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Ok so weve had a new litter of baby lemmings and ill offer these very rare steppe lemmings for sale to club members first. we sell them as pairs (cant have lonley lemmings) for £20, more fun than rats hampsters and gerbils and dead easy too lookafter.

PM me or reply to this thread if your interested.. :)

And i'm not joking!

Chris

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We are one of only a few breeders in the uk, i'm actually delivering a couple to some people in essex on my way down you on sunday depending where they are ill see if i can bring them to the meet first. ill email you the "instructions" on how to keep em.

Chris

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Lemmings - Complete Care Guide

Housing

A plastic or glass aquarium, at least 2 foot by 1 foot for two lemmings, a lid will only be required if you have cats or other animals that would eat them! As lemmings cant jump (they are good climbers though!).

Line the aquarium with either bone dry peat (dry it out in an airing cupboard for a week or so) or wood shavings and hay, needs to be at least 2 inches? The more the better as they love to tunnel and dig.

The aquarium must be situated away from direct sunlight heaters and radiators, and somewhere that air circulates. Normal room temperature is fine, I would advise against keeping them in an unheated shed, but more research is needed in this area.

ABOVE ALL they must be kept dry! They suffer from pneumonia and respiratory problems if damp!

So, room temperature, dry, ventilated and out of direct heat / light

Ours reside in our lounge where you would normally have a tropical fish tank.

They also love to shred paper and use it as a nest lining, mine love sheets of kitchen roll, place a couple of sheets in the tank and watch it disappear in minutes!

Exercise

Lemmings love wheels and will get up to tremendous speed on one, get one with a stand and a closed wheel design, make sure it has a light action as lemmings don't weigh very much.

Food etc

 You will need 2 small hamster bowls one for the feed mix and one for water, people have got their lemmings to drink from a bottle but I haven't had much success with one. Also provide them with either a gnawing stone or some non toxic wood to gnaw on.

Feed mix

Lemmings require a mix of

75% foreign finch seed

25% soft bill pate birdfeed

Provide them with a salt lick stone too.

You may need to come up with a low box or container to put the bowls in to stop them flicking the tank lining into the water I use a cut down box to keep the bits out.

Water should be replaced daily.

Food should be refilled when half full (some lemmings fire the food out of the bowl

The low box also stops the food being lost in the shavings!)

Also supplement their diet with plenty of fresh washed grass and green salad vegetables (you can experiment here, my lemmings love iceberg lettuce, rocket, cucumber and carrot.) there has been some research  to suggest that lemmings are sugar intolerant, but this is unproved, but it is best to avoid anything that contains fruit sugars.

Activity

Lemmings sleep for about 3 hours then are active for about 3 hours night and day so are nearly always around when you are.

Handling

Its best to handle your lemmings as much as possible, at least once a day so they become used to you, they might nip when they are young but it doesn't hurt as they are just testing! my older lemmings love to be handled, but I would advise against letting them run around on the floor as they are incredibly quick when they want to and can fit down some amazingly small holes! Also they seem to have no fear and will fall off shiny surfaces very easily! We let them run around on our low coffee table and up our arms etc once a day.

Cleaning

The frequency of cleaning out depends on how many lemmings you have. As a rule they don't smell, but they must be kept clean, I would suggest that a tank holding two lemmings is cleaned out every 2 weeks. Remove everything from the tank and dispose of it, usually they will have gnawed most of the nest box anyway! I then spray the aquarium with a special pet home cleaner, but soapy water will do (don't use kitchen or bathroom cleaner as this contains nasty chemicals).

If you breed you must insure you are careful on cleaning them out, keep an eye on the nest ? this must not be disturbed if there are babies in there. You will get used to knowing when your female lemmings are about to give birth, we usually clean ours out just before as usually we wont be able to clean them out for roughly 2-3 weeks when there are little ones in there. Once they start running around and coming out of the nest then you are fine to take them out and clean the whole tank.

Health / Breeding

Lemmings may occasionally squabble and scratch each other this is usually because either the tank is too small or you have introduced two lemmings together that basically don't get on! Its best to either keep lemmings together as single sex pairs (brothers or sisters) from the beginning, although males can be introduced to females later on for breeding purposes but must be carefully observed. From our experience of breeding it is best to introduce a female to an established male just after cleaning out the tank, so that the male is in familiar territory and the female is in unfamiliar but clean unscented bedding! If you know what I mean!

Providing you have two lemming of opposite sex babies will come every 2 months or so in quantities of between 6 and 12, they are weaned after about 2/3 weeks and sexually mature at about 3 weeks, it's a good idea to remove them at about 3 weeks and separate them into single sex groups or you may have more lemmings than you bargained for!

Life expectancy is about 20 months for a breeding pair, more if not bred, its best to keep a colony with genetic diversity.

Chris + Vix

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi everyone just a quick bump of this thread!

I will be at DUBFREEZE and ill be bringing lemmings with me if anyone wants any can you PM me and let me know! please make sure you have all things in place for your furry friends before Sunday if your having any! see the thread for keeping instructions!

Cheers Chris..

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