Another Huge Rat Rescue

[Ratscallions]

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

[collies r best]

that is crazy amounts, poor little rats. So glad that they've got all of you to rescue them

[Ratscallions]

that is crazy amounts, poor little rats. So glad that they've got all of you to rescue them

 

Thank you

[owl]

You are all brilliant. Thank goodness the RSPCA inspectors pitched in and did their stuff. Poor ratties though

Edited May 2, 2010 by owl

[Ratscallions]

You are all brilliant. Thank goodness the RSPCA inspectors pitched in and did their stuff. Poor ratties though

 

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!

[Ratscallions]

Woohoo ... they're in the paper!!!

 

http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2010/05/04/homes-sought-for-rescued-rats/

[Ratscallions]

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