I am so exhausted! It has been a busy day! I woke up at 7am this morning and my brother Scotty and I went to Starbucks for breakfast. For some reason they were offering Pumpkin Spice coffee today (Whoo Hoo!) so we got two of those. And we also got the new Bacon, Egg & Gouda Cheese sandwiches they have.

Then we came home and got everything ready to repaint my room. The color I picked up at Lowe's is called 'Minty'. I wanted a similar color to what was already on the walls to make it less complicated. Everything just needed to be refreshed. We were done painting around 11am.

After painting I transferred some money out of my savings and we headed off to a 2nd hand store, Big Lot's and Walmart. At the 2nd hand store I got 2 nice comforters, 2 big fleece blankets, and a few pillow cases. At Big Lot's I got two full bed sheet sets for $12.00 and 2 nice big towels for $4.50 each. At Walmart, I got new pillows on sale for $2.50, a rice cooker for $13.00. I also got F.B. a lot of toiletries for his arrival. I spent more than I have ever spent at Walmart, but I got everything I needed. Including a Hane's flannel pajama pants & t-shirt set for him.

All of F.B.'s toiletries.

And I may or may not have spent $21 on nail polish... why oh why does Walmart now sell Essie & OPI... I couldn't pass up these colors!

(Turquoise &  Caicos, Merino Cool, The Next CEO)

F.B. finished up his seminar that was required by the Philippines before he leaves for the USA. He still has to go get an international drivers permit before he leaves. So he can drive over here for a year. (He will need to take the test again for a PA drivers license.)

He also booked his plane ticket! He will be in Philadelphia on March 6th at 10:25am!!! Lucky boy doesn't even have to stopover in Hong Kong or Shanghai or even Tokyo, he gets to fly from Manila Philippines straight to Los Angeles, CA. Then to Dallas, TX and finally Philadelphia!

It's going to be a very busy 2 weeks. I spent all evening cleaning and organizing after the paint dried and I still have some more to do tomorrow. The new bed arrives next weekend. I was approved to take March 7th-11th off so I'll have a week off work to spend with F.B. and help him get settled in.

Also, on March 5th, I will be getting my 2 boys and 2 girls from Star's Rat Rescue in SD! They will be traveling 1,500 miles to Philadelphia! There are a few others adopting rats in Philly too we'll be meeting our Rat Train driver at a Petco in the area.

Last summer I adopted my 3 beautiful girls Honey, Hazelnut & Clover from Star's Rat Rescue. They traveled all the way from South Dakota to Philadelphia.

SRR is currently planning another trip to PA tentatively set for Spring/Summer 2011 depending on how fast they are able to get drivers and coordinate everything. Anyone along the route in NE, IA, IL, IN, OH, PA or MD can adopt! There are still a lot of rats available for adoption. I'm adopting 2 boys and 2 girls from Star's Rat Rescue.

My boys!

And girls 11H & 11J I will also be adopting!


Here is SRR's plan for the 2011 Rat Train! If you can help fill any driving spots or want to adopt please contact SRR by email at: stars.rat.train@gmail.com

Phase 1

Winner, South Dakota to Joliet, IL
718 Miles - 11 hours 54 minutes
20 Rats

1. Winner, SD to Yankton, SD            149 mi  2 hours 56 mins - Filled! - Thanks Brittney!
2. Yankton, SD to Omaha (I-680), NE  160 mi  2 hour 41 mins - Filled! Thanks Brittney!
3. Omaha (I-680), NE to Adair, IA        82 mi   1 hour 18 mins - Filled! Thanks Barbara!
4. Adair, IA to Des Moines, IA             57 mi  55 mins  - Filled! Thanks Barbara!
5. Des Moines, IA to Williamsburg, IA  90 mi   1 hour 24 mins - Filled! Thanks Kristin!
6. Williamsburg, IA to Geneseo, IL      110 mi    1 hour 45 mins
7. Geneseo, IL to Joliet, IL                  116 mi    1 hours 56 mins - Filled! Thanks Mary!

~~Overnight Stay Needed in Joliet, IL or Chicago area. for 6 rats~~ - Filled! Thanks Pam!

