Local Rat Rescue Move April 2011
The owners of The Rat Retreat are being forced to move and therefore place 48 rats in foster care while they get housing arranged. I am going there on Thursday to see cages and meet the ratties. We will be taking 48 and Kay and I are going to foster them for her. There are 33 seniors, 6 that are on meds and 9 that are adoptable. I will see if I can get thier pics and start posting in available to help get some adopted out.
Emaciated Rats August 2010
My heart is sick over this most recent rescue.....it really amazes me what people will sink to doing. There was a breeder in Nampa who provided many of the local pet stores with thier rats. She had a bad reputation in the rat world, and now I know why. Thursday night we wound up taking in 47 rats. Most are nothing more than walking skeletons. They had been in a room with no air conditioning and no open windows, they had no food, or water even though there were full water bottles sitting on top of the tanks they were in. Animal Control had been in the home several times and apparently couldn't bother to help these babies out with even giving them water....but I won't go there, I don't need trouble from them. When they were picked up, there were at least 20 rats dead and innumerous rats in pieces, being cannibolized by the remaining rats that were starving and just trying to survive. There were babies trying to nurse from thier dead momma. I took them to a friends house and we spent a great while giving them subq fluids, pedialite, apples, applesauce and rodent blocks. We only lost one during that time, leaving us with 46. I made milk for the 14 babies and started nursing them, luckily they are about 2 wks and starting to eat on thier own....poor babies shouldn't be doing that for another week. These rats are beautiful, rexes, double rexes, hairless, standards, dumbos, you name it..... They are doing well now, just 2 days after the rescue, and will continue to do so I think. They are so grateful for food and water that it is sad and it breaks my heart everytime I look at them. How anyone could do this is beyond me. What bothers me even more though is the fact that no charges are being brought against the people who did this.
We need volunteers to help foster these babies once they are well enough to not need the constant attention that they need now. Please if you can foster, please contact me....we will be needing homes in probably 2-3 weeks. I want to make sure they guys are strong enough and any females that are pregnant have been spayed or birthed thier litters before they go into foster. If you can help with donations of food or bedding that will also be much appreciated as 46 rats is really putting a strain on the budget.
Do to some hard work by some wonderful people, these rats have all been adopted! :) A very happy ending to a horrific story.
We need volunteers to help foster these babies once they are well enough to not need the constant attention that they need now. Please if you can foster, please contact me....we will be needing homes in probably 2-3 weeks. I want to make sure they guys are strong enough and any females that are pregnant have been spayed or birthed thier litters before they go into foster. If you can help with donations of food or bedding that will also be much appreciated as 46 rats is really putting a strain on the budget.
Do to some hard work by some wonderful people, these rats have all been adopted! :) A very happy ending to a horrific story.
Massive Rat Rescue in Progress! January 2010
Update to the rescue situation.... From that rescue we wound up with 5 males and 5 females. We had one female who had been nursing and were never able to find her litter. There was an area of deck about 20'x20' and without tearing up the entire deck, it was impossible to locate where she had them. That is one of the bad things about doing rescue. The good thing though is that we had one mom have a litter of 13 the day we brought her inside. Of those, 5 died eventually and left us with 8 adorable little ones, one is an agouti hood, one is agouti on top and white underneath, one is an albino double rex, there are 4 albinos that are rex coat and one albino with straight "normal" hair. The couple of moms that I thought may be pregnant either were not or lost thier litters. The adults and younger rats were scared, but easy to socialize and everyone is a lovebug now. They are all putting on weight and no one has shown any signs of any illness or tumors which is a very good thing. They are just very happy to be inside out of the cold and have food and water all the time. In fact, if one of the dishes gets too low in the girls cage they stand on the bars and yell for attention until thier dish is filled. A very good ending to a bad situation.
January 24, 2010
My phone rang a few days ago and there was a nice gentleman on the other end expressing concern with the rats under his deck. I informed him that Idaho doesn't have alot of the wild rat problems that other areas do unless out in the more rural areas. He was located downtown Meridian. Nope, no wild rats there. I told him these were fancy rats that someone had choose to set free inhumanely. He said he was trying to catch them and that he thought there were 3. I went out in the morning to take a look and see what the situation was and offer more help and advise. Their deck is a heavy duty deck with only a few inches clearance and only a couple exits. That is good in a way because those exits are where the focus needed to be to grab the rats. He called later the second day saying he had 2. I went out to get them and was able to pull a loose floor board up. That is when I realized that there are at least 9 rats, mostly females, most if not all pregnant and nursing. Of the two I took home, one is nursing, one is about ready to have babies any day. There are at least 7 more that I could indentify. I am going out in the morning to try to get the rest including the babies. If there is only 1 male, and 8 females, there is the potential of having up to 144 babies. Rats can have as many as 18 babies in a litter. That is unlikely, they usually have more like 6 - 13, but even with that many, there are still many, many babies. We need help! We could use any cages with 1/2" bars, food, blankets, anything would be appreciated as well as rat lovers to adopt these once they are healthy, old enough and social enough. Right now the adults and youn adults are scared, and thin. They have not had a food source for who knows how long and rats do not do well being outside. I expect as we get the rest that we may have some illness, and some loss. It is an exteremely sad situation caused by one person letting rats go. These are not wild animals and should not be outside under any circumstance, especially in the winter with no food source. Please, any help is appreciated!
January 24, 2010
My phone rang a few days ago and there was a nice gentleman on the other end expressing concern with the rats under his deck. I informed him that Idaho doesn't have alot of the wild rat problems that other areas do unless out in the more rural areas. He was located downtown Meridian. Nope, no wild rats there. I told him these were fancy rats that someone had choose to set free inhumanely. He said he was trying to catch them and that he thought there were 3. I went out in the morning to take a look and see what the situation was and offer more help and advise. Their deck is a heavy duty deck with only a few inches clearance and only a couple exits. That is good in a way because those exits are where the focus needed to be to grab the rats. He called later the second day saying he had 2. I went out to get them and was able to pull a loose floor board up. That is when I realized that there are at least 9 rats, mostly females, most if not all pregnant and nursing. Of the two I took home, one is nursing, one is about ready to have babies any day. There are at least 7 more that I could indentify. I am going out in the morning to try to get the rest including the babies. If there is only 1 male, and 8 females, there is the potential of having up to 144 babies. Rats can have as many as 18 babies in a litter. That is unlikely, they usually have more like 6 - 13, but even with that many, there are still many, many babies. We need help! We could use any cages with 1/2" bars, food, blankets, anything would be appreciated as well as rat lovers to adopt these once they are healthy, old enough and social enough. Right now the adults and youn adults are scared, and thin. They have not had a food source for who knows how long and rats do not do well being outside. I expect as we get the rest that we may have some illness, and some loss. It is an exteremely sad situation caused by one person letting rats go. These are not wild animals and should not be outside under any circumstance, especially in the winter with no food source. Please, any help is appreciated!
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