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Adia and Riven Kelly
Baby Adia!
Adia is proud to be a direct descendant of Pookie Dani, the daughter of Phoebe and Ciaran Lautrera. She was born early one afternoon on November 4th, 1997 in the family tank, the same take her mother Phoebe was born in. You can see pics of her and her littermates as cute, adorable, bumbly little babies on the Lautrera Litter 1 page. Right now she's in love with her mate, a wonderful little fellow that she absolutely adores! She looks just like her mom & grandmom. It's kind of eerie, in a way = ) She enjoys sleeping in her fluffy nest, that she and Riven made out of the tissues I gave them. Sometimes, you can hardly tell she's there!
When she's not snoozing the day away, she's digging in their jar in the far corner of their tank, chewing on their plastic tube, or running on their (squeaky!) wheel. The wheel is a family heirloom, as it's the same wheel that Pookie had when he was raising his first litters. She also enjoys dust baths = )
Adia Kelly
Adia is named for the song Adia written by Sarah McLachlan, my all-time favorite singer. You can read the lyrics here.
Believe me Adia, we are still innocent It's easy, we all falter.... Does it matter? |
Adia is, I think, one of my more beautiful gerbils. Oh, sure they're all cute, all adorable, in their own ways, but Adia is quite a beauty. She's very sleek and slim--even when she's pregnant!! Well, so far, at least. She's also a very graceful little girl (perhaps even more than her sister Grace? = ). She's a lot like her grandmother, Missy. She reminds me of her a LOT, more so than Phoebe, except for she doesn't get out as often. In fact, she's never gotten out at all, unless you count that disastrous attempt to take a picture of her litter on top of my dresser. Plop! Plop! One by one each of the 5 little babies (at 5 weeks old) took turns leaping 3 feet down! Thank goodness for those pillows, but I still had to chase her and Mystery 'round the room!
Adia, full of grace!
Riven is Adia's mate. He was born on the the 16th of December (I think), 1997. He is a grey agouti patched colored gerbil, a very little, mousy looking fellow, but he's a cutie! My nickname for him right now is "nerd" because he's such a klutz ;). When he was in a split tank with Adia, he kept jumping in the water dish, just to give you an idea. He's very greatful now that he has a waterbottle, he didn't appreciate taking a swim = )
"Love ya babe, gimme kisses!"
He and Adia were, at least for a while, in the "allergic" stage--the stage where they live together, sleep together, but don't really seem interested in each others' existence. That's why all the pics that I have them together, they're just giving each other "kisses", that's about as close as they'll get outside of the nest = ) Though, I thought the most adorable thing I've ever seen was when I saw Adia flip Riv over on his back and give him a full-body groom! He seemed to enjoy it a lot and lay still the whole time.
Riven's Girl
Riven slowly began to grow and fill out now and he's a big dude. He is bred from a slate patch (Victor) and grey agouti (Samantha), and his siblings are slate, grey agouti, ruby eyed white, ivory cream, CP slate, CP grey agouti, and 2 white colors (CP REW and CP ivory cream). The two were put together after only *two* days in a split tank, because they got time off for good behavior! Well, relatively good behavior . . . Riven managed to hop over to her side after a few hours, and she was grooming him, it was soooo endearing = )
Riven
Riven started out being a very mousy little critter. I think this *might* have to do with the fact that he was kept on pine. A lot of his siblings died of respiratory infections. He's lucky that he made it. Kelly, I think, switched at least that pair to aspen, and so now his sibs are doing better. But Riven is an adorable little sweet heart, and has definitely filled out.
He's such a show off!
Though he looks rather unassuming, Riven is QUITE the showoff. There's not a feat he won't attempt to impress his lady. The two of them have a little nest in the corner of the tank. It's an interesting thing about gerbils, they seem to always make their nest in the same place. Even when you clean out their tanks, they make a new nest in the same spot. Something funny I've noticed is that most of the gerbils I own all make their nests in the right corner closest to me (when I'm standing in front of them)! If not there, then always the right side of the tank. I've talked to a few other people about this, and a lot of theirs do it too.
Riven Kelly, daddy extraordinaire
Riven is a spotted, my very first spotted (my sister owned a pied, Splotch, but I can't really claim her as "mine"--then there's also Lucy, our nutmeg patch, but she's my sister's also). He has very interesting markings! A little spot on his forhead, and then a sort of diamond or triangle on his back. Okay, so it's not too unusual, but it looks very neat!
