Senior Animals

I've had a lot of people asking about fostering lately, which is always a good thing, but unfortunately, we don't have endless cages to lend out!  I do want to talk about fostering and senior animals, but first -- if anyone has any cages -- whether chinchilla cages or smaller, more like guinea pig type cages, that they'd like to donate to the rescue, we'd definitely appreciate them, as we could get more critters fostered out this way!

Just so we're all on the same page, ideal cages would be either multi-level chin cages or the smaller, about 30 x 18 size guinea pig cages, something like these:

Chinchilla cages are good as well, but these work for a lot of fosters too, because, as they are smaller, they are easier to transport and maintain.

Anyway, back to fostering.  So, a lot of people have asked why we're not fostering out the young chinchillas, and the main reason for that is that they're usually here such short periods of time, that it doesn't make much sense to have them leave and then get adopted from the new home in a few days.  Also, with the young chinchillas, we get a lot more people who want to see several of them... so it's easier for people to come here, where they all are, and handle multiple chins, and then pick, as opposed to going to multiple places.

So, that begs the question, what animals would I like fostered out?  That would be the less adoptable adults and the seniors.  Why?  For the less adoptable adults, often they need more time and effort being handled to become more comfortable with people, and in a foster home, they can get more of that one-on-one attention.  For the seniors... honestly, some of the older ones live out the rest of their lives at the rescue, and I'd rather they do that in a home where they can have more attention and love.. at least, more than they might get here, being one of many. 

We actually had four senior rats at the rescue.  Note the word: had.  They came in this past summer, and even at that time (which is now 6 months ago), they were all either 2 years or 2.5 years old.  Well... most rats don't live past 2-3 years, which makes these guys pretty much unadoptable.  In fact, if we get rats any older than 18 months... they are super hard to find homes for.  So, with these guys, they were basically just chilling here.  Every so often, people would ask about them, but I didn't have them listed... and then the other day, one of our previous rat adopters came to look at some of the baby rats that we have available, and saw the cage of boys.  In an awesome stroke of luck, they called their husband and the family agreed to take on all 7 of the rats! (the four adults and 3 male babies)  YAY!

Of course, this is sort of the exception to the rule, but this is AWESOME, because now they can enjoy their time in a big cage, enjoying life, for however long they have left.  I got an email after she got home...she was hoping to introduce the four seniors to the 3 babies... and the email said,"Introduction went great! All of them are snuggled up together! It was meant to be!"  Also awesome.  And look at the adorable pic:

Happy Rat Pile

So, if you're thinking about fostering, remember, the ones most in need of your love and care aren't necessarily the young ones, but rather, the older ones that either need help trusting in people, or the seniors that could use a nice retirement home... in case another doesn't come along.

Oh and psst... we do have an awesome senior rabbit in one of our foster homes that would love his forever home for Christmas.  Check out Ziggy on our website!