Phase 2

Joliet, IL to Philadelphia, PA and Stevensville, MD
772 Miles - 13 hours 45 minutes
16 Rats

1. Joliet, IL to Chesterton, IN              59 mi   1 hour 17 mins - Filled! Thanks Pam!
2. Chesterton, IN to South Bend, IN    53 mi   58 mins - Filled! Thanks Pam!
3. South Bend, IN to Montpelier, OH    97 mi    1 hour 36 mins
4. Montpelier, OH to Fremont, OH        89 mi    1 hour 32 mins
5. Fremont, OH to Elyria, OH              62 mi    1 hour 7 mins
6. Elyria, OH to Boardman, OH           95 mi    1 hour 37 mins
7. Boardman, OH to Pittsburgh, PA      61 mi    1 hour 10 mins
8. Pittsburgh, PA to Somerset, PA       70 mi    1 hour 15 mins - Filled! - Thanks Samantha!
9. Somerset, PA to Harrisburg, PA      138 mi   2 hour 25 mins
10. Harrisburg, PA to Philadelphia, PA 107 mi   1 hour 55 mins - Filled! - Thanks Sarah!
11. Philadelphia, PA to Newark, DE      45 mi    56 mins - Filled! Thanks Jenn!
12. Newark, DE to Stevensville, MD      70 mi    1 hour 22 mins - Filled! Thanks Jenn!

Want to adopt a Rescue Rat?

If you live along/close to the train route and would like to adopt a rescue rat now, please go to Star's Rat Rescue and check out the available rats and then fill out the Pre-Adoption Questionnaire.

You can still adopt even if you are not along/close to this train route, SRR will have more routes in the future. Please follow the same instructions as above.

For other ways to Help Star's Rat Rescue, please see our note here.

I'll be keeping the list updated as we get new drivers & adopters added! 


(Please cross post or tweet about this if you can! Thanks!)

About 3 months ago I posted about Star's Rat Rescue and the massive rescue they did. Since then they have adopted out about 50 rats, but there are still tons of male & female rats in need of forever homes.

They recently did a rat train that traveled from South Dakota all the way up into Michigan and Canada! There were 13 rats on this current train. And we had one driver drive from Philadelphia to South Dakota. He also dropped off rats in Ohio. And my 3 girls traveled all the way from South Dakota to Philadelphia, PA! They traveled approx 1,500 miles to get here! There are still even more rat trains being organized as we speak. For more information click here.

I have known Brittney of Star's Rat Rescue for about 3 years now. She has worked with me as a moderator on The Rat Chatter Forums. So I was very excited I would finally get the chance to adopt from her rescue since South Dakota is pretty far away from Philadelphia.

I was little nervous this afternoon when I couldn't get ahold of our rat train driver. He had called Monday from Ohio and we had planned for me to call him at his house Tuesday at 12pm. No answer. I called again at 1,2,3pm and left 2 messages. I even called Brittney to get her opinion we were hoping he had just zonked out though after his long trip and had made it home safely. On the way home from work around 3:30pm my phone started ringing and it was our rat train driver sorry that he had overslept. And no wonder- he left Thursday for the drive to South Dakota and didn't get back to Philadelphia until around 3am Tuesday! He adopted 2 male rats.

We met a little after 4:30pm at a Petco parking lot near my work. We chatted for a bit about rats and I got to see my girls. Was so excited to see them after nearly 2 1/2 months of the travel plans being organized and finally getting a driver. :-)

Please meet, Honey, Clover & Hazelnut! Honey is an fawn self, Clover is beige hooded and Hazelnut is a black berkshire.


































































Clover is soooo curious! She is like a little energizer bunny! When our driver handed me my cage all I saw at first was Clover my other girls were hiding and you could just see their little noses.

I put some of their little fleece pieces from the travel cage into their cage to make it smell more like home. Then they had some nice refreshing coconut water after their long trip, and mini marsh mellows were passed out to all 11 rats!

Honey is very shy and a bit frightened right now. She cries a bit when you pick her up but all of them were really handled well and are used to people. Honey will come towards me when she is in the cage to nibble my fingers a bit.

Hazelnut is also a bit shy and scared, but she also will nibble on your fingers. She is also a flying rat! She flew off the chair and onto my shoulder about 2 times when taking photos. She is very quick and hard to get photos of!

