Baby (13) and Adult (2) Rats and others at Humane Society Michigan PICS

[MaevePotter]

Hi guys,

There are a bunch of wonderful pets for adoption at the Humane Society of Walker Michigan, which is near Grand Rapids. I have held or petted all of them, none bite and are all very sweet. Descriptions and pics follow. Also, if anyone has spare cages or other things they can send to make these guys more comfortable please pm me and we can arrange to have you send them to the humane society or me to take there. Please PM me if you can help.

2 adult females, possibly the moms of the 7 baby boys they have. There are apparently also some baby girls in foster care if anyone is interested.

The adult females are about a year old, and are agouti top ear berks. They don't like being picked up but the shelter people said they like to shoulder ride once they are out. But they did seem friendly to me and took treats from my hand. I could pick them up, they were just very wiggly. Their names are Esther and Georgina.




There are 7 baby males about 6 weeks old I think. Their testes have dropped so I doubt they are 4.5 weeks old like the shelter has listed.. They are in three small mice cages.

Orange Cage: Male top ear, agouti berk named Clinton, who quickly warmed up and wanted lots of attention, and Nigel a dumbo ear agouti who is very sweet!





Pink Cage: Nicholas who is a black variegated top ear with a headspot. He is adorable and really wants attention. His brother is Roger who is a black berk with really big top ears. He has a headspot and a white mouth area. He is really cute.







Purple Cage: Winston is a black berk top ear who is shy but likes attention. Norman is an agouti berk top ear who again has huge ears! He also has a headspot. Roland is an adorable shy agouti blazed berk. He is a real sweety pie and likes hiding in the paper towel roll!




BTW- some of these agoutis have adorable bellies!!


Also there were several Bunnies. Butterscotch here especially was extremely sweet. She even touched her nose to mine a couple times. She is velvety soft and really needs a good home. She is one year old.



Extremely tame Guinea Pig named Shasta. She really liked having me pet her head. She is 11 and 1/2 months old and her papers said she really looks forward to carrots in the morning..



These two buns were pretty scared and kept trying to hide under eachother but they seemed sweet.. Their names are Perky and Snowball and they are 4 months old.


Peter Pan is a girl bunny and very sweet. She is super soft and liked being petted. She seems frustrated to be in such a small cage and digs a lot.




This is Dexter who is 2 years old. He liked having his ears petted and he has been there since may! Give him a home!


This is Bunicula. She seemed a little shy but enjoyed it when I petted her head and ears. She is 1 years old and very active.

[EARPS Indy]

What is this shelter's policy on euthanasia of small animals?

[MaevePotter]

I am not sure. I will have to check when I go back to visit this week. I will let you know. Otherwise, maybe it says somewhere on their website that I missed? hskc.org

[EARPS Indy]

I will be traveling to MI from Indy the weekend of September 9th.  If I can help anyone with transport/relocation, etc let me know.  I just happen to be driving through GR on my way back to Indy.

[MaevePotter]

Update on the rats: The baby boys are getting bigger and are all super sweet The little black berk in the purple cage was giving me kisses and the two in the pink cage were completely lovey dovey. It was so sweet. The 2 in the orange cage are super sweet as well. The other 2 in the purple cage besides mr lickey are very nice too but they have a lot of energy right now, probably because there is even less room in their cage. If anyone has a wodent wheel or similar that they don't use anymore, the boys could definately use one in the bigger cage I brought them.

The adult girls are ADORABLE and so sweet. They were being very friendly to me. I brought them in a room to run around and Esther was just hugging my neck cuddling and nibbling on my ear or stuffing her nose deep inside it for a good sniff every now and then hehe.. Georgiana was more active but cuddled me as well, and even decided to climb up on top of my head to check out the view hehe... They really deserve to be adopted so think about them before the babies even if you could since they are older and less likely to get placed.

ALSO.. The foster girls have come back and let me tell you, they are cute!! lots of unique markings and some fawn colors. They were in QT so I only saw pictures, but they will be available in the next day or so too and I will post pics when I get them. There are 8 baby girls available. They are the sisters to the boys. 

[MaevePotter]

see new pics of all rats here: http://www.goosemoose.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,118/forum,rat/topic,4010484.0

please adopt! they are so sweet...

[MaevePotter]

BUMP Please consider these sweet sweet rats. They really want homes. Esther and Georgiana are becoming more social by the day. They are just sweetheats. The little boys are timid but really want love. The baby girls range from sweet but crazy little bouncers to sweet and curious but content. Please help me get them in good homes, even if it is just fostering for awhile. 

[EARPS Indy]

MauvePotter

What is the status on these guys (rats, guineas, and rabbits)?  Have any been adopted yet?  Just curious.

[MaevePotter]

shasta (guinea pig), and butterscotch and peter pan have been adopted. Perky and Snowball are still there. Dexter and Bunicula appear to have been adopted since they aren't there anymore. I will have to ask. I really hope they didn't euthanize. There is another guinea, Maria wanting a home, and some more bunnies, including one who is seriously temping me again.. must not get .. bunny!!

