Well take that filth, that neglect, and quadruple the overcrowding, and you get the lovely RatsTownRattery!
Early yesterday we saw an ad on Kijiji for "rats giving away for free can't keep". My friend decided to email for more information, but first we 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 my friend 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". We 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.
It was a small downstairs apartment and as soon as we took 2 steps down the smell hit us so that it was hard to breathe. Little did we know we'd be smelling that smell for the next few hours. We found out that they had just been kicked out of their old apartment and this one they had moved into a few weeks ago! The new landlord was giving them until Friday to get rid of all the rats and they were offering them up for free, otherwise they were going to be dumped in a nearby park. We were shown their "rat room"., he 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. On pine. No food. One waterbottle empty and lying on its side.
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). ALL the girls were in one. All 19 of them. (you can see Emma flat in the bottom of the cage)
Again, these people clearly don't know how to count.
They also tried to pawn a huge bag of pine off on us which we refused to take.
The guy thought all the minks were russian blues, and when we told him they were mink he asked if that was rare. *doh* The woman was crying and saying "OMG I love them so much, I am going to miss them!" (Why weren't you taking CARE of them if you loved them so much???)
So, we 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 the other Rat Resort that was empty for a transport cage, and the girls in their own, and crammed them all into my friends truck. We didn't know the final numbers yet, and we wouldn't until we got home.
We got to my place at about 10 pm and started "triage". The 28 boys were in bad shape, lots had abscesses from fights, and one scrawny beige boy (Gilbert) has an infected wound on his shoulder that looks very painful.
There were two nakies, one has a large cyst on his back (Leo), 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. (Eli)
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 (Emma), we're starting her on steroids and it was decided she would stay with me to treat her.
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
And this is Dad:
Whenever we 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.
The girls went into my friend's rescue and most were adopted out, as they had few issues beyond socialization. The boys were a whole different matter. so much illness, and injury and aggression.
Here are the stories of the residents that stayed (due to aggression, or illness).
RTR Hoodsie – black hooded
arrived thin, and a little weak, and cool to the touch
started on baytril/doxy week after triage, got pale, thinner and failed, died overnight.
DOD Jun 16/10
**RTR Emma** – black variberk
arrived with untreated PT, lying in bottom of cage with girls, unable to climb or move around much.
Was put on steroid therapy and rallied for a short time
DOD Jun 17/10
**RTR Connor – black hooded
arrived healthy
Dec 20/10 - Developed URI, was treated with baytril and doxy for 1.5 weeks was doing well, then got cold, weak and thin and wasn't able to move much air.
Jan 7/11 - Given dex injection, moved in with Eli and recovered for awhile
DOD Jan 28/11
**RTR Leo** – black self hairless
Arrived with a terrrible abscess on his back from a bite, cleaned up.
Was put into foster but returned as aggressive and alone
Oct 15/10 – neutered
Jan 23/11 - Developed a huge abdominal mass
DOD Feb 25/11
**RTR Eli** – black self hairless
Arrived painfully skinny, with a dead, damaged eye that spurt blood when he rubbed at it. he had an enucleation with Dr Munn (worst case he had ever seen, eyeball’s attachments had ripped and it had inverted), had a infection post-surgery from all the bacteria inside for so long, but resolved well.
Sep 21/10 - Eli must've had a seizure and become aggressive afterwards, as he disembowelled his old cagemate Russell (at this point we thought it was an accident as he was a very gentle boy)
Dec 3/10 - Eli bleeds into the ocular bulb, and he ends up having a seizure and almost dying, come out of seizure and becomes aggressive for a short time afterwards.
Goes to vet in the morning and he is back to being confused Eli, but he is sneezing blood out of his nose an shaking his head - put on dex, baytril and doxy.
Dr Hammond is pretty sure the pressure of the bleeding on the brain caused the seizures.
Affected "good" eye shrinks and dies by Dec 10th
Dec 17/10 - Eli suddenly becomes aggressive, and starts vicious biting and hormonal behaviour. He is unhandleable and blind.
I call Dr Munn and we decide that it could be a tumour pressing on his brain causing the seizures and the temperament change, amitriptyline is ordered in for him.
