God help me where do I even start....

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fenshae

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2009
Messages
1,124
Location
Las Cruces, NM
So a year ago I signed up as a volunteer/contact at our humane society and said I'd be able to do rescue work for rats. A whole year passed with nary a sound from them (and me doing private rescue work through craigslist when the rare opportunity arose) and then....out of the blue...I get this phone call from a panicked shelter working saying they found my phone number and can I PLEASE help them because there are now AT LEAST TWO HUNDRED rats that just got dumped at the shelter from a hoarding situation.

Two. Hundred. rats.

They're not separated by gender. So this is soon to be a few thousand rats.

I have the cage space to take, ah, maybe four? I've sent out emails to as many people as I know who could spread the word....posted on my facebook with a plea....put up a thread on GooseMoose....but dear god I don't even know where to start.
 
Holy rats batman!!!!!!!!
I wish I had sage words of wisdom to impart for you. Aside from the shock all I can think is maybe you can help the shelter seperate the males from females immediately and get them started on what to prepare for, then, hope for the best.
 
Can you, and perhaps others, visit them asap to sex and separate the rats?
They likely need various items (such as cages, food, bedding, toys, etc) and you could let the rat community know as people in the USA may be able to help.
If the people at the shelter are not used to dealing with rats, you could likely help a great deal by providing them with needed info on how to house and care for them, bedding, food, etc.
Perhaps you could contact good rat rescues in the USA and see if they can take in some of the rats. Mainely Rat Rescue is a good one and I am sure there are others.

It is an overwhelming situation but I am sure you can make a huge difference in ways that are manageable for you.

Looking forward to updates.

:hugs:
 
I'm heading over right now to help get them separated and get an idea on age and health concerns. As far as I know I'm the only rat rescue-oriented person in the city, but there's a decent-sized one a state over that I'm going to contact and see if they can help. But first I have to go get a look at what we're dealing with....coming from a hoarding situation like this I'm prepared for the worst.

Wish me luck!

((incidentally this really could not have come up at a less-opportune time, as I'm going into the hospital on Friday for gallbladder surgery and am a bit tight on finances right now. Curse you fate!))
 
good luck to you fenshae!!!

maybe the majority of the 200 are babies which means less likelihood of pregnancy. My fingers are crossed tightly and I will be watching this thread for any updates.

I hope your surgery goes well too!

((hugs))
 
Whoa! Good luck helping them out. Maybe you can just be the organizer, and help them with making decisions as to what to do. And good luck with your gallbladder surgery. I had mine out - laproscopic - and I was back at work in a week. No problem, mon!
 
Well, that was possibly the most depressing visit and waste of time in my life.

To put it nicely, our humane society is not *exactly* the best in the world, and they are DEFINITELY not equipped to handle rats. Especially not in these numbers. Currently there's around 120 rats divided between two rabbit hutches, and more coming in as they're captured from the house. Apparently it was an old lady who had both sexes in her houses as pets, the rats got loose, went feral, and started breeding....eventually there were hundreds of them running rampant in her house.

I was going to take pictures but it was just too depressing. They're all just piled on top of each other in these hutches...some of them are missing eyes or have open sores, many are obviously ill with respiratory infections, some of them seem to be pretty much healthy but from the looks of them they ALL have lice and/or mites. Age-wise I'd say they're ranging between 4 months to a year; didn't see any babies, probably because they just haven't been caught yet.

The shelter is so overwhelmed that they just don't have the resources to care for them, and realistically don't have the interest either. I offered to sex them for them and they refused, saying they'll all be killed this week anyway so it doesn't matter if there's any more pregnancies. And because I'm not an official rescue with paperwork, they can't just hand them over to me, they'd have to adopt them out to me, which would mean more paperwork and more hassle for them which they don't want to go through if I can only take a handful.

I'm so upset right now.....I mean, I just got a nice new cage and I can comfortably house 5 + the four I currently own, so I'll happily take five of them if they'll bother with the paperwork, but...jesus. I just don't know what to do. On the one hand I know that any one life saved is worth it on its own right, but on the other hand, the whole situation is so hopeless.....
 
This happened here where 300+ rats were taken from a hoarder. I was talking to my rats foster mom about it, she said they had to be farmed out across the state and some spilled out into other states. Might have to happen here. Try looking at the rescue list on this forum and start contacting near by rescues and shelters and see if they can take some or help you find places to send them. Maybe as a forum we could start up a food drive, I normally make my own food mix. I got the recipe from the rat rescue. Maybe I could ask them if they could help send food as well. I'm positive I couldn't send enough to feed all of them but every little bit might help if more of us send.


*edit*not just food but if anyone has any extra cages or materials or other rattie things could help.
 
If these 120 rats are from a mere 2rats than humane euthanasia may be te better option in this case... rats aren't the healthiest as it is, think of the issues they may face if they were all inbred.

We had something like this happen in KW, where we got some 4000 mice from some person. They had started as two and quickly turned into 4000, they were so badly inbred that some were being born with no eyes, it was such a sad situation. All the mice in the case were humaely euthanized...
 
They didn't know the exact number that she started with but they know it was more than four. But yeah, I had that thought as well -- god knows what problems they could have with that degree of uncontrolled inbreeding.

I've sent out emails to every rescue in my neighbor states, the local chapter of the AFRMA, everybody I know personally with an interest in rats, and have been contacted by somebody up north through Goosemoose who will ask around as well......and I think, for today, that's all I can do. Still kind of frustrated with the unreceptiveness of the shelter staff, but I don't suppose I can really blame them. They've had a rough year, they had 70 puppies dumped on their doorstep over the winter from a busted puppy mill and they got a ton of very bad press because of how many of those had to be put down....

Speaking of press, you think it would help at all to approach the local media outlets?
 
You might try sending an email to each of the US rescues listed in the US rescue section of this forum.
Maybe they can help.
You should be able to adopt 4 or 5 ratties if you want to ... shelters do adopt out one animal at a time.
As for inbred, well it may only be a generation or two or three which would pretty much be the same as all the rats that come from mills, pet stores, ooopsie litters etc.

Hope you can get lots of help as it sounds so horrible and overwhelming.
 
They're letting me adopt 5 tomorrow (that's the max I can take, I'll be full to capacity afterwards until I can get a bigger cage)...I have to pay for them because I'm an individual but they're letting me do it at a $1 a piece so it's no big. I've sent emails to every rescue group in the surrounding states and the rat-association like I said, and I have gotten one interested person from Goosemoose contacting me about possibly taking a couple and she's spreading the word up north. I've also posted an ad on the local craigslist (can't hurt, right?) and we've alerted our Animal Advocacy group....

And I think that's the best I can do for the night.

Any Rat Rescue already emailed me back and said they'd be unable to help because they just went through a similar situation and are full to the brim with hoarded rats. We'll see if any of the others respond. Tomorrow I'll call the vets and see if they've got any ideas.....

Ah well. Do what you can, right?
 
Good luck with your surgery. You're doing well with this... not an easy situation. One situation not far from me was someone released over 100 / near 200 rats in a field. Such a nightmare :(

Hope to see pics when you get yours home.
 
You've done your best and to be honest, I would say euthanasia is not the worst thing that can happen to these guys.
Good luck with your surgery. Is it laser? I've had mine taken out years ago.
 

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