Please meet my newest baby girls Lily & Rose, (Rosie). Lily is tan/beige hooded and Rose is a PEW. They are very tiny and have baby faces still, so I am assuming they are only around 5-7 weeks old. Rosie is very cautious and Lily is an adventurer. Ivy and Basil are a bit territorial with them so currently they are in the upstairs part of the cage with Holly. Basil wants to "fight" with them and they are so very tiny I'm afraid he will hurt them. So they will be kept separate until they are a little bigger and able to fight back when it's time to establish the cage pecking order.

Rosie thinks my cup handle is a place to lounge, lol!

I still have 3 girls waiting for me at Star's Rat Rescue. SRR is currently organizing the rat train. I know the South Dakota to Michigan trip will be very soon. Then transport is being planned through Ohio to Philadelphia. Please click here to get all the information. There are still tons of ratties that need forever homes! My potential girls are: 16K,16N,18C. (Clover,Honey & Hazelnut!) SRR also still needs donations (especially food.) to care for all these rats until they are able to find forever homes.

I had a scare with Basil last week, when he fell off my bed onto the wooden floor rather hard. I checked him all over for bumps and bruises and noticed he had 2 lumps below his "bits". Since he was neutered, I didn't think it could be a tumor. But I was afraid it might be an abscess or hernia. Basil went to the vet last Thursday and the vet looked him over. Turns out those lumps... they are a part of his body, lol! They are called Preputial Glands. I said to my vet, I've had so many girls with tumors, that when I feel a little lump I tend to panic! He didn't charge me for the visit!

Brittney from Star's Rat Rescue in Winner, South Dakota is organizing a Rat Train for the 150+ rats her rescue recently took in.

The following is from Star's Rat Rescue Facebook page:

Star's Rat Rescue is starting a Rat Train- Please email your information to: stars.rat.train@gmail.com

We are in need of the following:

Adopters
Transportation
Overnight Stays

If you can do all three that's wonderful, but if you can only do 1 that's wonderful too. Please help a rat find his/her forever home.

Please send the following information to: stars.rat.train@gmail.com

Name:

Email address:

Location: (City and State)

Please let us know if you can adopt rats, if you can please list how many and the sex.

Please let us know if you can provide transportation, please list what cities/states you are willing to travel to, how many rats you can carry in your vehicle and when you are available for transport.

Please let us know if you can keep some rats for a short period of time, until the next transport is available and how many you can accommodate.

Please send the information to the above email, as we have someone coordinating the rat train for us and they will contact you shortly. Once we have all the information and if we have enough people to help, we will then work with the adopters so they can choose the rat they want. Adopters, we will have pictures for you at that time.

Thank you, Star's Rat Rescue

You can view the Rat Train Map here. We still need East Coast Adopters to close the gap between New York and Philadelphia! I have volunteered to drive 1 to 1 1/2 hours outside of Philadelphia to surrounding suburbs or the same amount of time to New Jersey to transport rats to potential adopters. I'm also hoping to adopt two females myself from Brittney's rescue if we can close some of the gaps between states! Please cross post this if you can!

While the rat train is being organized, Star's Rat Rescue is still in need of donations. They especially need donations of food, bedding, water bottles, igloos, hammocks, etc for the rats. Please click here to donate!

Jen from Jen's Custom Crafts has a program where she helps rescues. She gives you 25% off and free shipping if you order and ship her products directly to the rescue. You have to order through a special page where the items are currently 25% off of her regular store price. Please visit this link! to order some hammocks for Star's Rat Rescue!

UPDATE! The Rats have been rescued!

5/25/10 Via Brittney from Star's Rat Rescue: So last night we got home around 12:30AM and where loaded to the roof in our car, the smell was SO bad that our eyes where watering, you could barely breath, the conditions where terrible and I can only imagine how all the rats felt. Staci from Capital City Rat Rescue who also assisted us in this very large rescue took 70 rats last night!

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I am re-posting this for one of my good friends; Brittney from Star's Rat Rescue. She runs and operates her rescue in Winner, South Dakota.

Below is a re-post from Brittney on the Rat Chatter Forums.

Breeder who is re-homing 300+ rats, Donation Link-Help Us Help Them!

