Ratscallions

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Contact/organisation details: PM Ratscallions or email [email protected] Does the animal have rescue back up?: Yes Location: Staffordshire Number of groups: 2 Please read all before contacting me. Group: 1 Number of animals: 2 Type/Breed/Variety: Dumbo Hairless Rats Sex: Male Age(s): Approx 4 - 5 months Name(s): Jigsaw & Squeak Colours: Jigsaw has a pale hood, and Squeak has a dark hood Neutered: No Reason for rehoming: Unanted accidental litter. Temperament: Nervous but friendly when settled Medical problems: See info below please. Neutering: NA Will the group be split: If going to experienced owners with other rats. Transport available: Can be arranged. Group: 2 Number of animals: 6 Type/Breed/Variety: Dumbo Hairless Rats Sex: Female Age(s): Approx 4 - 5 months Name(s): Unnamed as yet, apart from Pumpkin. Colours: Some have slight hoods. Neutered: No Reason for rehoming: Unwanted accidental litter. Temperament: Mostly friendly, slightly nervous. Medical problems: See info below please. Neutering: NA Will the group be split: If going to experienced owners with other rats. Transport available: Can be arranged. Other Info: - These guys aren't ready for rehoming yet, but I'd like to get homes lined up as early as possible. They are still in quarantine, but also some of them have wounds that need to heal. - Evidently these rats had been fighting in their previous home, probably over food; as a result many have bite wounds, mostly around their neck and ears. - Because of the fighting I would prefer them to go in pairs than as a large group. (Nb, they have not actually fought since they've been here) - Pumpkin (female) had many bite wounds. She has a lot of scar tissue around her neck. She will need to go to someone who is prepared to moisturise that area frequently so that she has no problems with it. - Jigsaw (male) has a very damaged ear. He may need surgery on it before he leaves here. The ear is in such a way that it might or might not get caught on something at some point in his life. (Pictures will help when I take them). He needs to go to someone who is prepared to have the ear surgically repaired if he should get it caught later on in life; so you will need to have a rat savvy vet. - Squeak (male) has two encapsulated abscesses on his lower abdomen. They are causing no harm other than soreness, but my vet wishes to remove them before he finds a new home. As such he will not be available for a few weeks. - All have been health checked by two of my vets; apart from the bite wounds and Squeaks abscesses they appear to be in good health. - If anyone is interested in any of the hairless I would like to hear what you know about caring for hairless. - I will be seeking donations for these rats, as they're already costing us a fortune lol. Incidentally, I am not an expert on hairless rats. My own hairless have no fur at all except for facial whiskers. The rats I am advertising here have a slight fuzz on their faces, and fuzzy tummies .. I am therefore not 100% certain that they are hairless, but they are not double rex, so I am not sure what they are. Anyone?

Oh ok. Didn't realise that. (Surely it should still come up in a google search). Yahoo appears to be down at the moment so I'll try and join again later.

I can't find a website for K9-999 .. when I google it it comes up with a lot of Japanese stuff. Can you give me the link?

Okey dokey. I'll take a look in a bit ... having computer problems atm, sorry. Give me a kick in the bum if I've not updated the thread by this evening.

Contact/organisation details: MNM Rat Rescue [email protected] / 07858096506 Does the animal have rescue back up?: Yes Location: Telford, Shropshire. Number of animals: Approx 100 Type/Breed/Variety: Rat Sex: Males and females Age(s): Vary from 10 weeks to 5 / 6 months Name(s): Some are names, some aren't Colours: Vary. There are a lot of himis, a few agoutis, some interesting blazed rats. Neutered: No. (It is not standard practice to neuter rats). Reason for rehoming: Confiscated by the RSPCA and put in the care of MNM. Temperament: Vary. Many were skittish when they arrived, but most are friendly and curious now. Medical problems: Most are healthy, a few have health problems. The rats are severely inbred, so anyone taking any on should bare that in mind. Will the group be split: Yes. Transport available: Possibly; best to enquire. Other: Most of the rats at MNM were rescued in one bulk group. We picked up 124 rats in one go from a man who had been inbreeding them. You may have read about them on forums or in the news. The conditions they were in were appalling. Crammed into tiny hamster cages, living on piles of faeces, mouldy food, and were terrified of handling. If you're anxious about rehoming a rat that's inbred, they do have other rats too. They have rats coming in all the time! I am not MNM myself, but I work closely with them. You can contact me, but I will forward you to them if you do so; their contact info is at the top of this post if you wish to contact them directly. A few pics. Some of the rats in the pics may have been rehomed already. It's very hard to take individual pictures of 100 rats lol.