Dec 24/10 - eli started on Ami, and it works well
Jan 21/11 - Eli develops a URI
Mar 11 - discover internal tumour under sternum
Mar 11 - very large and nasty abscess in groin starts
Mar 17 - develops a little paraphimosis from the pressure of the abscess and its location
Mar 21 - abscess opens up and we start cleaning
Bounces back but is aging fast, died quietly at home beside me
DOD Apr 3/11
**RTR Gideon** – black hooded
arrived healthy and well. Sent to a foster home Jun 20/11
Returned from foster with 2 ailing cagemates (Finley-inner ear, Malcolm - severe UTI)
Oct 22/10 -Was neutered for aggression, helped a little but this boy was still aggressive and had to be handled carefully
July 2011 started aging fast
Aug 4 was thin but still mobile
Aug 26 was thinner, HED, and knuckling (internal mass?)
Sep 4/11 - ear started bleeding, he would shake his head, hard to stop the bleeding
Sep 7/11 - other ear started bleeding
DOD - Sept 8/11
**RTR Waco** – black hooded
arrived healthy, but aggressive. He had to be separated from all his cagemates (was supposed to be neutered at my fosters but due to mixup, wasn't)
Lived alone, and mostly unhandleable, but healthy for most of his time.
Sep 11/11 - testicular mass was noticed
Sep 20/11 - seemed very old and frail,HED full blown, so I introduced him to the Oldies group, and he was accepted and very happy. Jill especially cared for him
Sep 24/11 - noticed his head looked wide, and carefully felt along his jaw, a large mass below the mandible, that kept growing. He steadily got weaker over the weekend, found internal mass as well
DOD - Sept 26/11 (PTS along with Jill)
**RTR Percy** – black hooded
arrived with a URI, that has never gone away. He's been on meds, combo's of meds, and treatments the entire time. (baytril, baytril/doxy, baytril/amoxi, baytril/zithro, metacam, theophylline
Fear aggressive, actually terrified of people and handling, will bite if you're not careful. Terrified to be out of his cage/safe zone.
Developed a fleshy mass on his back, and a large attached tumour on his hip
Jan 14/11 - auction was run to get funds to have his tumours removed
Feb 21/11 - hip tumor recurred, also another lump was found on his belly
April 2011 - Percy started to really age, with hind end weakness and his tumours started to grow faster
Sep 29/11 - resp is horrible, HED is bad, tumour on belly is huge and hard. Will be pts sooner than later
DOD - Nov. 8/11
**RTR Toby** – black hooded
arrived healthy
May 2011 - developed a tumour on his side, that ended up scabbing
Tumour continues to grow, watching the scabbing
Toby develops HED, and has trouble with ramps, especially with the large tumour
Sep 7/11 - ear starts to bleed like Gideons did
Tumour is very large, will be pts soon
DOD - Nov. 30/11
**RTR Malcolm** – black hooded
Arrived healthy but older
fostered out but returned Sep 2010 due to a fall causing paralysis (turned out to be UTI)
Mal was paralysed in hind end due to bad UTI - treated and mostly recovered
HED started progressing
Aug 2011 - skin issues, scurf and grease in crazy amounts. It actually loosened the hair follicles so the hair could be pulled out gently, which made a chance at a skin infection less.
Sep 29/11 - still living and HED is almost full-blown
Nov 2011 - started becoming very incontinent (from bite near urethra in Foster?) and developed urine scald/sores, became temp Bed Rat on fleece, bathed almost daily and used petroleum jelly to be a waterproof barrier to his skin…sores healed and he was happily returned to his friends.