Yesterday I had an email in my inbox from someone who had sent me a Craigs list ad about some rats needing help. Once I checked out the link I just couldn't believe my eyes "Large Rat Breeding Colony". (shakes head) I went onto read and this is what the ad said

I need to get rid of my rat breeding operation. So if you have a lot of snakes this is a must for you over 350 rats also have frozen rats all must go cages,water bottles,bedding,food everything is here you need.

This is not what I was expecting what so ever, I had thought that it was a couple of rats in need asap. Not the case at all here. I have been in contact with the people through text as that is what they stated on the ad. I have also talked this over with CCRR in NE about this and Staci and her rescue are willing to take in 10 females or 2-3 litters of babies. Which is a huge help and so sweet of her to do as about a year ago we also helped her out when she did a massive rescue of I believe 96+ rats and if anyone can imagine just how overwhelming that must have been for CCRR.

Now the problem is the private party does NOT want to give any of them away for free nor to a rescue. As sadly this is a business to them and they don't want to lose any money. The other problem being if we do decide to take in any of the rats it would almost just be helping the breeder as she would just keep having babies as no one is going to want that many rats. The breeder also stated she wanted $1000 for the live rats. Which is just insane.

Now the question is "What to do". The thing that kills me is no matter what even if we are able to save 30+ rats it would mean the world to those 30 rats. But on the other thought if the breeder still has females as I stated before, this will never end.

So we can use everyone's help right now rather it be suggestions, fostering, adopting or donations! As we do plan to also contact our local shelters, humane society etc. to see about getting more rats out of there.

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Update: We are not giving up on the 300+ rats. We have tried and tried and can not get them to go for free or cheaper. Which means we will have to pay to get them out of this situation. Right now we are working on getting all females and babies out of their so that there will not be any breeding going on. Then we can go back and get the males.

I have started a Chip-in link for anyone wanting to help by donating. Just $5 dollars will help save a rats life. Please Click here or below to donate!



Mrs. Rattitude from Rat Chatter is having a fundraiser to help out Star's Rat Rescue! She is donating all proceeds for her Rat Art Digital Pictures to Star's Rat Rescue. If you would like to help out, you will get a fantastic picture of your rat, other animals or even humans! Let's all help Star's Rat Rescue! Please click the link to help out!

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Update from Brittney on 5/17/10: Just want to update on our large rescue we are working on right now. As of now the lady has not be willing to work with us at all on selling the rats as they are wanting to sell it all in a whole or in pieces so that the breeding can continue. We are still in contact with them trying to get them to give the rats to us or as many as we can get for $350 and so far she only wants to give us maybe 34-40 rats for that price, which as we all know that is just crazy. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that they decide to work with us. We where also told the prices for the rats individually and for some reason they are playing games right now only wanting to sell the rats with cages and no other way. We even counter offered and still nothing.

I have been working with a friend of mine who also adopted from SRR and she has also tried calling and this breeder is just not willing to work with us. We are told we have til Thursday and then someone is coming to buy everything for $1500, which I know that is very untrue. So right now we are waiting to see if she calls us back and go from there.

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UPDATE 5-23-10: THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!! We are just overwhelmed with all the help we have been getting, you all rock!! We have talked to the breeder and have a set time to meet them at their house and pick up ALL rats tomorrow evening!! Which means we will be driving a 5 hour 1 way trip tomorrow and bringing back lots of rats!

Please feel free to re-post! Brittney's chip-in donation is until May 28th!

My friend Brittney operates Star's Rat Rescue in Winner, South Dakota. Brittney helps rescue rats in need and helps to place them in forever loving homes. You can see her current adoptable rats on petfinder.com

Brittney also makes hammocks, cage liners & cubes for rats. All of her proceeds go towards her rescue. For more information you can visit her store here.

I recently ordered a Ferret Nation cage liner set & two cubes from her rescue. (She has a great selection of fabrics so you can customize your order!) They arrived on Thursday and they were so nice! The cage liners were thick and soft. Each of the liners has elastic on the bottom so it will secure nicely in the cage. The cubes were adorable, my ratties really loved them!

Here are some pictures of my girls enjoying their cubes:
















































The girls cage looks so nice now with everything in it here are a few pictures:









































For more information on Star's Rat Rescue please click here.

Or if you own pets rats or are interested in owning them, please feel free to come and hang out with us at the ratchatter forums here.