It was being scanned for a microchip when I met the lady who found it. She had informed the police and the dog warden, and obviously the local vets are aware of it. I checked K9 and Dog Lost straight away. I've been ill over the last few days so haven't checked again yet .. and haven't checked whether the dog has been claimed yet either. Will do so tomorrow. The Dog Lost coordinators have the description. Don't worry, I know no rescue people would claim a dog that isn't theirs; it's the scary public that do that. I'll have a look at Lurchersearch and K9-999 too; hadn't heard of either of those .. unless K9-999 is the same as K9 I'm surprised at the number of dogs that appear to be missing.

Sorry I couldn't post this sooner, I've been ill, so only turned my computer on today. It was in The People this Sunday. You can read the article here: http://www.people.co.uk/pets-animals/stories/2010/05/30/rodents-causing-havoc-for-rescue-centres-102039-22294764/ The rescues features are MnM Telford and Raunds Rat Rescue. I would just like to say that they've been misquoted all over the place and are very dissapointed with the article. They did NOT recommend that size of cage for rat; if any rat rescues on here would like to complain to the paper about that bit please do so Other than that I'm glad there's a little bit of PR for rescues going on Nim

A dog was found this morning on Hednesford Road in Rugeley, Staffordshire. If you think it may be your dog, or you know someone who's missing a dog let me know. I'm sorry, but I'm unwilling to describe the dog as I don't want people to simply contact me and say it's their dog when it isn't. So if you think you know the dog please can you describe it to me. Thank you, Nim

We have pictures!!! Some of these people already have homes to go to already, but I thought you might all like to say hello anyway: Here's the album: http://s306.photobucket.com/albums/nn247/soshonika/Rescue%20Rats/Tipton%20Rats/ And some samples: It's so good to see them looking so healthy, in clean surroundings, and gathered around a bowl of healthy food. You cannot imagine the huge journey these little guys have been through to get where they are. Nim

Thanks Kathy. NFRS is indeed my next stop

Hi there, I've just been contacted by a journalist (some of you are probably familiar with Alan Breeze). He's managed to sell an article to a paper about rats, but they have some further questions which have him stumped. I'm hoping that you guys may be able to give me some ideas as to how to find out this information. 1) How many people in the UK own a pet rat? 2) How many pet rats get abandoned each year? My first port of call was to see how many rats Simons Rodents sell to pet stores each year, as it'll give a rough guide. They're going to call me back with a figure. I'm now going to see if I can find out from the RSPCA what sort of figure they have for rats being surrendered. But obviously there are sooo many small rescues; I know how many I had last year ... anyone else want to share figures?? (Please)(You can PM me). He's hoping for this info by tomorrow, but I'm guessing it can wait an extra day. Thank you everyone Nim

The thing is, that they will always argue that the fox is a problem. My argument is that fox hunting is cruel and barbaric. If their argument really is that foxes are a problem (as oposed to 'oh but it's such fun ducky'), then why not use less cruel methods?

Woohoo ... they're in the paper!!! http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2010/05/04/homes-sought-for-rescued-rats/

Thank you Yeah, I'm very glad the RSPCA were there too, as I had images of us coming away with just a selection that he no longer wanted .. again!

