female companion sought

[greydawnbreaking]

I've adopted a new girl to bring my girl's colony to three--I had originally intended to put her in with the other two girls as a nanny, but I've since been strongly counseled against this. This leaves me with a single doe, who's starting to show some signs of distress at being on her own.

Does anyone in the area have a female--age, color, and show/breeding quality not a factor--who they'd be willing to either sell me, or loan to me for a few weeks to be her companion? I'm going to check local pet stores to see if they've got any females, but I thought I'd ask here first. She's halfway through her quarantine and so far no issues at all.

The only other option I have is to put her with a solitary male I've got, since I'm not willing to keep her living alone for the weeks until the litters are old enough to be separated. I did plan to breed her eventually, and she's about four months old so this wouldn't be a disaster, but it isn't exactly the scenario I'd pictured.

[andy]

I have a few females here that I could part with but I am in Newcastle so not sure you would like to travel that far

[greydawnbreaking]

Thanks, I appreciate the offer. She looked agitated and upset when I first had her so I had her cage close to the others so she could smell them and maybe be reassured. But then she started actively biting the wire and trying to get her head through, so now I'm trying to keep her at more of a distance.

The local pet shop has some girls, I'm going to see if any of them will work out. They've had good stock in the past, so I trust them more than the average pet shop. (Ask Mousekateers about the pet shop we saw yesterday. HORRIFYING. Sick and pregnant mice, males and females all mixed up and babies from three different litters, filthy cage. Ugh. [shudders]) If I can't find anything, maybe we can talk more about visiting Newcastle.

[greydawnbreaking]

Well, I guess the emergency is over (if you can call this an emergency). The pet store's females weren't the best and one had a tumor, but they were separated by sex and looked healthy and acted friendly, and a couple of them were actually fairly eager for cuddles. This place doesn't do a bad job, considering, so I went ahead with it.

I picked out a rather poor black tan (the tan's so pale she might actually be a poor black fox instead) and a little fawn brindle. (For my own records, based on their littermates I'd suspect that they are likely to carry for chocolate, pink eyes, and c. That's based on their dove, fawn, chocolate tan, and PEW littermates--not that I plan on breeding them. There were also some very pretty marked dove and agouti boys in the next cage that looked to be from the same litter.) I'd estimate them at roughly 2 months as they're a good bit smaller Dop (hence why I got two). Haven't settled on names yet, but the black tan is especially fearless and sociable, which is nice to see.

The girls seemed to get along okay on neutral territory so I've got them in the cage together and I'm monitoring the situation. There's some squeaking coming from the cage, but it doesn't sound too bad. One of the tubes I gave them is too narrow for Dop and can only fit the babies, and since it's big enough for both they've got a refuge if they need it.