Skitza said:
but you guys have alot of rats yourself.
very true I have a lot of rats.... but I also have 30 years of history in keeping them, caring for them & dealing with all types of ratty scenarios... not to mention I also have 3 children ages 19 1/2, 17 & 12 1/2 that all help with the cleaning, feeding & all around care. I have a support system here at home & I have a wonderful support system of wonderful rat folk all across the world because of the internet.
I take in rescues but I am very discriminating about who comes in. It takes far more than... oh look that rats needs a home... for us to consider bringing it into ours.
If you don't know how to determine health or possible behavior issues, you open yourself & all of your rats to extremely dangerous outcomes.
As Sweet pointed out, those of us with many more rats than two are financially able to care for & provide for our rats needs. I only started taking in rescues once again a few years ago when I quit smoking. Oh it was a nasty habit & I've been a non-smoker for far more years than I was a smoker but the job I had at the time... well it was the only excuse a person could use to step away & take a break (thanks to smoking laws banning indoor smoking) so when I left that job I wanted to quit for good & I needed proper motivation in order to fight that dreaded nicotine addiction. That was my motivation, the rats. The money I use to spend on $h*t that was killing me I now spend on trying to save lives & I still have money left over for other interests.
You are clearly just starting out with your ratty adventure & many of us have been at it for 10, 20, 30 years or more
Take your time... learn, learn... & LEARN MORE so that you can find out if you even want to deal with some of the things we each deal with every day & every year. I assume you are quie young since you are still asking for permission from your parents. what are you going to do with so many rats when it is time to cram for college exams & also manage to fit in a social life along with working a part time job? Most of the rats I have taken in are from wonderful young adults who found themselves with no time to even toss in a handful of lab block every day much less everything else that needs to take place in the life of their pet.
I'll close soon but before I do I'll fill you in with some details of the unpleasant things that come from having a large number of rats... Lilspaz will back me up on this one for sure... you deal with a great deal of sickness & death. I don't post about the passings of my babies like she does here on the Rainbow Bridge section anymore but that is because it is a deep & personal thing for me to lose a loved one. I posted about a couple but I found it difficult to share that part of what goes on here with others so I stopped. I accept that death is part of life & there are just certain things in life that I don't share with people outside my small circle of trusted & respected friends.
So here it goes.... I lost 3 rats since the beginning of the month. 3 of those beautiful girls you see crawling around on my back in my avatar picture are no longer with us. One was clearly old age but the other two... well, I can't put a finger on it & I have one more that may or may not make it. It is a group of sisters that I took in at the beginning of the year. I truly suspect this to be congenital heart failure. I did not have a necropsy performed because these are not rats that willl ever be bred so I prefer the money to be spent on the living & the saving of more lives rather than on the dead that well, they are dead. If I lose the next sister I may pay for the necropsy but it would only benefit my own personal sense of closure because I cannot for the life of me find anything wrong with these girls.
So... are you still ready to take in dozens of rats, take on the medical expense, clean cages every day of your life, upgrade equipment, search for cost effective supplies-drive an hour-2 hours to save money on your much needed supplies because no one local carries what you need, patch up busted rats, patch up bitten fingers, nurse your sick babies around the clock-skip sleeping all night-2 nights because to do so means they die because they need constant care, bury the dead & attempt to breath life into those who are still hanging on... should I continue?
Those of us who make this commitment to home so many rats do not do so because we plan to show off what we have or impress others on our collection... we make a commitment of our hearts because we respect & understand the labor of love that goes into each & every day of life we can provide for these misunderstood darlings. We hang out here each day trying to connect with people & help them along in their growth so that they can make it past there first URI or their first ever battle scar. We hang out here to encourage people to make wise choices & we hang out here to help someone get over the devastation of making poor choices. Some of us even go out on a limb & call people out before they make stupid choices.
Yes I know I can't save them all but at least I know at the end of the day I have done my very best in every way possible to make a difference as many of their sweet little lives as I possibly can.