Going Crazy: a Rescue Story: Rescued Ratties

The vast majority of animals in my home are rats. I have twelve at the moment, yes you read that correctly.

On the way back from the No More Homeless Pets Conference I attended in Las Vegas, NV I made a detour and adopted a rat in AZ. My experience in adopting her has inspired another post, but that will come later. For now I just want to share the photos and stories of my rats.

I'll start with my newest addition, a female in need of a name.

Not my photo.

This girl was bred for back to back pregnancies, meaning when she weaned one litter she gave birth to the next. Which as you can imagine was very hard on her body. So hard in fact that it caused her lower back pain and to lash out at her adoptive family and their rats. She was returned to the rescue. The rescue spayed her and removed a small mammary tumor and sent her into a foster home to recover. She has not had buddies since she lashed out at her former cage mates, and I hope to move her in with my big group.

But what got me started in rats? The two boys in the photo below.

Photo from original owner.

Their owner had adopted a female from Craigslist only to find out the rat was pregnant. When the litter came two of the boys were "boring" compared to their beautifully marked and (some) hairless siblings. They were overlooked.

Photo from original owner.

You can see in the photo of their litter mates that they didn't stand out. The owner was worried about what would become of them. She could not keep them herself as she had only females and did not want to neuter them. At the same time, no one was stepping forward to bring them into their home.

As is turns out their owner is someone I knew (friend of a friend) and I was suckered into saying I'd take them. I had about a week and a half until they were ready to come home and I had to scramble to learn all I could about basic care and set up for them. While reading up I learned rats really need to have other rat buddies. I also learned about other rat colors and soon began to want to have a trio. Just one more, either a hairless or a blue.

Cav, Xin, Cham and Shen.

As fate would have it a breeder going out of business had both, a pair of brothers. He needed homes for them before he moved because he was not taking any rats with and was giving them to anyone who wanted them, snake owners included.*

Just like that, two became four. For awhile it was "just four." I had named the nearly identical beige rats Champagne and Caviar or Cham and Cav for short. (A perfect example of why you shouldn't name pets while tired.) The other brothers were going to be named Shenanigans and Mischief or Shen and Chief for short. However my boyfriend was not a fan of the name Chief so he became Xin instead.

Ray and Shark, photo from humane society.

And for a couple of months it stayed that way. That was until someone else I know let me know about two boys that had recently come in to our local Humane Society. This was a bad time for rats there, there had recently been a ton of rats dumped and the shelter was overwhelmed. Most of them were young, so these older boys didn't stand as much of a chance.

I made the decision to go and see them, you know, just to see. When I held them it was clear something was wrong. Their fur was puffed up, noses red and they were both sneezing and wheezing. It was clear something was wrong, despite being declared "perfectly healthy" by the shelter's vet.

I adopted them and got them to my vet as soon as I could, it turns out they both had pneumonia, which left untreated can be fatal. They were put on antibiotics and eventually got better. Once they were feeling better they were introduced to my other four, and soon enough all six were happily living together.

It became clear to me that I needed to upgrade my cage to one that could properly accommodate six rapidly growing boys. Being an animal lover I couldn't just get them the bare minimum. The cage I bought ended up leaving me room to easily accommodate two more with a bit of room to spare. I hadn't planned on getting more boys, but more boys is exactly what I wound up bringing home.

A member on a rat forum that I am part of, often takes in rescues of her own. She works at a pet store and someone had dropped of 20+ rats, all somehow related. Their story was that they didn't know they had a male and female...and several litters later wanted to get rid of all the males. I offered to take in two of them and to my surprise she agreed. She wanted to find homes for them, and manged to find homes for most of them all over the country with members on the rat forum.

Photo by rescuer.

I thought they were all cute and couldn't choose. So I let my boyfriend pick one and my nephew pick the other. Boyfriend picked out the black one on the far right with the thin white blaze (Tosca) and my nephew picked the black one on the far left (Tava).

There was just one snag, their rescuer lived on the edge of Kansas, the edge furthest from me in Colorado. We decided to meet about 1/2 way in Kansas and after a 13(ish) hour drive they were home with me.

At that point I thought, ok enough is enough. I want them to have all the space they need and I need to be able to afford them all. But as you may have noticed things here don't go according to plan. I took in a boy from Craigslist in desperate need of a home. He was listed as a 2.5yr old male, in other words a senior who likely didn't have much longer. (Rats usually only live until 2.5 or 3.) His family was moving and need him gone, now. I offered to take him in, figuring I'd give him a quiet retirement, vet care, love and a quiet passing in a few months.

The owners dropped him off in a tiny cage that he could barley turn around in and it was spotless. The bedding was all white as snow, they had clearly scrubbed it clean before dropping him off. They didn't bother to clean up the rat though. He was filthy, had skin troubles and was very obese. They had fed him junk food and table scraps. Once he was acclimated to his new home and new big cage I attempted to introduce him to my group of males. Unfortunately after a lifetime of being alone he was aggressive to my boys and he was simply far to overweight to neuter.

It was then that I decided to adopt girls and spay them in the hopes he could have friends. After one adoption fell through I turned to another rat forum, and found someone who lived only an hour away who had several accident litters. The babies would be ready to go home shortly and I had a vet comfortable with spaying them young. It seemed perfect, unfortunately my rescued boy passed away before I brought them home. I wanted to make good on my word that I would bring them home. What I hadn't planned on was bringing home a third female on the same day. I was already planning on picking up the babies when I heard from a friend about a recently abandoned girl. She was dumped at a pet store, alone. My friend was worried she may end up as snake food* or alone for the rest of her life. I decided since bringing her home would technically keep my numbers the same that I could take her. I had also been working a new job which was providing great pay, so I had no worries about the financial aspect of it

Then came my next dilemma, here I have eight intact males and three intact females. I certainly wasn't going to leave both groups intact, because even with the most careful and experienced owners, accidents happen. After calling around town and even out of town I finally found a vet that was both experienced and wouldn't charge me an arm and a leg. The only snag was that she wouldn't spay the females, only neuter the males. So I could either pay $200+ per spay in town or $60 per neuter outside of town. I opted to have my boys all neutered since it was cheaper, I trust that vet more and some boys were having hormone related aggression.

Which brings us to the present. Those three girls now live with my neutered males in their big cage and the newest girl will hopefully move in with them once she's had time to acclimate and complete the intro process. (For those who know your cages I have a "quad" or a Double Critter Nation hooked up with a Double Ferret Nation.

TL:DR - I am a crazy rat lady, who didn't want any rats and who now has 12. The above photos were taken when I got them, the photos below are from the last month.

* About snake food: I know snakes have to eat, I have owned and fed snakes, I have no problem with that. I have a problem with people feeding live prey to snakes, and most of the rats (and mice) that come off of Craigslist or out of a pet store for food, are fed live.