I, Tami, am Social Rats. I am the owner of Social Rats Adoptions, which is my rattery and breeding program. I also head up Social Rats Rescue, which is a network of rat lovers, breeders and rescuers that help by taking in, caring for, socializing and loving rats in need. This may include pregnant and nursing females, groups of rats from other breeders who either have too many or wish to no longer breed, owners who, for whatever reason, can no longer care for their belAiken Feeder Foods ved friends and, on the rare occassion, we will pull pregnant females from breeders at some of our local reptile and animal shows.

Let me try to explain to you about each part of the 2 entities that together, are Social Rats Adoption and Rescue.

Social Rats Adoptions is my rattery. This is my personal pets, my breeders, my babies, my retired breeders and any rats that I have from previous litters that are up for adoption. I do have breeding goals that I strive for, but some of these goals will evolve as I do evolve as well. As any person should, I continue to educate myself and I continue to grow and learn. I like to continue to challenge myself and work to improve my lines in both health and temperament. I may find that, in the work I do, with other breeders, that I am able to get ahold of rats of good health and temperament that I did not realize that I would be able to, so my goals change to reflect this. I like the different colors, such as the blues and Red Eye Dilute colors, so I want to work with these. I love the look of the dumbo, so I plan to continue my work with them. I like the look of some of the different marked rats like dalmation, possum and masked, so I plan to work with those as well. Sometimes it will take a few breedings to get the markings that I am trying to breed for, so it will take a few generations to get those.

As I have room I plan to breed more towards these. However, at the time of this writing, I do not have much room for those types of breeding, so it may be a bit before we get to that point.  

Please keep in mind that I will also take in rats under my rattery rather than through the rescue network. These are rats that I have been verbally granted breeder's rights to, so are not considered rescues. If asked, I will let an adopter know who I have breeding right to and whom I do not.  

Social Rats Rescue network is the network that was originally started by a friend who started the rescue and I met through the Chicago CL. We agreed together to start an official rat rescue, using the name from my web site, since I already had the name and web address. However, she is the one who started to take in rescue first, so she is actually who started it. As we realized that I had more resources as far as that went, more room, more leeway with my landlord on the rats, the site, and the time (she was a college student) we agreed for me to take over the rescue before she even was thinking of moving.

So, since I am a stay at home mom, my job became the rescue. I do all of the web site stuff, currently all of the CL stuff, all of the Social Rats postings on GooseMoose, along with caring for the rescues in my care. Now that I have someone who is running a second adoption and surrender facility in Lebanon, IN, I share the adoption and surrender responsibilities with her, but when it comes to a rat or group of rats being picked up, I am usually the one who is picking the rats up. When I refer to "we" or "our" or "us" on this site or my listings, I am usually referring to my husband and myself, as he is the driver and helps with pics and advice when I do not know what to do in a situation. He will sit and listen, help me to figure out options and we will make a choice together on a transport, a rescue or when it comes to the health of a rat and if we should take that final step and help them to cross the bridge.

Social Rats Rescue is a volunteer based rescue network that takes in, rehabilitates, socializes and cares for rats which are no longer able to be loved and/or cared for by their previous owners. We are not a 501(c) charity. We run on our own funds and profits from items we sell. We also take in pregnant and nursing mothers. We work to find homes for those who are in need in the Chicago and Indianapolis areas. We do screen all of our prospective adopters to be sure that each rat adopted will find a permanent home with them. 

We do not take in aggressive rats, since some of the fosters, myself included, have young children and trying to work with aggressive rats with young children in the home is not an easy task. What we do work with is pet rats (not feeder rats, this is based on temperament and what they were bred for, not color or markings). We do not go to pet stores to "rescue" as this is not a rescue but a purchase. We usually only take in owner surrenders.

Although some of us have taken in rats that we have been called about, from pet stores, this is not the same as purchasing a rat from a pet store and calling it a rescue. These are rats that are surrendered to us, fee free. We may, however, depending on temperament, purchase rats from a reptile show and help them to become pets. Usually this is limited to pregnant females, but exceptions are made. We do this with the knowledge that this is a purchase, not a "rescue".

