Got nothing and everything done today

And yes, that is possible.  To get nothing and everything done today.  So, I had a whole list of things I was planning on accomplishing today.  Wrote that up yesterday evening.  None of that got done.

On the other hand, late last night I planned with T (my rat guru) to transport terrified-rat to her, as well as picking up another rat and mouse from a shelter, before I made it to Niles to get them to T for transport to Critter Camp.

So, the day started out with a dentist appointment, followed by coming home and getting terrified-rat into his carrier.  He was NOT pleased.  I hooked on a water bottle and got myself a baggie of lab blocks and a food bowl to give T so she could feed him in the meantime until she could get him to Critter Camp.

terrified-rat in his carrier

Note: these are all pics from my phone, hence, they're not very good pics.

So I get his carrier in the car, grab another cat carrier, and the three hole ryerson carrier, just in case, because I had been told that there might be other critters to pull from the shelter.  The shelter must remain nameless as there's already so many politics in place to deal with, and such difficulty getting animals out of this place, that I can't draw any more attention to it and make it more difficult for us.  We'll just say it's in the chicagoland area. 

So, I make it to the shelter, ask for my contact to be paiged, and she comes out.  Shows me the black hooded girl that I'm transporting to T.  Nice lady, we chatted about the idiots we run into due to the rescue animals.  I could spend pages going on about ignorance of people and the excuses people make.  But I'll just touch on the relevant/big ones.  For the female rat that I would be transporting to T -- apparently, it was too much work to keep one rat.  For Ziggy, the mouse that I was originally transporting to T, but now has taken up residence at our rescue -- the wife told the husband he couldn't keep a pet mouse because it would attract the wild mice which would start to come in the house.  Uh-huh.

One more -- apparently this shelter got in a ferret with a broken spine (but apparently alive).  So, my contact asks the lady dropping off the ferret, how did this happen?  She tells her that the kids (4 and 6 I think) were washing the ferret and literally wrung it out.  Like a towel.  So my contact says something like "oh this is horrible," and the lady was like "well shit happens."  Shit happens?!?  They wrung out a ferret breaking it's spine.  That ISN'T what that phrase is meant to be used for!  Apparently my contact said something along the lines of "how would you like it if your son did this to your daughter???" which makes me give her a mental high-five, but the lady couldn't have cared less.  My contact said the shelter did x-rays but the spine was literally shattered so they had to put the ferret down.  I don't even like ferrets, yet I want to wring that lady's neck and see what she thinks of it.

Oh, one more.  But first....  So, the shelter didn't have much in terms of small animals -- leading to T's thinking that they put them down when the animals come in the door -- and this is why people should drop off small animals at private rescues -- very few private rescues will put anything down, with the exception of something already on death's door.  I was informed that anything over 5 years old either has to go to a private rescue or is put down.  5 years!!  I mean, for a rat that'd be ancient, but for a dog?  Or a chin?  That's not even "senior"!!  Turns out, beyond that age, the shelter can't give a health guarantee, so it's not worth it for them to adopt out the animal. 

So there were some birds and a macaw and two healthy looking rabbits on hold, and then two angora-type rabbits that looked a little rough.  Turns out, they had been dropped off today? yesterday? recently, anyway, and they had been bought as snake food for a 4' snake.  So, the snake bit em each, quite a few times, but wouldn't/couldn't eat them, and so the people brought them in.  They didn't look too bad, but upon prompting by my contact, I reached out touch them -- absolute skin and bones.  It was like touching a skeleton.  Sunken in and everything.  The fur hid most of it, I would have just thought maybe the rabbits were in a fight or something.  So, the person dropping them off had said that they'd had them for a week, and when asked what they fed them, oh... nothing.  Right.  So, my contact had to de-matt these rabbits and hand-feed them and get some pineapple juice in them to help push things along, and she said they were doing a little better, but I tell you, these rabbits did not get that skinny in a week's time.  I feel like if someone's going to admit that they're bringing in rabbits that are snake chow, full of puncture wounds and skinny to the bone, why not already admit how long it's taken for them to get that way?  I will never understand people.

