Fireworks Rant

OOOOOOh I HATE this time of year. This evening instead of being able to clean out cages, attempt mouse captures etc I'm spending it trying to comfort hysterical dogs. It drives me MAD that inconsiderate, selfish people can put my poor babies through such absolute torture for a bit of fun. We as a nation condemn the abuse of animals for fun when its in the form of fox hunting or bull fighting yet we think nothing of ruining the lives of millions of dogs each winter for a bit of fun. We dont bother even trying to walk our lot in the evenings this time of year..it's hard enough to even get them to go in the garden after dark they're so scared. When we have been out with them and fireworks have gone off they've panicked and I've been worried about them running off. Literally from October to mid January every year their lives are seriously impeded by their fear of bangs when they're going off and other nights too cos they're pemanently worried about them going off. It's just totally unacceptable and the wretched fireworks need banning now!

Mouse Update

Well having almost given up on our escapee we spotted him this morning. Despite two attempts to catch him he has so far comprehensively outwitted us! But at least we know he is ok.

The litter of babies who arrived Sunday sadly did not make it. I checked their cage this evening and there is no sign of any babies. Another doe who was heavily pregnant in there is also looking slimmer so it seems likely she has either reabsorbed her babies or they have also been eaten :(

On a happier note the cage next door to them is eeping away happily so everything crossed for more luck in there.

The mouses have arrived

Phew, what a weekend. Yesterday disappeared in a mousey whirlwind although our weekend was nothing compared to Emma at Furry Friends who drove to North Wales at half six Saturday morning collecting I don't know how many hundreds of mice and then sexing them all, medicating the injured ones and finally falling into bed at half past three only to be up again in time for us to collect ours at 9am!!

So we came away with 20 girls and 23 boys plus a litter of 10 pinkies altogether. 8 boys have gone to Kelly and 4 girls went to Vicky, one of our lovely foster carers. Amongst our boys was one very poorly little lad who we called Conner. There was nothing obviously wrong with him, I suspect all the stress was just too much. I spent hours Sunday cuddling him, warming him and syringe feeding him and trying to tell him his ordeal was over and he had a wonderful life to look forward to. Sadly it wasn't enough and he passed away :(

We have a couple of other battered boys but nothing too serious thankfully. And, one has managed to escape so we've had to set a humane mouse trap for him this evening. Unfortunately these mice are used to living rough so he's not about to let himself get found!

I don't hold out a great deal of hope for the 10 pinkies. They must have been born Saturday night and it's unlikely that the mother will care for them after so much disruption. Plus I had no way of knowing who the Mum was and no cage big enough to house all 20 girls! So I had to guess based on the one who appeared to be sitting on them. The babies have disappeared from the place I left them in the cage and the girls in that cage have been busy nesting. Maybe they have taken them into the nest, or maybe they have eaten them :( The best I can do now is leave them alone and keep everything crossed. But resisting having a peek is near killing me!!

Anyway I have 60 unanswered emails to tend to! Sorry everyone!! So I'll leave you with a couple more pics

Mousey preparations

Today we've been getting ready for the mousey influx. Emma has collected them and is on her way back from Wales as I type. So we'll be collecting our batch bright and early tomorrow morning - about 50 of them. Gulp!

So this morning I was preparing all the mouse accessories

Including some hi-tech, very expensive things!!

and getting cages ready - 8 in all (some mice are going to foster homes tomorrow)

I've just updated the stats ----->

Which show that we've taken in 120 animals so far this year. Which basically means tomorrow almost half of the animals we've taken in over the last 9 months will be arriving in one day! Eeep!

Can anyone help with mice?

We've heard about a terrible situation in Wales where hundreds of mice are being kept in buckets and are in very real and immediate danger of being killed. Environmental health are involved and I shudder to think what they'll do to them and how :(

Realistically, given than half of them will be pregnant, we can only take about 30 in here directly. Which seems like a drop in the ocean when there's an estimated 500 needing help. If you can help by fostering or adopting - even if it's 2 or 3 it'll make the world of difference to those mice - please get in touch. Please spread the word on any animal sites and forums and with any other rescues you know.

And apologies yet again to anyone waiting to hear back from us. We're finally coming out of the depression and flu fog we've been in the last few weeks and now we're hit with this. We're desperately trying to catch up with the cleaning here and make as much mouse space as we can. I will get back to you as soon as possible. 

Thank you all :)

We just wanted to say a heartfelt thanks to everyone for the messages, cards and letters we have received in the last couple of weeks. It was very unexpected but hugely appreciated. Your support and understanding has been very encouraging indeed.

Things have settled down here thankfully although we've not achieved a great deal as we've both been hit with flu. It's typical that as soon as we stop we get ill!!

The good news is that we had 16 animals head off to their new homes last weekend which was just brilliant! It included a few people who had been here for quite some time as well. As usual massive thanks must go to Sylvia and Olivia and everyone else involved with getting the animals to their homes. They are the forgotten heroes and without them we wouldn't be able to home half as many animals.

We also have a couple of new additions. One being Onslo, a single male rat who had been living on his own for quite a while. He'd also been known to bite so hasn't had much human attention either. So he has now been neutered and this weekend we're hoping to see how he responds to some girls.

The other new addition is a bunny friend for Kitkat. She was quite depressed after Shadow died and went off her food. As luck (fate?) would have it, we recently homed a hamster to Karen who is involved with rabbit rescue locally. So I contacted her and she suggested Ginger, a six year old boy who had been looking for the right home for a few months.

Introductions are going fairly well. Well, they're going great on neutral territory but Kitkat gets grouchy with him if they're out near their cages. Hopefully with time and patience they'll soon be able to move in together though.

So that's a little update on how things are. We hope to be back to business soon but still have a whole load of catching up to do thanks to the flu as well!

A brief statement

Just to let you all know that we are closing our doors for a little while. We've had a really horrible time with 8 losses in the last few weeks, four of them in the last four days. All have been sudden and tragic and so horribly unfair. 

After 15 years working in animal rescue I ought to be hardened to it now but I'm not. I still cry for each and every one of them and my heart is totally broken at the moment. The final straw was finding our beloved Shadow rabbit dead this morning with no warning. 

We have some animals booked to go to new homes and others booked to come in which we'll go ahead with. But aside from those we'll be shutting our doors for a short while just to give ourselves time to regroup. There are some things we want to get done such as rearranging the rodent room, setting up some new cages and building a new play area so we'll take the opportunity to get those things done so we can come back new and improved. 

Apologies to those who have outstanding applications to home animals. I hope you understand. Letting animals go to their new homes is another thing that ought to be easy by now but it isn't. It requires a certain amount of emotional strength and bravery which I just don't have at the moment. 

Regards 

Sarah & Dave 
Starlight Trust Animal Rescue
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