Animal care
Backstory!
I got all 4 of my rats (2 at a time) from a woman named Rachel who runs a small animal recue in Cheektowaga called Life Long Tails. She recently noticed an ad on Craigslist stating that two guinea pigs and a rat were free to a good home. Cages and everything included. That sounds like an invitation for snake food, so Rachel called a friend in the area to pick up the animals. Mind you, "The area" is Canandaigua, which is out past Rochester. Well, he couldn't keep them long, so she texted me and asked me if there was any way that I could bring them to her, as she works sucky hours and the guy's car pooped out. So...I went out.
Now, when I say the animals were poorly cared for, I don't mean that they're starved or denied water. But their cages? Fucking. Vile.
Appalled doesn't even begin to cover it. While I understand that animals have digestive processes, there's NO REASON for shit to be caked onto the cage or piss to be used as an adhesive for the (WOOD CHIP! UGH) litter to be attached to the cage. As the rat is female and supposedly 3.5 years old, I realize that it will be next-to-impossible for Rachel to adopt her out, and as Rachel has a high volume of animals coming in and out, I think it's best if I hang onto her. With luck, she'll get along with my girls and we can have only the one cage. But I digress. In order to get her into a better cage than the tiny travel container I had for her. I needed to clean her cage. It was soaking in bleach and water for a good 20 minutes. I had to SCRUB the base of the cage ferociously, only to find out that some of the debris in the bottom had actually managed to pit the cage. That's right. The cage is PITTED because of filth. When I finally got all of the muck out of the cage bottom, I got to work on the wires. And almost vomited. Because the damn thing was so disgusting. There was shit encrusted on everything. And I'm talking actual poop here, not just bedding and scraps. Shit. I bathed the rat, too, (with shampoo rather than bleach) and the water was almost brown after just rinsing her. Vile. Atrocious. Filthy.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you decide to keep animals that require caging, please be aware of their needs. Find out how much cleaning is involved before you adopt or buy, and FUCKING KEEP UP WITH IT! I swear, screaming almost ensued. And it will if I ever see this happening again.