The Rat House Rescue Perth

05/12/2022

Hi everyone,
it's TRHR second birthday, but unfortunately it will also be the last one.
During the past 2 years we (or should I say "I" ) tried to do my best to help, rehab, care and rehome 190+ ratties in need.
I did my best to help anyone contacting me (roughly 1-3 message/day) and to provide education to the public by running incursions in childcares/schools in the hope to sow some seeds of awareness regarding rats and more generally animal welfare.
I did my absolute best to not get discouraged, bitter and absolutely broken by the numerous cases of animal cruelty and neglect I had to face on a regular basis. My therapist did her best to keep me in one piece as well for me to be able to keep "functionning".
I did my best to recover from the first empathy burnout and did my best again to not fall in the trap of a second one.
I did my best to forget how hard it is to not have a single day off anymore, working hard 24/7 for my rescues, with sometimes 3 jobs at the same time in order to pay all the vet bills/food/bedding and cage needed.
My partner (bless them) did also their best to not get upset or disappointed when the rescues were getting all the attention and time.
I did my best to ignore the hardship and to keep on moving.
I did my best to take the right decisions, to do the right things at all time. I really did.
I did my bestest best to keep TRHR running and help more and more ratties, but sometimes doing your best it's just not enough.
I recently made rookie mistakes that I wouldn't have done a few years ago. In such a busy and tight schedule, there is no room for mistakes, no room for recovering from rescue-related trauma, no room for helping any ratties on a long term, no room for managing every bloody thing just by myself, private, work or rescue related, and no room or time to do the right things properly with the energy and the fighting spirit which TRHR started with.

I will close this page in a few weeks, just the time to find good homes to our last rescue boys, and will probably delete afterwards to not have to deal with the constant surrenders enquiries.
The rescue email will still be up for anyone who have adopted from us and would need any assistance, advice or if needed to bring their rescue back, as agreed in our adoption contract.
Thank you for everyone who has supported TRHR in a way or another during these 2 years. You have helped a lot of rats, wild or domestics.
Thank you 💙
Alice "Kukra" TRHR

(Photo of for attention)

29/11/2022

Some news from one of our favorite roof rat: Takeo.
The skinny and starving bean has grown up so fast!
He is a very playful and kind boy, grooming our old grumpy , and fell in love with one of the Pluto's girl with who he will get to stay. All 3 will soon live together, joined by the tiny wildie girl that we can briefly see on the video. Even though he already has domestic friends, we prefer our wildies to get at least one of their kind to live with due to the big differences in behaviours, needs and lifespan.

Basically nothing went according to the plan:
A few weeks ago Takeo has received a contraceptive implant in order to join Suki's gang but as he had to be separated for weeks from them to avoid any pregnancy, they have now forgotten about him and treat him like a stranger. During this few weeks he has been housed with some Pluto's girls and bonded with his freeroam time friends: Chippy, the wildie baby girl and one of the Pluto's daughter.

We have learnt that no matter the plan we have for our ratties, they always find a way to mess with it and get whatever they want. 😅

28/11/2022

This week in Perth the temps are rising. Please make sure you are prepared for your animals.
*provide fresh cool, clean water. Preferably use multiple water stations.
*frozen water bottles can be placed in empty litter trays so if anyone chews it the water will be captured by the tray.
*pea and corn fishing is a great hot weather activity.
*cool hammocks that allow some airflow.
*a fan circulating air in the area. Please not directly on them.
*ripped up newspaper is a great insulator.
We hope everyone stays nice and cool over the week.
Please be aware that heatstroke occurs in rodents and can be life threatening. If you're concerned please seek immediate vet treatment.

27/11/2022

The Suki's gang ( ) have finally upgraded!
A few months ago some shenanigans decided to chew through their dig box (we won't name and shame here, but we know the culprits 👮‍♂️)

As a result the human in charge had to strip the whole cage off to remove the dig box, leaving the gang in a boring cage for the whole winter, just the time for us to build their new natural play area and respray their future castle.
Yesterday was finally the great inauguration day of their triple cage, featuring the brand new (and hopefully chew-proof) dig box.
We scattered some wheat grain and let our CUC settle in for a few days before transfering everyone in their new kingdom.