Thank you

I know it may seem like it over the last week or so, but I really don't generally make a habbit of being involved in MASSIVE rat rescues. I think perhaps there's something in the air at the moment. We kind of knew this one was going to happen before I helped Lyn (Raunds Rat Rescue) with her rescue though. This one has history, so to some of you it may sound a little familiar. In February myself and Mike and Manda from MnM Rescue were asked by a man in Tipton (who we shall call Simon) to take all of his rats away. He told us that there were 60+ rats, so we arranged for many rescues around the country to help us with spaces. When we got to the mans house he surrendered 37. We entered his house (it's one of those houses where the front door goes straight into the living room); on the living room table were three 15" hamster cages with rats in them. One cage had 3 adult females. One cage had 16 adult males. So math tells me that the other cage had 18 rats in it; they ranged in age from approximately 10 days to fully grown adults. All the adult females in this cage were pregnant, and oddly enough there was no mother for the ten day old babies. 'Simon' wouldn't let us through to the rest of the house. We came away convinced that he had many many more rats, and feeling .. well .. basically .. used! It was wierd. The baby rats were easy to handle. The adolescent rats were mostly ok, but a bit skittish. The adult rats were absolutely impossible. I cannot be certain, but my theory is that he was breeding them because he liked the babies; once they got bigger he got bored of them, leading to the adults being terrified. I brought some back here before they were transported to other rescues. Three of them became drastically ill extremely quickly. All three died, under the care of three of my vets. The conclusion drawn was that they were so inbred that their immune systems were severely impaired; upon moving into a new environment they encountered new pathogens which a healthy rat wouldn't have had any problem with, and it basically killed them One further boy came down ill in the same manner, but Emma from Rodent Rescue (Polegate) succeeded in bringing him through the illness Soooooo, we were not overly surprised when 'Simon' phoned Mike a few weeks ago, saying that he needed him to take away some rats again. He said that he had collected them for him for the rescue. Having seen the conditions the previous lot were in, and suspecting that there were more in worse conditions, I called the RSPCA. I was somewhat surprised to have a call back from an RSPCA officer / inspector (I get the two confused) on his way to the property a few days later. He just wanted to clarify a few points. I heard no more. 'Simon' was asking Mike to go in and get the rats, presuming that the RSPCA had decided it wasn't too bad, a date and time was agreed upon. Just in case it made a difference I called the RSPCA again (and got some useless jobsworth on the phone this time), to see if they did have a preference as to what happened. She was beyond unhelpful. Yet, the inspector / officer did indeed contact Mike, and agreed to come with us today. Sooooo .. TODAY ... We arrived at 'Simon''s house. And, once again, he had a selection of small cages in the living room ready for us to take away. He had told Mike proudly that he'd got some larger cages this time. Well .. this is true .. they were larger .. by about two or three inches in each direction; still waaay inadequate! I can't remember what was in all of the cages, but there was a particular one with a green base that had does of a variety of ages in it. The base of the cage was approx three inches deep, all three inches were filled with ... ummmm ... pooh??? Shredded newspaper, what appeared to have once been fabric, a lot of pooh, rich tea biscuits, and goodness knows what else. After half an hour of sitting in the property, this stuff started to move, and a baby rat (about ten days old) emerged from underneath. It all took a while. The RSPCA inspector / officer wanted to count how many rats there were. He counted the ones in the living room, and then asked if he could see the ones in the rest of the house. He knew there were more as he'd already been there. He was also buying time, as he wanted his superior to arrive before anyone actually did anything. When she arrived, they had a private talk in the back of the house. We beleive that he was told in no uncertain terms that he is allowed to keep five rats and one guinea pig, he has to have his cats neutered, and that if he takes in further animals he will be prosecuted. He told the RSPCA that he was running a rescue. Sooooo, we piled up the RSPCA van, my car, and Mike and Mandas car with the cages from the house (one good thing about small cages I guess, is that you can fit more of them in a car). The inspector / officer took the ones in the van back to the RSPCA centre to be health checked before bringing them back over to Mike and Mandas. This gave us some time to sort out half the rats before the other half arrived really. It was horrible. Many of the cages were similar in condition to the one with the green base. Many of them were so rusted that you'd get tetanus from them. A lot of doors on the cages were padlocked closed (presumably the rats were getting out). The cages were overcrowded. As we went through them it became apparant that in most cages he'd basically put one male, and a group of females. In some cages there were individual rats on their own .. the reason for this was not apparant. So to summarise what I can remember of what arrived at Mike and Mandas: - 124 rats in total - 11 of which are obviously pregnant rats - one pregnant rat with no left front arm - many many tail injuries; one large males tail is 1cm in length, and one baby girls tail is bent in three places - one young rat's leg has been broken, but healed with the radius and ulna on top of the humerus, and a huge abscess around them (I'm presuming rats have the same bones in their forearms as we do). - some rats so covered in lice that they've developed pneumonia due to anaemia (one of whom died in my arms) I'm sure I've forgotten a few things. They are absolutely amazing rats though. Yes, some of them are difficult to handle, but they'll come round. I don't stand a chance of describing all the varities there are, but a sample would involve: - silver fawn hooded rex (pneumonia) - agouti capped with blaze (stunnningly beautiful .. and lactating) - blazed siamese (sort of) - cinnamon capped with blaze I've not brought any home. I've basically been transport, sexer and pregnancy-identifier lol. Mike and Manda are absolutely heroes, and deserve some seriously good karma for this. To Mike and Manda; (For anyone not familiar with them: http://mnm-rat-rescue.piczo.com/?g=39786485&cr=3) I'm showered and hopefully louse free, so night night, Nim

