All four of our girl mice were adopted, leaving us with two remaining boys. One goes to his new home Saturday. One wonderful boy mouse remains for adoption!

Considering the recent news on rat bite fever, I thought I would post some information and some links to information about it.

Rat-bite fever is a rare disease spread by infected rodents.

Most people get rat-bite fever through contact with urine or secretions from the mouth, eye, or nose of an infected animal. This most commonly occurs though a bite, yet some cases may occur simply through contact with these secretions.

Symptoms are fairly similar to flu symptoms with the addition of a possible rash. 

It would be prudent if you are seeing your healthcare provider about flu-like symptoms, you should mention you have rats (assuming you indeed DO have rats.)

Links:
The CDC
The Rat Fan Club (Debbie Ducommun)

I found this webpage to be pretty informative and interesting regarding the age of rats. Perhaps you might find it interesting as well!

Congratulations to Kevin & Jamie for adopting Blizzard and Inga!

Hey, hey! We're now listed on www.petfinder.com so that must mean we are cool! I added a Petfinder tab below the adoptable rats tab. It's redundant, but...I wanted to! Maybe I'll take it off again when I'm done being excited. Actually, listing the rats on Petfinder made me come up with some sentences to describe each rat so the majority of our rats have the same description under their main picture on their individual page. That's not confusing. Click rat pictures and look for words, you'll find it eventually.

Additionally, we are now listed on The Rat Fan Club's adoption page. Woot!

Today I added a page under the Questions Answered page about rat introductions. It's not an easy subject to write about because each introduction is different. I've had many rats that we were able to just plop in an existing cage and everyone's fine. I've had others where a rat gets sliced open. I've had rats that slept through the night together in a hammock wake up and remember that one hates the other one.

So the best I can say on this subject is take your time and read before acting.

Today, I added the Questions Answered page under the Education tab. I decided I wanted somewhere to direct people when they have some of the more common questions about rat ownership. My answers are not the last word on the subject, but rather what I understand of it at this time. Most of the time links are included for you to conduct your own research.

I also added a link on the housing page to reviews of the Critter Nation by our adopters.

Today we had Dot, Blizzard, and Emily on display at Petco in Fox Chapel. They were excellent rat ambassadors and they drew some attention from many visitors. Blizzard got to be in a photo shoot with a little girl because the mother wanted to show her off later. Dot was very impressive at one point. I put her back in the cage into the litter box, she moved right out and ran upstairs, then a couple moments later ran back downstairs and peed in the litter box. Impressive, because they often pee wherever they happen to be. Dot also got to help me eat my chicken sandwich!

The box of flyers from Vistaprint came in! I wish I could demonstrate better how good they look. They are a little bit glossy, good paper, and very professional looking. Well worth getting them.

Congratulations to Amy Kostie and her son for adoption one of our remaining boy mice!