Apparently Microbean never heard about neophobia in wildies... and Tetsuo promised to leave us 5 stars on Treat Ratvisor. 🙌

26/11/2022

Hi everyone,

Thanks to the recent donations, we have been able to start a 3 weeks Australia wide campaign on gumtree in the hope to raise some awareness. Anyone searching for "rat" will see this ad, with an informative text for description.

We truly appreciate your help, wether with food, bedding or funds.. it's not only helpful but it also means a lot to us and every little gesture cheers us up and help us to keep up with the hard work!

So, THANK YOU! 🥰
Let's hope this season will be less exhausting and heartbreaking for the animal rescues than the previous years. 🤞

🐭💝 DONATION:
🆕 Bank transfer to The Rat House Rescue BSB: 06 2692 - Account 4749 9212
💸 Paypal: https://paypal.me/TheRatHouseRescue
🏪 Etsy shop supporting TRHR: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TheRatsHouse
♻️ Our container for change number: C10699494

25/11/2022

It's probably worth sharing this old one this year again.

This time of the year is the sad season if you are a pet:
you may get dumped to make room for a new pet, younger and cuter...or to allow your owner to go on holiday... or you may be offered as a Xmas present to a kid who will lose interest in a few months time, and you may eventually get surrendered to a rescue if you are lucky to find one who isn't already swanped by unwanted pets, or dumped in the scary wild outdoor where you probably will die after a long struggle, or get badly injured.

Pets are not furnitures, not Xmas presents, not birthday presents, not Easter presents either.
They are living souls just like us who deserve to be treated with the respect and the kindness we grant to human beings.

With Christmas at the corner, these kind of ads are unfortunately flourishing on well known platforms. Please don't fall for them.
While rats can make great pets for kids, they require a big commitment from the parents themselves, as kids get usually quickly bored of taking care for them. Half of our rescues, over the past year, were coming from "my daughter/son lost interest" situation.
So please, if you are not the person who will care for them daily for rest of their life DO NOT OFFER RATS TO KIDS.
🐭 Rats need at least 1 companion to thrive and be happy. And this, no matter how much time you spend with a solo rat. They need social interaction with their own kind.
🐭 Rats are nocturnal animals, so keeping them in kids bedroom is probably not the best as they can be very noisy.
🐭 Rats NEED to have time out of their cage every day (1+ hour). They are extremely intelligent creatures who need enrichment. Their cage shouldn't become their jail.
🐭 Rats need specific high quality rat food. The random seed mix for other rodents or birds isn't suitable.
🐭 Rats get sick regularly and vet bills can become a major expense. Keeping their cage clean to avoid amonia build up is an important task that can't be disregarded.
🐭 Rats are wonderful, and deserve much better than being offered in a rush to a kid for christmas or birthday because it just sounds like a "great easy fun gift for kids". Please do some researches, some maths as well, to make sure you can afford having them.
🐭 Keep in mind that you will more likely end up doing ALL the cleaning, feeding, freeroaming yourself!

ALL THE RESCUES ARE ALREADY FULL OF FORMER BDAY/XMAS "PRESENTS" SO PLEASE:

21/11/2022

Ash and Tim-Tam are the 2 last baby girls from our rescue litters waiting to be adopted. They are bonded and would have to go together.
They are 9 weeks old, have great temperament and are healthy little crazy beans.
If you would like to give a forever home to those cuties, please send us a message :) .


🐭💝 DONATION:
🆕 Bank transfer to The Rat House Rescue BSB: 06 2692 - Account 4749 9212
💸 Paypal: https://paypal.me/TheRatHouseRescue
🏪 Etsy shop supporting TRHR: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TheRatsHouse
♻️ Our container for change number: C10699494

18/11/2022

Can you believe those babies are only 9 weeks old?! They are such sweet chonkers!
We still have boys and girls from these rescue litters looking for their forever home.
Please consider them if you are looking into adopting, we really don't want them to spend too long living a rescue life. They will love more attention, more free roaming, more cuddles and zoomies once in their new home!