Update from Lyn: After losing Mr Darling it took me a day or so to get back on track. Group 1 are just so lovely and they always now kiss me and are so pleased to see me. Group 2 are shyer but getting there. One of the girls from group 2 I found in with the boys I think is definitely pregnant so as we speak she is in her little cage to wait and see. She is pretty big though and it doesn't all seem a food belly. Good news is the majority of the kits from group 1 and 2 are reserved already which is great news. Nursing mums are all doing well and their babies are almost a week old now. We only lost one kit who was so small and under developed. Have weaned others early as the mums were getting so protective it was making the kits nervous. So all kits together in their relevant sex groups. Photos soon of them as they have changed so much. There are lots of agouti stunners and black berkies in there. Thank you Laura.

Update from Lyn: Sadly at about 8pm I found him cold and picked him up, warmed him up on a heat pad but sadly he died in my arms. I am so unbelievably upset and can't stop crying. Such a little fighter who never stopped eating. We have buried him in a little tin, with a brand new hammock, several yoggies and a stash of food for his journey. I really thought he'd make it. On a personal note, I'm really upset about this, as I know Lyn is. It's amazing how these little guys touch your heart in such a short period of time.

Can someone explain to me why so many americans are under the impression that the vast majority of the British want the fox hunting ban lifted? So many americans have said this to me. They seem to be under the impression that Conservatives will get into government, and the first thing that they'll do is lift the ban, and the whole country will rejoice. Where does that come from???? Nim

I'm impressed actually. It says a lot about the compassion of dogs, that they were only after the contents of the nappy and not the baby itself when they were being starved. Don't ask me how she managed to sleep through that though. Poor baby

I think 'snuffles' is actually a name for another common illness in rabbits, though I can't remember what it is at the moment. I'm glad your bunny is doing well now, but in case of future problems might you be interested in joining a rabbit YahooGroup (very good one). If so, I can PM you their link (as I'm not sure about advertising groups on a forum). Nim

Can you let us know how intros go ... and how they were done please? I have two piggies who I had to seperate because they were fighting really badly (blood). I've read a bit on re-introducing them, but haven't succeeded yet

Todays update mainly concerns his fella: Alistair Darlings face was so out of proportions this morning that Lyn felt it necessary to take him to the vets. The vet thought it best to aneasthetise the little boy to find out exactly what was going on. Being such a diddy fella we were a little worried that he wouldn't come out of the anaesthetic, but he did. The good news; the reason his face is deformed is a MASSIVE abscess, which has now been lanced. Provided it does clear up successfully, then his jaw should realign, and he should lead a normal life. The vet also discovered that he has a kind of nappy rash around his p****. She beleives this has been caused by him cleaning himself with infected saliva (because of the abscess). There are two girlies who have problems too, though not as major as Mr Darling. One girl is extremely thin, with sucked in sides and laboured breathing, so Lyn is treating her as you would any other rat in a similar state. Another girl, named Pippa appeared to barely have a left eye when she arrived. But with eye drops and Lyns magic touch her eyes are nearly matching now. Wooohoooo.

Unfortunately they arrived without their mothers, so Lyn is having to play mum to them all. Alistair himself is probably three weeks old now, so normally would be with mum for another two weeks. Not all vets are efficient at clipping teeth, so anyone interested would have to check with their vets first; it's very easy to shatter teeth when clipping them Alistair is actually at the vets now. His face has swollen even more, so they're anaesthetising him to see if they can find out exactly what the problem is. Being so young we're a little worried that he may not come through the anaesthetic, but as Lyn said, he's a little fighter so if anyone can he can. *fingers crossed* for him.