Today, I came home to see that Lucy passed away peacefully in the tank due to old age. I made a post about how she may have gone into torpor yesterday morning, but my room is definitely warm enough now, so I’m wondering if maybe it was her old age starting to slow her down. Lucy was one of my sweetest mice I’ve ever owned, and I already miss her so much ❤️
My girl Lucy is around a year and 9 months, and I found her in a multi chamber hideout this morning very cold and stiff. I thought she was dead, but I saw her breathing very shallow so I picked her up. I kept her warm in my shirt and made her a sock full of rice to stick in the microwave. She stayed snuggled with me on the warm sock for a while, and now she seems to be doing great. She’s back in the cage, running around, and I offered her some food and water which she took. My room has been pretty cold recently, so I’m wondering if this could’ve been torpor, especially since she’s much older and skinnier than most of my other girls. I am working on making my room warmer, the cage is always away from windows, drafts, and vents, and I gave them all some extra bedding.
I found Gertrude outside in my grandparents’ egress window under a pile of leaves that I almost did not move. I of course picked her up out of the egress window and decided to take her home because it’s been on the cold side in Michigan lately, and there’s definitely no food sources around. If it was any other circumstance, I would’ve tried to release her into a more appropriate habitat. I set up a cage and found some spring water for her dish, as well as many branches, silk plants, naturalistic hides, and some PVC pipes for her. I definitely plan on adding some more clutter soon. I will look tomorrow because I have to go out to buy crickets, gut load for the crickets, a spray bottle, and more spring water. I used to have a wood frog, so I am somewhat familiar with frog care. I’m so glad I was able to save her and look forward to however long she’ll spend with me.
Name inspo: My wood frog was named Oberon, so I wanted another Shakespeare theme. I went with Gertrude because it’s a cute name and Hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare play.