For any enquiry please message us ! 😉

12/11/2022

Study finds rats instinctively move in time to music – an ability previously thought to be uniquely human

11/11/2022

Those babies just hit their 8 weeks old and are patiently waiting for their new human to pick them up. :)
The and the have started to leave the rescue for their new homes this week.

If you are looking for some healthy, friendly and young ratties to adopt, please send us a message! ;)



🐭💝 DONATION:
🆕 Bank transfer to The Rat House Rescue BSB: 06 2692 - Account 4749 9212
💸 Paypal: https://paypal.me/TheRatHouseRescue
🏪 Etsy shop supporting TRHR: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TheRatsHouse
♻️ Our container for change number: C10699494

09/11/2022

Someone is being a bit dramatic here... (Spoiler alert: It's Sasha.🤦)
Sasha is our Karen from the wild: she takes offence for little things such as stepping on her bed, saying hello to her, giving her the wrong bit of water melon or petting her sister Misha without her approval.
Sasha doesn't want to talk to the rat house rescue manager because she knows that the whole world is against her anyway.
Don't be like Sasha: take it easy, life is too short! 😉

Perth North Metro Rodent Rescue - PNMRR

05/11/2022

Hey dis Figglets and Plutonies! just to leb you know dat we iz still looking for some pawesome hoomans to adopt us.

We promise to gibs you lots of love and to deconstruct and redesign eberydings you may gib us, just cuz we iz good at dat.
None ob us wants to stay at the rescue fur too long...we iz too young fur dis!

04/11/2022

Update: Sid has been adopted. thank you for all your messages :)

Sid is still looking for his forever home. This boy is a cuddle machine who loves his humans.
If you're interested in adopting him, please message us. 😉

01/11/2022

Hi everyone, the recent vet runs and emergencies has fully drained the rescue's financials and TRHR is facing some critical hardship at the moment.
By selling some of our cages, we are hoping to raise some funds and recover from this hopefully temporary ordeal.
Please contact us for any enquiry.
Thank you! 🙏

🐭💝 DONATION:
🆕 Bank transfer to The Rat House Rescue BSB: 06 2692 - Account 4749 9212
💸 Paypal: https://paypal.me/TheRatHouseRescue
🏪 Etsy shop supporting TRHR: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TheRatsHouse
♻️ Our container for change number: C10699494

31/10/2022

Today we had to say goodbye to 3 of our permanent residents.
It's a very sad week at TRHR with too many losses in a row.
Even though we know they all are in peace now, having to euthanize 3 of our rescues the same day is not something we were prepared for. 😔
🌈 Chilli has had a long life and left us at 3.5 years old to join her sister on the rainbow bridge. Her old age eventually impacted her quality of life as the neurological issues she developped the last days made her lose all autonomy. She and her sister have been great rat mentors for some of our rescue babies.💙
🌈 Houdini was one of our first rescue, amazingly smart and sensitive. He would have turned 3 years old in january. The old man was struggling with HLD for months, but several tumours in his tummy eventually stopped him from living his best life. Patches and him were unseparable.

🌈 Patches, 2 years old, had also to be euthanised due to an untreatable and aggressive tumor in his ear and side of the head. He remained a very sweet and brave boy until the end despite the ubearable pain he must have been through when pain killers were fading.
It has been really awful to have to say goodbye to such a wonderful and caring boy.
Patches was Houdini's bestie, snuggling with him and making sure the old boy always had something to eat nearby as his old age was slowing him down. He also stopped using the top hammock to stay live him on the first level of the cage, when Houdini couldn't climb anymore. A real precious soul. 💔

🐭💝 DONATION:
🆕 Bank transfer to The Rat House Rescue BSB: 06 2692 - Account 4749 9212
💸 Paypal: https://paypal.me/TheRatHouseRescue
🏪 Etsy shop supporting TRHR: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TheRatsHouse
♻️ Our container for change number: C10699494