Anyway, so I knew about the mouse being there, but the shelter was only set up for a transfer of the rat, so I asked about the mouse, my contact showed me the mouse, and I asked if I could take the mouse as well.  So, they managed the paperwork for that as well, so then I got the mouse. 

Drove up to Niles, met T in a parking lot, where we handed off critters.  T asked if terrified-rat had a name, which I told her, he didn't, so she dubbed him Norman (like Norman Bates).  We transferred Cheese (the female rat she was taking from the shelter) to her carrier, she oohed and aahed over the cuteness of Ziggy  (the mouse), and then we went our separate ways.

I came home, got Ziggy out, got bit (never fails, I know how to pick them), and got him in our small critter cage.  It could use a good scrub but I hadn't been expecting to be bringing a mouse home, so that's for another warm day.  He liked his wheel at the shelter so I pulled out a wheel, got him all set up with his little house that the shelter sent with him, added one of our houses, an igloo, a tiny little hammock, food/water, some chew toys, a little ball (as big as him lol) for him to push around.  Over-stimulation.... complete.  Lol.

most of the stuff in Ziggy's cage

top of Ziggy's cage

bottom of Ziggy's cage

Ziggy munching on his little house

Ziggy chillin' in the hut-thing the shelter sent with him

Ziggy on top of his house

So... once I was done with that, a realization occurred to me that today was Thursday, and as trash is Friday morning, that means... cage cleaning.  So, I started with the runs.  I figured, I'd look in and see if Puff and Squishy had gotten along yet, and if they had, I could move them to the one holding cage.  Well, so I look in the run and I see this white chin.  And my first thought is, wait, my only white male in a run is Myshkin... and that was not Myshkin.  So... Puff had dismantled her three part collar and had gotten in the run.  Apparently it's my year for females with collar problems.  Next to her was Squishy, who looked confused, as, yet again, there was a female chin in the run with him.  So, got him out pretty easily.  She was another story.  Puff is... how should I put it.  Stubborn.  Like a mule.  She did NOT want to come out.  But, run forks and a pancake-squished chin later, she came out. 

the face of determination

Threw her and Squishy into the bottom of a FN so I could work on the runs, and moved Nytro into Haku's cage.  That... could have gone better.  Haku decided he was the dominant male and wanted to make Nytro into nytro-burgers.  But, once he got over the initial "there's a male in my cage" -- they seemed fine. 

So, I weighed all the chins, most maintained, a chin or two dropped a bit, but nothing super serious.  So, started cleaning the runs.  Put Squishy and Puff into their holding cage, continued along, checking collars, cleaning the runs.  Continued along until I got to the bottom run.  Since I'd gotten Puff out, now there was just Lexi on the far left, and no male in there.  So I went and got Ace, put him in the run, and went to go get Nikki.  Now, Nikki was still in half an FN, recovering from her scalp wound that had to be sewn up.  So, I get her out, and I have a collar out, thinking I will get it put on her, and I notice a pink spot.  Thinking that it maybe was just an area where the fur hadn't grown back, I blew on it, and saw no injury or anything but upon feeling it... there's a quarter-sized lump that's raised up from the skin quite a bit.  Wonderful.  It's always something.  So, no collar for her, I put her back, filled up her food bowl (though all the other pets had been fed today, since I'd been thinking she was going into the run I hadn't gotten hers), and closed the door.  She will be visiting the vet in the morning.

I suppose on a positive note, she did gain some weight.

So, once the runs were done, I cleaned some guinea pig cages and started cleaning the FN's.  Got the right three done, and completely switched over to liners again.  Looks good.  The rest will have to wait for next week.

Got everything vacuumed and picked up, and took the trash out.  Answered a few emails about the rescues and such, and that was the day.  Dunno where it went.  Hopefully more things on my list will get done tomorrow.  I think the only thing I crossed off today was "weigh chins." 

Unrelated to anything... but I saw this picture opportunity and had to snap it -- a new breed of guinea-pig, the leg-less!  

this is Lacey, our four-legged American gp