:) Gotta love rats

Infestation?

I have just learned today that my cuisin has a possible mice infestation in his apartment. The apartment is old and has cheap rent but in todays society we need the cheapest of everything we can find as its getting harder and harder to make a living. Apparently the maintanence guy at the apartment says they deal with this every winter but never try to fix the problem so you know right away its not a great place to be. Theres enough mice that they can be heard in the walls and there are feces from what I have heard just about everywhere. I believe a health inspecter will be coming to examine the building and with the way it sounds this apartment building might be closed down from this. Although I realize it is prety imposible to live somewhere with an infestation I still am too against killing to agree with the slaughter of all these mice just trying to find a place to stay warm for the winter months. Rats and mice usually dont go into homes unless they are homes not taken care of or a food source is constantly being left out. So in the end, it is the humans fault for this. The landlord/maintanence personal for letting the building go and people being unclean. So once again because of humans all these mice will be slaughtered. A huge peeve with me is how people believe mice and rats are so toxic. My grandma for example although a nice lady really judges them and believes anything about them that she hears. That they ALL have diseases and they will attack you. No, you on average statistically speaking have more of a change of a stray cat biting you and you becoming infected. Cats mouths are proven to be dirtier then mice or rats. I just wish we xould all get past this judgeing and find a way to get the rats/mice to leave your home without turning to murder. After all, remember.. when you feel like killing these animals they are only trying to do what we do everyday, survive.

Study at Chicago University Proves Just How Much Rats Care

Rats are synonymous with double-crossing and cheating in love, but they may not really be such rotters. According to researchers, they are actually kind and generous.

Chicago University scientists housed rats in pairs so that they got to know each other.
They then placed one in a transparent tube inside the cage, and found that the second rat was distressed until it worked out how to free the first one. To their astonishment, not only did the creatures help cage-mates in distress, they also selflessly shared their treats with them.

Perhaps less surprisingly, the female rats seemed to be more caring than the males. During the experiment, scientists found that the roaming rat became agitated the sight of its trapped friend, meaning it had picked up on the animal's distress, and, according to the scientists, showing the simplest form of empathy. But the free animal went much further, learning how to open the tube door, without  being shown, and freeing its cage-mate. This said the researchers, meant the animal was 'putting itself in the other's shoes' – a much more complex form of empathy. Rats were shown to become agitated when they saw another rodent trapped, researchers say this means they have a simple form of empathy
Numerous rats repeated the pattern, the journal Science reports.
Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal said: 'We are not training these rats in any way.   These rats are learning because they are motivated by something internal. 'We are not showing them how to open the door.  It's hard to open the door. But they keep trying and trying and eventually it works.'
In further experiments, the rats had little or no interest in releasing stuffed toys trapped in the tube but they freed real rats even when no allowed to play with them afterwards. This, say the researchers, shows that the liberator rats' motivation was to ease the distress of the trapped animals.

A rat pack: In a final experiment scientists tested if a rat would choose chocolate over mounting a rescue, the animal frequently chose the rescue

The final experiment looked at where a rat's sympathies would lie when given the choice of mounting a rescue or eating some chocolate, a favoured treat.
The animal frequently chose to complete the rescue before tucking in and sharing their chocolate stash with their companion. Peggy Mason said: 'That was very compelling. It said to us that essentially helping their cage-mate is on par with chocolate. We were shocked.' The results also hinted at the female rats being more likely to mount rescue attempts, perhaps reflecting the importance of empathy in motherhood.
The research team said that acting out of empathy is clearly not unique to humans – and suggested we might be able to learn a thing or two from the humble rat. Professor Mason said: 'When we act without empathy, we are acting against our biological inheritance. 'If humans would listen and act on their biological inheritance more often, we' d be better off.'

Taken from this website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071722/Rats-wrongly-maligned-actually-kind-hearted-generous-creatures.html

Still Waiting

It feels like forever since we have shared our home with rats. The ferret nation is sitting empty in the closet and all the hammocks and toys are still backed away. Theres still an emptiness. I miss little fuzzies running down the hallway all excited to greet me. Falling asleep to the sound of them playing, drinking and running up and down the levels. The kisses and the snuggles and the all awsomeness that is the rat! <3

We are still waiting and wish to have rats soon. Hopefully early in the new year. I'll be posting on the rat shack just to let anyone know if they are near buy and hear of fuzzies that need to be adopted.

No New Rats.

My last post I had written about 2 boys that would be coming into our care, this did not end up happening. Shortly before we were going to recieve them we were contacted by her indicating they had changed their minds. They said they would miss the rats too much. What struck me as odd was the fact that she herself said they were never home and there are numerous cats, dogs, small animals and reptiles in the home. All those small animals sit up stairs and are never bothered with except to feed them and clean the cages. Miss them indeed. The few times I saw them they did not have a proper sized cage or enough stimulation - no toys. Thank god atleast the boys have eachother, but I know that after one of them passes the other will be sure to follow. Such a shame. But none the less our home is still open to ratties in need, we are keeping our eyes and ears open.

After months Ratless - 2 New Rescue Additions

When Milly and Maggie past away around spring, they were the last of our nine rats we had. Willard and Legion who were blood brothers both passed at around 2 years from a pituitary tumor, Constantine from a severe Respiritory infection at 2 years 3 months, Maggie from a pituitary tumor and Milly from heart failure. We were bruised but not broken. The rest we received from being ratless was refreshing but we have been left with an emptyness. A friend that I had known since elementary school emailed me and asked me if I'd like her two male rats. She said she is rarely home because of school and her mother doesnt want to keep cleaning all the cages. See she's a perfectly nice girl but does have a habit of collecting animals and because she is not home often she is not dedicated to her animals. They are roughly a year and some old. I don't even think they have names =( Without toys and any out of cage time these boys are going to have to be severely spoiled by me to make up for lost time. I could not say no to rats in need, Im so sensitive that all it took was thinking about how much of a better life I could give them. I do not know about the condition I am going to get them in so I have vet money set up just in case. They are housed on pine and in a room filled with other cages of animals unfortionatly. Animals should not be treated as room accessories. Now they could be treated a lot worse mind you, the conditions are alright, but air quality is deffinatly an issue and the amount of human contact is very little so these boys MAY need a lot of extra attention which I am willing to offer. Its going to feel strange having rats again after so long without but Im excited to be able to hold rats in my arms once again. I will be getting the fuzzies early October and they will have a large 3 story cage with more toys and hammocks then they will know what to do with.

Getting Back at The Cat, A Little Rat Revenge ;)