Your opinions?

well good for you alex! It is wonderful that you are already meeting with her. If you want to know anything about volunteering feel free to ask. I learned early on that it is taxing and time consuming and cvan be heart breaking but when you do help it is so rewarding. Please if you don't listen to anything else I ever have to say PLEASE listen to this. the hardest part of volunteering is learning the fact that there is NO WAY you can save them all. It is hard and it hurts BUT do what you can for those you can do for. As long as you keep that in mind it becomes easier to deal with.

Kimmiekins - - There is a link on that page that you can help out with donations or anything else. I feel horrible because I am packed to the brim with animals right now so I can't foster at all. I have 13 resident rats, getting 10 foster rats tomorrow (seven of them are pinkies!!!) one hamster, three cats, three fish and two small children in a two bedroom apartment LoL Lucky I am always home to deal with the animals and keep cages clean.

AlexzRose said:

Do you guys ever have foster rats that dont get along with your own? I was thinking of just fostering males for now so that they can share the same cage as my own 2. So I should probably have atleast 2 cages to be on the safe side huh?

Thank for all your help guys!

I'm also nervous about getting my two boys in September. I just want everything to go smoothly...

Click to expand...

The rescue should provide you a cage for your fosters you should ALWAYS quarantine for at least two weeks. My fosters are rarely ,if ever, even the same room together. It is really important that you know this and I hope that the rescue will talk to you about this. If she says you can keep your fosters and your rats together I would think twice about working with her before you are more educated yourself and can help her in her rescue. A three week quarantine is best in any "rat in" situation. Please be sure to think up some good questions for this person you will be helping. Make sure you are clear on her policies and procedures before you start anything. It is really important to get everything out in the open right away. Make sure this is someone you can work with and be sure that all of your questions are answered throughly. you wna tto do the best by the rats so make sure she is willing to go over everything. Some good questions would be:

Do I pay for their food, bedding, cage, vet care, accesories or is it supplied by the rescue?

Who is my contact person in case of emergency?

What vet in my area has your infomration on file so I have no issues getting vet care in case of emergency?

Also make sure you know how many more you can handle, if you prefer boys or girls, if you already have intact males or females make sure that all cages are escape proof if there is a member of theopposite sex in your house that is also intact (to prevent ANY oops litters), Make sure you get a copy of their adoption agreement. Also make sure you believe that what they are doing is best to fit with yur vision of helping rats. If they only charge a 2 dollar donation fee chances are the rats are going for snake food and you wouldn't feel very good about fostering food. (I am in no way saying this rescue does that just pointing out an example)

I would avoid Bii Rattery as well. She is also not experienced in the breeding aspect of things and cannot possibly mentor someone as she barely speaks English and is actually quite snotty. I know of many people who have tried to deal with her, but she's very stuck up and refuses to work with other breeders or even answer their questions about her rats' pedigrees. That's a big red flag for me.
While RRLM has some really typy rats, I also doubt her ability to mentor as she also misnames many rats on her site. She seems to make up names for them such as 'Platinum Fawn'. I also have doubts about any breeder who has 30+ litters of rats in the span of 6 months. When I see her website, I don't see an overall goal in her breedings, just lots of babies that will be able to be placed easily. More power to ya if you can place 8 litters of babies in one month, but to me it seems way excessive. Even if you didn't have another job, that's alot of time needed just to socialize them. What about the adult rats? Do they get any attention or socialization? Are they simply culled out when no longer 'useful'? When a breeder breeds that many litters and doesn't keep any out of the litters, it tells me that the breeder is not breeding to improve, they are breeding for money. The whole point of breeding is to improve and if you aren't keeping many rats out of your litters, how do you know if you are improving? You simply cannot tell how a rat is going to turn out as an adult if you place them at 5-6 weeks with pet adopters. Keeping only 1 baby out of 100 really reduces your odds of having a rat that will turn out to be a fantastic adult. Also, when a breeder breeds a 3 month old male 5-6 times, it tells me that the breeder has no patience and is not willing to wait 4 more months to see how that buck will mature. I'm sorry, but a buck can change after it's bred and a 3 month old buck, while sexually mature, is not physically or mentally mature. I hate to get on my soapbox as I don't have any problems with RRLM, just don't agree with her breeding methods.