A nice shot of his spots
The two of them had their very first litter--of SEVEN!--on my 15th birthday, May 8th, 1998. Little baby Rivens and Adia's, running around! An argente spot would be so cute--a cross between Adia and Riven, how perfect! And in the first litter they had 3 agouti spotteds, 1 black spotted, 2 blacks, and 1 *sapphire*! (I think)
Litters:
Litter #1 - 5/8/98
Litter #2 - 6/24/98
Litter #3 - 8/2/98
Litter #4 - 10/11/98
Litter #5 - 12/6/98
Litter #6 - 1/9/98
Litter #7 - 2/27/99
Adia & Riven's babies are LOVELY. They're all so big and sleek and slim and . . . almost perfect! = ) This *might* be because Riven is closely descended from gerbils from Europe (his dad was imported), so perhaps his family was bred for showing at some point. That could explain their good "form".
The family (babies in the jar = )
They have grandkids too now!! On December 22nd, 1998, Marrim (aka Chic) and Chinny, who belong to Stephanie K., had five beautiful babies! Chic is an argente golden girl from their second litter, and Chinny is her grey agouti mate. Congrats Stephanie!!
RJ ("Riven Junior"), a grandson
RJ is from their daughter Selene (agouti spot) from their first litter, and her DTW/PEW mate Ulysses. RJ is also Adair & Danziger's grandson, but he looks just like Grandad Riven!
Updates on the two of them
2/27/99 - Oooh quints ;)
1/9/98 - Adia had sextuplets again! The same day that her son Myst became the daddy of 6 pups too = )
12/22/98 - Wow, the sweeties became grandparents at just 12 and 13mos old ;)
12/16/98 - Happy birthday Riven!
12/6/98 - Sextuplets this time! ;)
11/4/98 - Happy birthday Adia!!
10/11/98 - quadruplets again!
9/15/98 - Adia & Riven mated finally! So they'll be expecting their 4th litter on the 10th of September.
8/2/98 - Adia had quadruplets this morning!
7/31/98 - Adia is getting round again! Expecting babies any second! = )
6/24/98 - Adia had twins today! She fooled me, because I thought she'd just wait a few more days and have at least 4, but I guess that goes to show how good I am at this stuff! = 6
5/8/98 - Adia had 7 babies today! WTG her! She's a great momma and Riven is a very protective dad. Their babies will be so adorable! See their page here.
4/29/98 - Almost certain she's 16 days pregnant = ) Getting rounder every day, too. I'm sure she'll make a great mommy!
4/25/98 - I think Adia's tummy is getting rounder but I'm probably just "hallucinating". She may fool me yet.
4/13/98 - Adia and Riven should be parents in 25 days! Well, unless they decide to go totally Dana & Fox on me. In which case I'll spazz. But anyway.
On Genetics & Babies . . .
Adia is AappCCEEGG and Riven is AaPpC*EEgg. Hopefully the * in the C locus will be c(b) (both his parents were Cc(b). Then they'll have sapphire (lilac with c(b)) and topas (argente with c(b)). I also recently found out that 2 of Riven's siblings had babies, one of which was an unknown color! It looked like a slate with a silver undercoat. I'll let you know if I figure it out! There's a picture of his neice right here. However, it may just be a slate or colorpoint slate with an unusual undercoat, but not neccessarily too special. And the mother hasn't had anymore (unfortunately, that one died = () But still, the prospects are dizzying! But their babies will definitely be black, agouti, argente, lilac and patches of those, with a possibility of sapphire and topas too. I'm going to cross their babies, and then I can find out if Riven's got any of those genes, keeping in mind the fact they could easily be lost along the way! My naming scheme will be Ages from the series of books and the 2 games in the Myst series. You'll just have to wait to find out those are! = )
Their black patched babies look like this = )
| TDC's Riven Kelly male grey agouti patch | Kelly's Samantha female grey agouti Kelly's Victor male slate patch | grey agouti grey agouti spot ivory cream spot colorpoint grey agouti |
| TDC's Adia Lautrera female argente | TDC's Ciaran Lautrera male lilac TDC's Phoebe Dani female argente | lilac at pet store lilac at pet store TDC's Missy Dani female argente TDC's Pookie Dani black male |
TDC's = The Dani Clan's (mine). Owned by me, but not necessarily bred by me.
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