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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That'll teach me

Ok on the one hand everyone is behaving themselves here and I'm actually up straight with the cleaning today for the first time in weeks. We've had some really promising home offers recently too.

But in the last two days I've heard about around 70 rats needing help. Some thankfully already in rescues but they are struggling to cope with them all. Others in imminent danger of being pts. Still more thankfully safe in their home but needing somewhere to go soon. It feels like what we do is a drop in the ocean at the moment as no doubt these ones we have heard about are a tiny fraction of the animals out there needing help.

I'm tempted to appeal for help with fosterers so these rats can be safe and rehomed with our backup but with other people caring for them. But we have very limited time for vetting homes at the moment and I have to bear in mind that we are responsible for animals in foster homes so we need to be prepared to take the animals on foster back if things don't work out. With this in mind I'll say for now - if you have homed from me before (either as STAR or as a fosterer for Furry Friends) and you think you could handle some fostering (not just rats, also degus, gerbils and mice), drop me a line :)

I might be speaking too soon

...but things seem to be calming down. Astro is doing great, Fudge had a dental and is recovering fine, the new girls aren't showing any signs of being pregnant, I'm almost up to date with the cleaning and I've finally gotten round to updating the website (hope you like the little improvements I've made). It's largely thanks to the lovely Katie who has been helping out with the homing applications (as well as fostering some mice) which has left me with time to do other things.

I suppose I don't really have an excuse for not having done the housework now. Darn!

A bit more than we bargained for

We've not taken in any new animals for a while now because we've been absolutely chocker with those already here. In fact we have quite a waiting list at the moment of animals waiting to come in. But the other day we had a call from a lady who had 5 baby girl rats she needed to home urgently. She was so desperate that she was considering having them put to sleep if we couldn't help. Well we had some girls going to their new homes this weekend so I figured they could sneak in in their place.

Unfortunately on arrival it transpired that 5 girls were in fact 4 girls and 1 boy. And that boy had been in with two other girls at home. So we ended up taking in 2 baby boys and 6 girls who are possibly pregnant.

Thankfully two of our wonderful foster carers have stepped in and taken 2 girls each which is a huge help.

The good news is that 4 of the "Might-Be" girls - Akuti, Blanche, Dodie and Zahra - went to lovely new homes today.

Also Astro is doing a lot better. He is gaining weight and his eye infections have cleared up. He has another check up on Thursday and hopefully then he can come off the antibiotics :D