30/10/2022

⚠️TW: death, poisoning ⚠️
Today we needed to share a very sad story which left us heartbroken.
2 days ago we have been contacted by a lovely soul who had found a pet rat on his property, right next to a very busy road.
We arranged a pick up for the next day, happy for this very lucky lil one.
After we brought the young girl back to the rescue, we noticed how calm and lovely she was...maybe a bit too quiet for her guesstimated age (4-6 months old), but we put that on the fact that she probably went through quite a lot on the past few days. The finder and their housemates named her Tabasco.
Tabasco smashed her porridge and was pretty happy to get a good snooze after enjoying some cheek rubs, boggling and bruxing away for 20mn.
As she presented some wounds, we treated her with broad spectrum antibiotics to counter any possible bacterial infection caught from a cat. The lump on her left side was meant to be examined by our vet on monday.
When we checked on her early in the morning today, Tabasco was the shadow of herself, displaying all the signs of pain with her body language, pale and lethargic.
This instantly reminded us the numerous photos or videos of poisoned wild rats we had seen before.
Alas, after double checking the poisoning possibility with Tabasco's finder, we discovered that she may have ingested some rat poison, on their property before being found.
We rushed to the emergencies while Tabasco health was drastically declining and discussed with the vet the possiblity for a Vitamin K treatment to stop the internal bleeding caused by rat poison.
Unfortunately the poisoning was too advanced to be able to reverse the process and we had to decide to relief Tabasco from her agony with a humane euthanasia.
Even though this young girl was only with us for bearly a day, this just broke us.
We feel so sorry for the well-intentioned persons who rescued her and absolutely don't blame them. This was an accident: this girl shouldn't have been roaming in the streets in the first place.
This is only one of the cruel way a pet rat can die when released or lost in the "wild".
We know the pet dumping season has started, just like every year. Room is made for new christmas pets, or people want pet-free summer holidays ... or interest has worn off, vet bills are too big...etc..
We just hope that the owners of this girl can get some closure if she was lost and they see this post...we are aware that it's a tough one but we can't sugar coat everything. And if she has been deliberately tossed in the streets of White Gum Valley, we hope they can learn from this awful outcome.

💙 Fly high Tabasco 💙

30/10/2022

Sid is back to the rescue.
After being fostered for the last 4 months, Sid is now back at TRHR and is looking for a loving home.
He used to live with a gentle old lady rat who recently passed away.
Sid is an active gentleman, who loves snuggling with his cagemates when he is not up for some ratventures :) .

Please note that Sid is a blue patchwork: he may be prone to blood clotting issue (we didn't have any problem so far). This is something to keep in mind with any blue coat rat as blood clotting issue can lead to death if not rapidely spotted and treated.
If you feel like Sid would be the perfect addition to your mischief, please send us a PM! ;)

🐭💝 DONATION:
🆕 Bank transfer to The Rat House Rescue BSB: 06 2692 - Account 4749 9212
💸 Paypal: https://paypal.me/TheRatHouseRescue
🏪 Etsy shop supporting TRHR: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TheRatsHouse
♻️ Our container for change number: C10699494

27/10/2022

Going bananas for banana...🙃
Meeting Gambian pouched rats is definitely on our bucket list!

26/10/2022

Last week it was time for Figgy to leave the baby boys and join Pluto with the girls.
It was also time for Takeo to join the boys and to live with them (we didn't want to risk Figgy to attack him). The boys use to play rough and Takeo doesn't always understand what it is about, but at the end of the day everyone ends up snuggling together. 🙂

23/10/2022

Birthday girl: !
About 1 year ago Suki was found on a driveway, and brought into our care, aged of 7 days old.
We had no experience in wild rats at the time and she became our very first wild resident.
We were very lucky as she was a very good eater, and hand rearing her was such an easy task that we never had to fear for her life.
Suki is a caring, sweet and very tame girl (for a wildie), who absolutely stole our heart ! 💓
We are so grateful for having her in our lives 😊.
Happy birthday lil one! We can't word how much we love you! 💙

19/10/2022

Update on surgery:
Our big cuddly potato went through the 2 mammary removals like a champ! The 3rd lump during the exam was actually her kidney pushed out by...her fat...🤦
She gives her best stinky eyes now she's on diet... 😄
We had to postpone this surgery due to the lack of funds, but we are glad it's finally done and wanted to address a big thanks for supporting us with your donations.

