[I<3MyBabies]

They were, of course, "rescued" -- not so much adopted.

The wonderful lady I rescued Sukki from ( found her a CL's and she resuces pigs, but had a few too many on her hands ) contacted me and told me about this lady who had rats in need of a home.

I got in touch with the lady (who lives 3 hours away) and talked to her. Apparently, she had bought her daughter a rat from a petstore, it was pregnant. She had her litter but they never seperated the males and females. Thus, 2 more females were pregnant and two more litters born (one of 10 and one of 11 kittens). She had 25 plus rats. Now, you think that is alot...the story gets worse--

My fiance and I arrive at their trailer home in Yuma after a 3 hour drive. The lady had told us if we took the 4 females from the newest litter we would receive their cage (a converted bird cage) as well. This was great since we didn't really "need" any more animals, but wanted to help out ( and I have the hugest soft spot for rats, my favorite animal). As soon as she opened the door, I knew it was not a good situation.

There were animals EVERYWHERE -- I'm not sure if she was a hoarder, or if she was just trying to rescue animals and adopt them out, but was taking in too many too fast. The house smelled, there was feces and urine in the carpet and bird feathers and fur. We walked in and she said, " Now to find the little eepers!" We had to lift up couches, laundry, you name it to gather up the four girls. They had free range of the house ( where there were dogs, large exotic birds, free as well ). We got them in a carrier. Let me try to list the animals which were in sight --

2 medium/large dogs
20 plus rats in cages (large cages homemade)
2 cockatiels
20 plus parakeets
1 umbrella cockatoo


The lady was a sweetheart. She knew I was going to school to be a vet tech and that I hae a heart for exotics -- so, she started taking out animal after animal to show me.

She took out --

2 african grey parrots
1 sun conure
2 Macaws
1 injured parrot (mom knawed of his feet and she is nursing him to health)

And on my way out, the daughter was on CL's looking for more animals...

So needless to say, on the way home we dumped the cage in the dumpster because it wreaked and caked with urine, the girls' fur and poo smelled terrible. I don't know what they were fed.

We then drove 3 hours home, went into Petsmart and spent over $400 collecting all the supplies we needed -- a Ferret nation cage at $229 and cage toys, hammocks, water bottles ( they had one TINY bottle), hides. They we drug the girls to Home Depot where we spent another $40 on material to baby-proof the cage, which the girls could walk out of because they were so small.

And then we got home -- my mom ran out to Sprout's (wholefood store) to buy the ingredients for the Suebee's mix I have them on. And we sent 4 hours assembling and baby-proofing the cage.

*PHEW*

And now my babies smell lovely, live in a huge clean mansion, have healthy food, and get nutritional supplements to boost heir immune system.

That's the story folks!