A few more pics
I'm really pleased with these babies they are a lovely litter
All are doing very well and the three sisters especially are very friendly and tame, they climb all over me when i come in and all hide seeds in my clothes. Their brother Ronald-Harry has improved loads, he's not quite as tame as his sisters but he now often climbs on me and he is comfortable being around me as long as i don't move too quickly.
The four babies all have different personalities and slightly different looks.
Blossom: looks most like mum except the ears they aren't quite as pointy, tail is fluffiest out of the babies and very clear cream stripes down tail like Hermione.
Lottie: is the smallest, she has always been smaller than the others, she has a missing patch of fur above nose and the tail is similar to Blossom's and mum with cream but not quite as bushy. Lottie has some distinctive behavioural traits, she is the most cheeky and always tries to climb on the camera lens and often stands up on her back legs to eat.
Isabella: largest out of the girls, she also has fur missing above nose and cream in the tail and the tail has recently become bushy but its her size that makes her easiest to tell apart from Lottie. Isabella was once the most shy out of the girls but she's just as friendly as her two sisters now.
Ronald-Harry: he is the largest out of all the babies and bigger than parents. When sitting it gives him a fluffy look. His tail seems to be missing the cream completely as it looks all white and it is not very bushy. Ronald-Harry always had the darkest stripes out of the babies. He seems to have ears like Hermione too. He is easily the easiest of the babies to tell apart. Ronald-Harry i'm making great progress with him, really now he has more or less lost his fear of me and he is taming himself now, he will come near me and now every day will climb on my leg or lap. Theres still a way to go but the more he climbs on me the tamer he gets. I think it also helps that he can watch all the others climb, jump on me, they show no fear and he can see there is nothing to be scared of. He greets me at the door with the other five and comes over almost straight away to join the others eating. There was a time when he didn't join in with the others and would wait until they had eaten before coming down and grabbing a piece of food and then taking it up high to eat and not long before that i remember he would hide as soon as i entered the cage. I rarely saw him for the first few weeks after going outside and had no pictures of him, it doesn't seem all that long ago he was terrified of me.
Its great he is now more like his sisters, dad and mum and even if he never gets as tame as them i will be happy. He is taming quicker than his mum did.
The parents:
Dad:
Asriel: Asriel is quite easy to tell apart as his stripes are quite pale, he has the palest stripes of the Dilutes. Dad also has a slightly crooked tail, left over from when it was bitten by Hermione earlier in the year, he quite a bit of fur on the tail and it hasn't grown back properly leaving a distinctive look to the tail.
Asriel has a great temperament, he's really friendly and loves to sit on my shoulder and go up my sleeve. I think the babies good natures have come from him.
Mum:
Hermione: she seems to have the pointest ears, she had a very pointy face as a baby, its not as pointy now but is still distinctive, thats the first thing i look for. She also has the darkest stripes and the fluffiest tail which has darkish cream stripes down the sides. Hermione was quite wild when i got her in may 2009 i hardly saw her the first two weeks as she hid all the time, as soon as i got near the cage she hid, it took ages before she stopped hiding. It wasn't until october time a few weeks before going into the second aviary she would even come and take food from my fingers. She was very wild when she first moved into aviary one last june, she only lived in there a few weeks as she viciously attacked Hazel and also went for some of the others. In October when we moved her into the new aviary she lived quite well with Asriel apart from some chasing. She immediately began climbing on me and became quite tame, not quite as tame as Asriel but much better than she had been. I didn't think this would happen. In january this year she had a fight with Asriel, biting him on the tail and he bit her on the nose. I then separated them while his tail healed and she became her nervous old self hiding alot again and rarely taking treats from my hand. In February i introduced her to him and she got pregnant. She gave birth March 22nd and i was very nervous about the birth at first, i'd already lost a litter from Abigail and with Hermione's behaviour with other Chipmunks, she didn't really get on with any i wasn't sure she would bond with the babies. She turned out to be a brilliant mum, barely leaving them the first week. Her behaviour seemed to change when her and her babies moved back with Asriel, it wasn't long after her babies became really tame that Hermione too was climbing on me again and taking food. Now she is almost as tame as her daughters and Asriel.
I now feel happy with Hermione having another litter next year.
