Sterling's Rescue Doors *Open*!

[minnieflower]

I haven't been on here in a super long time buy wow aren't you busy? what adorable ratties you took in. is the Yoshi pic the boy that came from me? How is he and wally doing?

 

[SterlingRats0408]

I haven't been on here in a super long time buy wow aren't you busy?[emoji14]what adorable ratties you took in. is the Yoshi pic the boy that came from me? How is he and wally doing?

Yes I know you know. Wally passed back in September I believe (timeframe is skewed because we moved and the virus hit twice).
He survived the first bout but didn't make it through the second.
Can you believe Yoshi ended up so tame? And even in a house full of lady rats. At one point he was the only male.

 

[SterlingRats0408]

I haven't been on here in a super long time buy wow aren't you busy?[emoji14]what adorable ratties you took in. is the Yoshi pic the boy that came from me? How is he and wally doing?

Yes I know you know now that Wally passed back in September I believe (timeframe is skewed because we moved and the virus hit twice).
He survived the first bout but didn't make it through the second.
Can you believe Yoshi ended up so tame? And even in a house full of lady rats. At one point he was the only male.

 

[minnieflower]

Aw poor wally. yes thats unbelievable he was crazy here! Lol was he neutered or did he just calm down with some love?

 

[SterlingRats0408]

Aw poor wally. yes thats unbelievable he was crazy here! Lol was he neutered or did he just calm down with some love?

He was never neutered. I never saved enough where the neuter was too of the list of needs. He just started coming around. We were strict with how he was fed. Lots of hand feeding. Picking him up was still more difficult than most but that's just because he wanted to do what he wanted. Just had to be patient with him lol. Wally lost one eye and lost vision in the other a while after and became very nippy but with Yoshi by his side he managed.

 

[SterlingRats0408]

Miss Ming finally delivered.
Happy birthday lil ones! I count 8 but don't want to bug her too much just yet. She is tired now she had some of her homemade protein bar and then layed back on her babies so they could eat and all could rest. I gave her paper towel but she didn't want to use that. She likes shredded flyers and newspaper. (I checked before using. They are vegetable ink). Everyone looks great and Ming was doing great on her own (with lots of checking in from Ling). Again it was the 'Nanny' rat who alerted me to babies. I was just thinking I should check and Ling was bouncing all over the cage front like 'here, look here'. I first saw 6 but came back a half hour later and there were at least 8. So I think I literally caught her in the birthing process. I left her be because I saw no reason to interject. She's a wonderful mom already. Good news is I have an experienced surrogate who is lactating if I need her (Momma).

Mommas babies are getting biiig @1 week old

The darker babies - the one in the middle is my lil chubba I call Pammy

The light babies - I think I see 'dirty' noses on 2 of them. The one in the middle is going to be Momma's mini me I think

 

[lilspaz68]

Make sure Ming is the only one feeding them for the first 3-5 days...this is when the newborns will be getting the all-important colostrum.

I had to separate a mom and daughter communal nursing thing at home, because mom was taking over all the nursing as her daughter like a carefree teen mom just thought that was fantastic! That colostrum is too important though.

 

[SterlingRats0408]

Oh yes We will give her the week to try herself. She is just so worried about keeping them hidden from everyone. She had them buried under every piece of paper she could pile up there.
There are milk bellies but babies don't look super 'full' but it's not even been 24 hrs. I don't want to bug her too much still. We got a final count of 10 babies from her. But possibly more as they are hiding quite well under the paper. I turned the heat up in the house a tad just to be sure she doesn't think it's too cold and that's why she's burying them. She is frantic if one piece of paper gets moved.

Is this OCD behaviour pretty normal? She is only my 2nd first time mom and Aggie had Sweetie an experienced Nanny rat with her to help. But Ming and Ling seem to feed off each other's worry and become very frantic when anyone even comes close but when I put my hand in she doesn't get aggressive just keeps up with repairing her nest if I move it to see them.
She has 2 houses to put them in, one is on top of the paper pile sort of over the babies.
I assume Momma was a feeder breeder And that this was not litter #1. She has her doting friends to help who seem to know what to do to help. Whereas Ling seems like she doesn't know what to do to help Ming. I don't want to separate them causing any anxiety but they are feeding off each other's worry.
Any suggestions to calming them?

 

[lilspaz68]

Mommy OCD behavior is pretty normal. I have 10 wees that are completely buried in boxo and papertowel. They are pretty instinctive forbat least the first week then they settle a bit. I am letting my 2 moms have out time together and today I will put Iona in S's cage so she can be with Gatsby Mouse-rat.

 

[SterlingRats0408]

I am going to try taking the whole cage to my bed and just taking the top off and see if she leaves them to explore the bed for hidden snacks. In a day or two. Today I will just attempt quick peek to be sure they are well.

 

[SterlingRats0408]

(Almost same as pic thread)
Eepers with peepers. Litter #1 is 2 weeks old and litter #2 is one week
Mind my dirty Windows - this is Stripe our silver hood boy

Here is our wee boy Benji who just needs a little longer

Miss porky Pam was the first (dark baby on top)
Moose was second (dark baby hiding under)
The twins both popped left eyes...right eyes are close.

