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I've heard about their hardiness, which is why I am so perplexed. Some of the ones that have died have opened their mouths and made gasps... I don't know if that's concidered panting. The thing is, they will still occasionally move themselves to directly under the lamp to rest and sleep. I have held several of them when they started to gasp, and it would not improve... at least, not in the few minutes I was willing to keep them out. I raised the lamp yesterday and they seem to be sleeping in the same positions, in a semi-circle about 6 inches outside the diameter of the lamp, with a few occasional rests directly under the lamp.
I would guess that they absolutely got chilled on the way here, and it is possible that the heat once they got here was not enough to overcome that. When I was trying to rapidly build their box with the wire floor, they were in a small tub, and I stupidly put their water in there with them. 6 of them got wet, and 1 died right then. The other 5, I used the blow drier on and got them dry as quickly as I could. We lost two of them in the next two days. 3 of them are still alive and showing no signs of stress.
We have not lost any babies in 24 hours.
The wire is suspended about 6 inches over the floor. The floor is removable (slips out) and I have newspaper over that so I can remove the paper, put in new paper and slide it back in. There is no blood in their droppings. There are a few waterier poops but I wouldn't say they are anything out of the spectrum of 'normal'. The entire thing is open to the air, so I don't think circulation is the problem.
They are a bit more active today but they are still not making any noises. The only time they make any noise is when they see me near their box and they run to the other side. I know they are supposed to be noisy, but even when they get startled, they aren't very loud. I figure when/if they start getting loud and annoying, I'll know they're okay.
I can't wait to hear them get LOUD and annoying!
I will go outside and search for some grass.... you would think there'd be some around here!
Thanks for the reply... I'm hoping that even if all of them got chilled, that some of them will be strong enough to overcome it.