🐭💝 DONATION:
🆕 Bank transfer to The Rat House Rescue BSB: 06 2692 - Account 4749 9212
💸 Paypal: https://paypal.me/TheRatHouseRescue
🏪 Etsy shop supporting TRHR: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/TheRatsHouse
♻️ Our container for change number: C10699494

17/10/2022

Awww Figgy! you are such a patient and caring mumma...
The 23 babies have been now separated and got to stay a few more days with all her boys and some of the Pluto's ones, while got to stay with the baby girls.
They are still chasing the ni***es for a few drops of milk and Figgy accepts to nurse anyone patiently.
They will be ready for adoption from the 10/11/22 when they have reached 8 weeks old.

For any enquiry please message us, we have still a few babies available 🙂

14/10/2022

Thanks the Rat God, it's Friday!
Like Takeo, just take it easy this weekend and treat yourself!
( *Sound ON* to hear the tiny bruxing and the satisfaction squeaks coming from this adorable milk coma session. ) 💙

10/10/2022

For the last couple of days started to refuse his milk and seemed pretty determined to wean himself off.
Well he apparently slept on it because this is him today...5 weeks old and 52g later, Takeo has decided he would stay a mummy's boy a little bit longer because... why not? 🙃

08/10/2022

We had no idea what subcutaneous emphysema was. Now we know. 😯
The little man is 5 weeks old now doing very well. (Check the original post comments 😉 )

08/10/2022

UPDATE 26/11/22: All the girls have found their new homes, a few boys are still waiting to get adopted. They are now 11 weeks old.

The Figglets and the Plutonies are celebrating their 1st month today!
They will be ready to leave the rescue in 4 weeks and we will start to take enquiries for adoption very soon. 🙂

Please message us if you would like to be added to our loving home's list ;) .

04/10/2022

Today we decided to offer a real nice break to Pluto and Figgy and we took the babies (and Takeo) to the giant playground for 1 hour.
They may have preferred a glass of Chardonnay while watching Netflix, but instead they got to enjoy a real good nap with no ni***es nipping, no tail tugging and no ear chewing.
Not sure the girls were as excited as their babies by their return to the cage ...😬

04/10/2022

Our super wildie trooper Takeo is now over 4 weeks old and he is doing amazingly!
He still loves being nursed and asks for milk several times a day, even though he has dry food and formula porridge available.
He has met our very sweet who is very gentle with him.
weighs only 32g and it will take some time for him to be able to join the Suki's gang.
In the mean time he will get to live with some of our rescue domestic babies once they are weaned and with who he enjoys daily playdates.

02/10/2022

Because at TRHR we strongly believe that education is the most efficient way to make a change on the long term (hence why we run our school rat incursions), we had to share this link.
Teaching respect and compassion towards any animal in early age prevents animal neglect and cruelty in the future, whether they are our pets, farmed or wild.
Teaching our kids animals aren't object we can get/breed for fun and dispose when we have had enough of them is also important.
Children are sponges and can easily learn how to become responsible pet owners, who won't surrender to a rescue when the first health/behaviour issue appears, because it's just easier or cheaper than fixing the problem yourself.
There is a lot to gain from educating our kids and the RSCPA has some good ressources here to help parents and educators.
Check it out! ;)

Rats are living beings with needs, wants and feelings, just like you and I. They require time, money, love, understanding and commitment — over 4 years worth in some cases. Having rats in your life can be a wonderful experience and very rewarding, but only if you think through your decision ver...