I think we have dumbos!! Front/right baby has lower ears

We have 1 curly whiskered baby...also thinking dumbo...if it's a girl her name will be Sparkle and she and Pam will be staying.

 

[minnieflower]

Aww those babies are precious <3

 

[SterlingRats0408]

We love them. Its going to be so much fun when Ming's babies start moving. She hates when the nest is disrupted. She's not going to like when they start exploring

 

[SterlingRats0408]

BIG EXCITING ADOPTION NEWS!!!
We had 4 adoptions go through yesterday.
2 are extremely exciting as they are adults and one whom I thought would be here forever!
Miss Regina George, queen of the mean girls has decided she loves her new Mom Leigha and that she is part flying squirrel. She never comes out of her cage willingly and yesterday she fought for attention from her new Momma. Once snuggled up she started bruxing and chattering at her and then showed off her flying talent as she lept onto the chair. It was an entertaining afternoon. She goes home with Bella where she joins 3 other ladies. I know she will be super spoiled and have the chance to really shine!
Miss Regina (middle)

Miss Bella

Second adoption was 2 of Ming's little girls. Now named Peach and Daisy. They will go to their new home in a few weeks

 

[SterlingRats0408]

More adoption NEWS!!!
4 more babies have been spoken for
2 boys (one from each litter)
Atlas aka Spike from Momma's litter, who is already a gramma's boy!

And Peabody the dumbo male from Ming

2 girls from Ming's litter
Dani the dumbo and unnamed girl we call pretty baby

Regina and Bella went home Thursday as mom could not wait one more hour to come get them. They are settling into their big ratty condo with their new friends Mona and Chloe!

I am so excited for the great homes these rats are finding. I have a great team of advocates helping to spread the word of our cause!

 

[SterlingRats0408]

Sadly one of our adoptions fell through. Was a tough decision for me But I think it's the best choice for the rats. Miss Dani and the other baby are now available again. I may keep Dani to stay with Pammy as she will need a friend her own age to play with. Mom can only keep up so long lol


Regina and Bella are just super happy in their new home. They fit right in.
Atlas and Peabody have been having lots of play dates and Atlas now pops up whenever I talk to the other litter like "I see my brother?"
He loves him! Altlas looks huge!

Babies are now all in cages loving climbing. We introduced a small wheel for the 4 week olds. So far no one has done a complete rotation that I have seen. But they are right beside the big female group and there is almost always someone on that wheel to show em how it's done lol.

 

[jorats]

Awww, they are looking good!

 

[SterlingRats0408]

This is more of a rant to people who may understand how frustrating this is.
So for almost a week now a fantastic group of rat advocates have been helping me try to get a hold of a lone dumbo PEW male that was posted on VarageSale (in case you are not familiar it's the new type of kijiji/Craig's list) though they claim to have more security features.
Anyway. Someone named me and my rescue as a place she could take him but she was resistant to that idea but did seem to ask for my opinion...at first... And then all the sudden something changed and she started getting dodgey and rude. I simply asked if she was mainly worried about him having a big cage why she wasn't selling the cage with him....to which I got a sarcastic "Have a nice Day"
So then she blocked me. And everyone else I referred to the ad. So I emailed admins because she's playing games and basing this sale of the rat on all the wrong things. She is only requesting to see cage picture. She doesn't care nor seem to want him to have a buddy. That's not helping to tell her. We have lots of people with alternate profiles not associated at all with me or the rescue. Admins have yet to respond. So far we have two players still in her little game.
One she believes to be a young man with one rat in a dcn. Its actually a friend posing through her bfs profile.
Another is a young lady "Jess" who has "4 buddies for him in a DCN" who is friends with an adopter of mine and showing his pictures to Her.
Her response to the girl was "you plan to house all 5 in the DCN???"
Really...you have a lone male in half a CN you must know so much more then someone with 4.
More information comes out...she's selling a budgie too and lo and behold he is in the same cage!!! There it is...the reason she won't offer the cage. So now she has two social animals she has been housing alone in half a dcn each.
Someone is after the budgie too cuz clearly this woman is unstable.
Also her story keeps changing as to the reason for a rehome...first it was "daughter doesn't have the time for him with school AND work...lesson learned" we figure she got flack for that bs excuse and using an animals life to "teach a lesson" then it changed to "must have LARGE cage "

At this point we know she is asking people outright if they know me...which is hilarious...but then she did respond to "Jess" after seeing the cage and hearing about her experience with owning. Jess has no association with me or the rescue. She is a friend of a friend so she can't connect us.

We are hoping by end of weekend to have at least the rat in our possession of not also the budgie. Should we get an address my friend Nicole from the SPCA is going to go out and welfare check the rest of her home.

She picked the wrong group to mess with.
We are calling the rat Snowball....as I would never name a white animal snowball as it's too obvious for me. But I have a feeling this woman did name him Snowball or something equally obvious.

Cross your fingers for us....

 

[minnieflower]

Oh no. do you think it would be possible to get someone to plan an adoption and pick up and then you go get it? If I can help in any eay let me know. good luck!

 

[jorats]

Wow! The runaround is ridiculous with some of these people getting rid of their pets. Good luck!!!