Dec 2011 - became a fulltime Bed Rat after he was unable to get around his cage bottom
Dec 25, 2011 - spent Christmas weekend up at my Mom's, getting cuddled, spoiled, and syringe fed
Jan 2012 - developed late onset PT
DOD- - Jan. 17, 2012
**RTR Finley** – black Berkshire
arrived healthy, went into foster with Waco and Connor
Sep 11/10 - returned from foster with a head tilt. Foster didn't treat the headtilt, so he had to go through a long course of meds, also had a URI
Stayed on meds almost entire time, his URI would flare up without abs as a preventative
Sep 29/11 - still going, still on abs for URI, some aging, but not too bad
Nov 2011 - aging fast, losing weight, HED is developing fast, tumour developing on sideFeb 5 - inner ear infection is back with a vengeance, shot of dex, fluids and then syringe feeding happily, he enjoyed it very much
DOD - Feb 6, 2012
**RTR Boris** – black self
arrived healthy and hormonally aggre
Oct 15/10 - neutered, worked very well, paired off with Toby
Sep 7/11 - older but decent body shape, no resp issues, no tumours
Sep 21/11 - discovered internal mass
Nov 2011 - developing HED rapidly along with relative weight loss
Feb 4/12 - developed PT symptoms, treated and bounced back for a happy short stint as a Bed Rat
DOD - Feb 7, 2012
**RTR Huron** – black Berkshire
arrived with a URI, that has never gone away. He's been on meds, combo's of meds, and treatments the entire time. (baytril, baytril/doxy, baytril/amoxi, baytril/zithro, metacam, theophylline
Aggressive, attempted to get his respiratory issues under control so he could be neutered (mostly unhandleable)..didn't work
Lived with RTR Percy, but separated due to fighting
Health beyond resp issues is good, still on his own at Sep 29/11
Feb 10, 2012 - URI flared up with a lot of congestion, added another med to his regime, dex and steaming which helped, had ordere a neb which I needed him to hold on for
he became a Bed Rat and a very happy one. Unfortunately he had a stroke the day the nebulizer arrived.
DOD - Feb 16, 2012
Adopted RTR Boys
RTR Chief – himilayan – adopted by Joanne/jorats
arrived healthy (8 mo)
was neutered for aggression, became docile but guarded
started having bouts of URI starting Nov 2010
March 2011 - started to deteriorate
May 2011 - complete paralysis
June 2011 - became emaciated
DOD - Aug 29, 2011
RTR Doc – mink self – adopted by Joanne/jorats
Arrived healthy (4 mo)
Neutered due to hormonal aggression
Stayed healthy until suddenly at 19 mo he died suddenly
Necro showed pulmonary abscesses in one lung burst
DOD - Sep 5, 2011
RTR Benny – black self – adopted by Kim/dogsnbears
arrived healthy
neutered at Rockwood
Adopted middle of Sept 2010
healthy but developed HED very early in his life
DOD - Nov 23/11
RTR Gilbert – beige self – adopted by Kim/dogsnbears
arrived sick, scrawny and with an infected wound on his shoulder
started with cleaning it out myself, debriding necrotic tissue, and water therapy
Jun 10/10 - ended up taking to vet for surgical debridement and closure, wound opened up but resolved soon after
Neutered at Rockwood
Adopted middle of Sept 2010
DOD - April 23/12
RTR Bates – black hooded – adopted by realisedsin
Arrived healthy
adopted Mid November 2010
Adopter went off-forum soon after…no more updates
RTR Aiden – black hooded – adopted by realisedsin
Arrived healthy but older
Adopted Mid Noveber 2010
Adopter went off-forum soon after…no more updates
RTR Melvin – black self 0 adopted by Janine/Nettster
arrived healthy and younger
off and on URI's
DOD Feb 26/12
RTR Oreo – black belly band – adopted by Janine/Nettster
arrived healthy and younger
off and on URI's
DOD Feb 26/12
RTR Chip – black belly band – adopted by CCH adopter
Neutered at Rockwood
Adopted Sept 2010
CCH didn’t give me contact info, and never contacted adopter for updates
RTR Willy – mink belly band – adopted by CCH adopter
Neutered at Rockwood
Adopted Sept 2010
CCH didn’t give me contaft info, and never contacted adopter for updates
RTR Charlie – pearl merle hooded – adopted by Lea-Andra/LA
Arrived healthy but full adult
Neutered then adopted Aug. 2010
Healthy until Sep 28/11 - went to vet, has URI and inner ear infection
from then on resp and UTI
failed suddenly, was pts (30 mo)
DOD - Nov 29/11
RTR Daddy-O – beige berkshite – adopted by Lindy/lj
arrived dirty but healthy, much older adult
Adopted Aug 2010
developed a terrible tumour in his armpit that moved up into his neck
DOD - 11/8/2011
RTR Jerry – mink Berkshire – adopted by Lindy/lj
Arrived as a healthy but much older adult
Adopted Aug. 2010
URI’s late in life
DOD - 12/7/11
RTR ? – black hooded – adopted by Dee’s friend when she was fostering
Adopted mid-August 2010
No updates, no contact info
RTR ? – black hooded – adopted by Dee’s friend when she was fostering
Adopted mid-August 2010
No updates, no contact info
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