the diggies.
me: do i really want to clean piggy cages and spend hours with them for the next decade?
friend: not likely 0.0
Rereading that bit, I was talking about it with jkxx:
[15:01:03] me: q: do i really want to clean piggy cages and spend hours with them for the next decade?
a: yes. i definitely want to clean cages instead of the whole room. i loved cleaning cages compared to cleaning rooms.
[15:01:12] jkxx: lol
[15:01:16] me: i'm serious
[15:01:21] me: when they lived in that 2x4 life was so easy
[15:01:25] me: but then they liked having more space
[15:01:32] me: so i thought, why not 24 hours a day instead of 1 - 4?
[15:01:51] me: (the answer is "because it's going to be hell maintaining it and i'm lazy")
In the end, overall I think it's better this way still. Not just in terms of how much the carefresh ultra costed in dollars, but really, the space they have. Their pen here is larger than it ever was in Sunnyvale too ^^ Just that one time was really nasty. One day I stepped into the room and it stank of ammonia. I thought "I know I call myself horrible all the time, but really, what am I doing? What is this doing to their quality of life, having to smell this 24/7, not to mention...what is this doing to their lungs?" I am determined to never let that happen again. I'd probably be in jail or something if the girls were human children, as I told my friend (same one as mentioned above). No matter what's going on with me, there is only so much I can compromise. I crossed that line that time.
And it would have been way worse if jkxx didn't volunteer his time to take care of them. Sometimes I'd be lazy in the mornings, then busy the rest of the day, and go to sleep, and jkxx would be the one feeding them and dumping poops into the trash. Sometimes for days in a row. Without him, it would have been a lot worse for both myself and the diggies. I really think I've been getting better somewhat, but he still does a lot of the work. I think his efforts improve their quality of life as well as making it more convenient for me, but now I'd be able to perform the most necessary tasks if he didn't.
As far as food goes, it's been up and down, but mostly up. Choices are very limited since there's only one store within walking distance for veggies instead of five, and this particular store sux, but we pick out the ones that can be salvaged (jkxx has been quite the blessing in this department also). There's usually plenty, even if limited in variety. Anti and I are hoping we can make it a habit of taking the bus (for hours on the buses and standing around at bus stops, sigh) to better stores every week. That would cover at least half the week if we find better veggies there.
Two things have me worried. The first was that the usual white calcium expelled from urine got...higher. I wasn't sure if it was normal for the calcium to clump together if there was a lot of it on one spot, but the calcium did come apart in small bits when I scratched at it. I'm really bad with these things but I figured it would be considered more "grainy" than "smooth" like this (really, genius?) so I got really scared. (Didn't help that Kitty had struvite crystals recently. To my credit, I did realize that he was in the litterbox a few moments ago and was still there when I passed by again. I did decide that making sure he's ok was a higher priority than spending a few moments doing something else, probably something like playing WoW or surfing. I did watch him until he left the box. I did check the clump and see that it was red. I did insist he see a vet that day, even though it was afternoon already. I did check vets until I found one with an open slot. Poor Anti was the one carrying this heavy cat in a carrier onto buses and running through snow though hehe. Unfortunately struvite crystals were my first thought when I saw the longer stay in the litterbox and especially when I saw the blood; struvite crystals were my greatest fear; and struvite crystals were what he actually had. But now that we know we can prevent it from happening again...hopefully. Anyway I really went off on a tangent there.) So anyway I cut way down on their calcium. I looked at the nutrition charts again and realized I was overdoing the parsley. (I haven't used it since. I think it's rotting in the fridge.) I decided I need a kitchen scale so I can monitor how much of what is going into their diet.
Say hello to our new Escali Primo. It arrived yesterday. Using GL's Calculator, I realized their CA:PH ratio has been less than 1:1 the past few days. That has to change but hey, at least now there won't be problems with excess calcium! ...Right. There was just one area with a lot of white but it was very white indeed. And very strange but I don't need to get into that here.
The other thing is small and/or tapered poops. When I noticed this (earlier than calcium chunks), I started giving them lots of lettuce, carried in bowls of water so they don't dry out, morning and afternoon. Now there's very few of these, but they're still there. I got a new water bottle, but they didn't use it as much, so I changed its location today. I've been keeping the hay rack close to water bottles so they don't have to bother running across the room if they get thirsty.
I posted on GPC and hope I can get all this figured out.
posted by Weatherlight at 5:53 AM
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