Who was around for the Clark/Moncton rat train rescue in 2008?
Well take that filth, that neglect, and quadruple the overcrowding, and you get the lovely Rats Town Rattery!
Early yesterday I saw an ad on Kijiji for "rats giving away for free can't keep". I decided to email for more information, but first I decided to click on "View Poster's Other Ads". You can imagine my surprise when I found ads for Rats Town Rattery offering their "cute rats" in their other posts.
So I called the number and spoke to Julieann. She said they had "20 males and 10 females" and that they were all "a year or two old". I called Shelagh and discussed what we could and what we should do. We decided we would go down there last night to assess the situation and then figure out what we could do.
It was so so SO much worse than anything we were expecting.
The smell hit us as soon as we walked in the door. Little did we know we'd be smelling that smell for the next few hours. We were shown their "rat room", and I had to restrain myself from punching the guy in the face. The boys were in a homemade horrid wood box. It was a bit narrower than an FN, and shorter, with NO LEVELS. ALL the boys were in this cage. At first glance, I estimated around 25-30 boys. Clearly they didn't know how to count, either.
I looked down at the girls... they were all in a blue-bottomed Living World Rat Resort cage, dimensions 25 x 24 x 16 inches (cage calculator says 2 rats max... we use them at the rescue for pairs that come in). ALL the girls were in one. All 19 of them.
Again, these people clearly don't know how to count.
They also tried to pawn a huge bag of pine off on us. :sick2: I refused to take it.
The guy thought all the minks were Russian blues, and when we said "Nope, they're mink." he asked if it was rare.
So, Shelagh and I looked at each other and realized that there was no way in hell we could leave the rats there. So we crammed all the boys into a Rat Resort cage for travel, and the girls in the other, and we crammed them into my truck. We didn't know final numbers at this point, and we wouldn't until we got home.
We got to Shelagh's and started "triage". The 28 boys are in bad shape. Lots have abscesses from fights, one little beige boy has an infected wound on his shoulder that looks very painful.
There are two nakies, one has a large cyst on his back, the other has a dead eye that looks like it's an old injury, and there's no smell of infection. He's very VERY skinny too.
They are all so filthy, the dirtiest rats I've ever seen in my life. Here is a typical belly:
The girls are all younger, and in a bit better shape than the boys. One is older and is showing symptoms of PT, we're starting her on steroids.
The others are between 6-8 months old, and there's a heck of a lot of blacks! Haha. They've figured out the hammocks fast.
There's one blue dumbo female who is apparently mom to a lot of the ratties. She looks so young...
Here's two of her son's, these one were in the Rats Town Rattery ad (http://hamilton.kijiji.ca/c-pets-other- ... Z197749408)
And this is Dad:
So Chelle's Critter Haven is in need of some fosters and permanent homes for the healthy ratties, boys and girls. Feel free to post on this thread if you're interested in fostering, or PM me or email me at [email protected]
Whenever Shelagh and I start to feel like, "What the hell did we just get ourselves into?" we keep saying to each other "We just shut down Rats Town Rattery." And that feels good.
Well take that filth, that neglect, and quadruple the overcrowding, and you get the lovely Rats Town Rattery!
Early yesterday I saw an ad on Kijiji for "rats giving away for free can't keep". I decided to email for more information, but first I decided to click on "View Poster's Other Ads". You can imagine my surprise when I found ads for Rats Town Rattery offering their "cute rats" in their other posts.
So I called the number and spoke to Julieann. She said they had "20 males and 10 females" and that they were all "a year or two old". I called Shelagh and discussed what we could and what we should do. We decided we would go down there last night to assess the situation and then figure out what we could do.
It was so so SO much worse than anything we were expecting.
The smell hit us as soon as we walked in the door. Little did we know we'd be smelling that smell for the next few hours. We were shown their "rat room", and I had to restrain myself from punching the guy in the face. The boys were in a homemade horrid wood box. It was a bit narrower than an FN, and shorter, with NO LEVELS. ALL the boys were in this cage. At first glance, I estimated around 25-30 boys. Clearly they didn't know how to count, either.
I looked down at the girls... they were all in a blue-bottomed Living World Rat Resort cage, dimensions 25 x 24 x 16 inches (cage calculator says 2 rats max... we use them at the rescue for pairs that come in). ALL the girls were in one. All 19 of them.
Again, these people clearly don't know how to count.
They also tried to pawn a huge bag of pine off on us. :sick2: I refused to take it.
The guy thought all the minks were Russian blues, and when we said "Nope, they're mink." he asked if it was rare.
So, Shelagh and I looked at each other and realized that there was no way in hell we could leave the rats there. So we crammed all the boys into a Rat Resort cage for travel, and the girls in the other, and we crammed them into my truck. We didn't know final numbers at this point, and we wouldn't until we got home.
We got to Shelagh's and started "triage". The 28 boys are in bad shape. Lots have abscesses from fights, one little beige boy has an infected wound on his shoulder that looks very painful.
There are two nakies, one has a large cyst on his back, the other has a dead eye that looks like it's an old injury, and there's no smell of infection. He's very VERY skinny too.
They are all so filthy, the dirtiest rats I've ever seen in my life. Here is a typical belly:
The girls are all younger, and in a bit better shape than the boys. One is older and is showing symptoms of PT, we're starting her on steroids.
The others are between 6-8 months old, and there's a heck of a lot of blacks! Haha. They've figured out the hammocks fast.
There's one blue dumbo female who is apparently mom to a lot of the ratties. She looks so young...
Here's two of her son's, these one were in the Rats Town Rattery ad (http://hamilton.kijiji.ca/c-pets-other- ... Z197749408)
And this is Dad:
So Chelle's Critter Haven is in need of some fosters and permanent homes for the healthy ratties, boys and girls. Feel free to post on this thread if you're interested in fostering, or PM me or email me at [email protected]
Whenever Shelagh and I start to feel like, "What the hell did we just get ourselves into?" we keep saying to each other "We just shut down Rats Town Rattery." And that feels good.
But any other away, just let me know!
