Preparations

Hi Everyone!

I'm Amy, and you are reading Part 1 of The Jird Blog!

In two weeks, I will be getting 3 baby Persian Jirds! This blog will be all about them, starting from now as I get everything ready for their arrival.

So this is how it all began...

Some friends of mine were going to Glastonbury festival a few weeks ago, and they asked if B* and I could look after their hamster for the week. We did, and I really enjoyed having him! It made me think that I'd actually really like to have a pet myself - I've not had any since leaving home mainly due to space and being in student accommodation. I remembered having jirds as a teenager and thought they would be perfect!

After getting the 'yes' vote from the landlord and B, I arranged getting 3 baby boy jirds from a breeder I found online. It's only two weeks now until I go to pick them up!

Now, when I tell people about the pending jird arrival the first question I always get asked is 'what is a jird?'. The easiest answer is that they are a big gerbil (they're part of the same family). As the saying goes, a picture says a thousand words so here is one courtesy of gerbils.co.uk.



You can get Shaws jirds and Bushy Tailed jirds too but the Persian jirds are my favourite! I love their long beautiful tails.

The picture doesn't really give you the full impression so this is my favourite video which really shows what they are like. The writing is in German but you get the idea. It translates as 'they are always hungry... they are extremely curious... and have cold feet... Persian gerbils... four ladies show to you...' - thanks Google translate!

I think it's mealworms in the jar - it is their favourite food which is why they are so desperate to get at it!

You'll see from the video how active they are and how they are good at climbing/jumping. It's this that inspired the names of mine, which I've decided I'm calling Mario, Luigi and Yoshi! I was originally going to get two (Mario and Luigi) but after getting a larger than expected house for them I asked the breeder if I could have three, and didn't want to call the third one Wario - that would just be mean! Then B thought of Yoshi which is my other favourite Nintendo character so that was the third name sorted!

Buying the house was interesting. B didn't want to have a fish tank like I did when I had jirds before because they can look quite messy, and I didn't want a wire cage after I had gerbils in one as a kid and the gerbil got stuck in the wires. After a bit of searching I thought a reptile vivarium could be good but discovered that even on Ebay they were quite expensive. I then had the brainwave of searching for glass fronted cabinets and managed to get one from an Ebay office furniture supplier for just £25! This is it:

We are going to spend next weekend customising it - I'll take pics along the way! We're going to get some wood from Homebase to make lots of different levels to put toys on. I spent last weekend browsing online pet shops to buy toys to fill it with and can't wait for them to arrive. They include a wooden pirate ship which looks amazing! It will get chewed, but I had to have it. I'll post pics when I get everything. The final job will be a trip to Pets At Home to get food, bedding, chinchilla dust etc.

I'm so excited!

*B is my boyfriend! He'll get mentioned quite a bit, so he will be known as 'B' for ease of typing/reading