The rats are now at Huron Valley Rat Rescue at Ypsilanti. I am sure she is willing to work out transport if necessary. I am just glad I got them out of the shelter. Thanks so much Kaia, Amanda and Chelsey for coming to pick them up!

[Melanie]

About the adult females....    My Caine just lost his last brother and we are having some trouble introducing the three odd males together.  I can only spread my two older females out so many ways for companionship for these boys.  Caine is 25 months old and these girls might be good companions for him.  I believe Caine is too old to breed, we never had luck getting a litter using males over the age of two.   

I want to be upfront about our rat health.  I would be worried about our rats having CARB and if this might effect any newcomers.  We have not introduced new rats since 2004.  Some of the older rats (25 months plus) have passed lately, but I can't really blame CARB all by itself, I think that there were other older age diseases that brought the CARB back from last year.  CARB is usually the secondary problem. 

But if the adult girls have no where else to go, let me know.     

[Scubbs]

Hi Melanie!  Long time no see 

I work with Kaia and her rescue a lot, so I thought I'd reply to your comment since the babies are with her now. 

Considering the fact that all of these rats are pretty colors (sounds weird to say, but rats like black berkshires and PEWs are VERY hard to place), I think they'll get adopted fairly quickly.  Kaia's already had two or three potential adopters come by her house, and she's only had the rescues for a little over a week and a half.  So I don't think there will be a situation where Kaia's left with a lot of them for a long period of time because no one's adopting. 

Regarding the CARB -- is there anyway you can check for this?  Maybe blood tests or something?  I'm not sure how Kaia would feel adopting out to someone whose rats are somewhat sickly, but if the CARB isn't a problem then I know she'd be more than happy to place a few girlies with you 

[Melanie]

My rats were already tested last year - positive for CARB.  Over the past year, our average rat life span has gone down a bit from 27 months to 25 months, but we manage to keep them healthy most of the time.  But of course it might be different bringing in new rats.  I don't think anyone can know for sure.  I would only take in rats that had no where else to go and were somewhat older in age.  Otherwise, these guys of mine are going to have to make due in their old age living alone with occassional visits from the remaining two old girls.  Boys can be so stubborn about getting along with other boys.  Even our elderly 30 month old Ziggy took a swipe at Caine.  They are brothers from two different litters and rivals their whole life. 

Good luck with the adoptions.  Sounds like you have good potential homes.


 

[MaevePotter]

actually the 2 older girls went to my mom. I hope you can find a way to get them all along with eachother!

[Scubbs]

Would you be willing to adopt young (under a year) neutered boys?  Kaia's had a couple rescues come back to her on the grounds that they're "biters," yet even though she's had them for over a month, none of them have even attempted bitting her -- they're just skittish.  She also has a young spayed girlie, Amelia, that she's having a very hard time placing since she's a PEW (and at that, she's missing part of her tail).  She's had Amelia since February of this year.

You can see them here: http://search.petfinder.com/shelterSearch/shelterSearch.cgi?shelterid=MI553&preview=1

The first four are the ones she's having trouble placing, though I might be taking Pierre this Thursday  

[Melanie]

I have to stay away from more boys.  My own boys won't get along together.  But boys always get along with girls.  I wonder how old Amelia is.  She might be a bit too young for old Caine.  He might just be better off with our Mollie when I can pry her away from Fidget or Ziggy.  It gets hard when you get down to your last handful of rats after having a nice family of 30.  I probably should just wait until this group is gone before starting over to get rid of the CARB once and for all.  Caine will adjust, he's a tough boy and we give him lots of love.     



   

[Scubbs]

I'm so sorry to hear about Caine's brother's passing    Which brother was it?

How many rats are you down to now?

[Melanie]

Well, Adrian passed Aug 20th and Warwick passed Sept 29th.  It's hard to say from what, but there was exasperated breathing on Warwick and I suspected his heart although meds did not help; and Adrian looked fine one day and became ill the next leaving us within 36 hours.  It could have been anything internal but I don't think it was a stroke.  I should have emailed you, but I was pretty upset about the loses and also had to take care of Lewis who developed a rat version of Parkinsons (died Aug 29th), and Athena with her heart disease (died Sept 14th).  It's been a lot of work lately taking care of my older rats.  We have seven left.  Ziggy is looking a lot older in the last couple weeks and he will be lucky to see 31 months come the end of the month.  That leaves:

Caine (25)
Mollie (27), Star (27), Fidget (27)
Ziggy (30)
Snoopy (27) and Benson (27)

Still plenty of rats, I know.  It's just too bad they don't all get along.  Benson is a real pistol and won't even get along with his own brother Fidget or even the girls.  If anything happens to Snoopy, then Benson will have to live out his life alone.  Caine at least gets along with the girls.