Together, the 2 entities become Social Rats Adoption and Rescue.

I believe that most of the issues with our rats is not mainly genetics, but mainly the soy based food that many ppl, all pet stores and almost all feeder breeders feed their rats. While I do have a blog up about this  http://socialrats.blogspot.com/ I will explain a bit of it here for you.

When I had rats 20 years ago, we have them (about 12-18 of them) in a wood bottom cage, on cedar bedding, mixed male and females. We had litters often, obviously since rats left with unrestricted access to each other will breed and breed and breed. THis is the nature of rats and I have no doubt that we supplied a few pet only pet shops with all of their rats, very social and loving, for a few years.

What we did not have was any cancer, any URIs, almost no health issues at all AND we never had litters at less than 4 months of age. Our females did not go into heat until 4 months of age and we never had sneezing or congestion and our only health issue that we did have was a female that had multiple, repeat abscesses that eventually lead to her death. You can read more about her and our rats of yesteryear on the blog.

We I have discovered, quite by accident and the help of a friend, is that soy may be the cause of all of our rat issues. This is the basis of the blog and the reason why we feed a compleely soy free diet to our rats. THis means reading labels and giving supplements to keep them healthy, so we can not get away with just feeding the rats the same thing everyday. They get a base diet, that starts with Browns Tropical Carnival rat mix (the only commercial soy free rat food I have found so far) and mix in various cereals and oats, then supplements a few times a week.

I sell meds and food to help other rat owners and to help support my rats and my rescue efforts. I sell cages and accessories that I can find cheap from my distributors, way cheaper than any pet store does. All in the help of the rats.

If you are thinking of starting your own breeding program, let me know where you are and when you would like to start and I would be willing to help you get started. The most important advice I can give anyone who wants to start breeding or house more than 4 rats in your home, that you keep amoxicillin on hand at all times. It is cheap and safe for all rats. Although, I am happy to say, once I stopped using soy, the only illnesses I have had are from my lab boys (which were not exposed to anything in litter, unlike most rats) and rescues. None of my own rats have gotten sick since stopping the soy, which tells me something right there.

I also want to point out that any rat that I breed or I take in, I feel I am responsible for. I will take them back, if they can no longer stay in their current home. I will not EVER sell rats for feeders!!!

I am pointing this out because someone in Lake Station IN took in a bunch of rats, because he, supposedly, wanted to do what I do. Run a rattery and a rescue. I want to warn ppl that what I do is NOT easy and was not easily accomplished. I have taken the time to build up my site, my business and my reputation. To be sucessful I know that I must be willing to bend, I know that I must sell products besides just adopt out rats and I know that I must have a set of ethics and stick to them. I will defend the Social Rats name because I am SOCIAL RATS!!! I know that half of the homes I find for these guys are found because of my reputation. Because I have an open rattery, which means that I do allow others into my home and into my rat room. I want ppl to see how rats should be housed and cared for. While I am always working on upgrading my rattery, I also keep a detailed records of my rats and my funds that come into the rattery. I may borrow money from my rat fund, because, let's face it, times are tough, but that money gets paid back to the fund.

I will not ever, no matter how deep in debt we may be, ever sell my rats for feeders because they ARE NOT FEEDERS!!! The rats I take in are declared pets once they pass through my doors, whether they were or not to begin with, they are now. I will not go through the feeder bin at a pet store and pick out the "pretty" ones and declare them pets. I will not go to a reptile show and "rescue" rats. I do, I will admit, have some rats from the All Animal Expo that I intend to use in my breeding program and I will tell you why. Because I believe that the issue with rats now is NOT so much genetics as it is food. I plan to breed them because I want to prove this point. The babies will all be "pretty" rats because I want them to find good homes, but I also advise ppl not to feed the rats they adopt from me soy. SOme of these rats are females that were, or I believed they were, pregnant, so the babies of those rats are  what I would consider, to be rescued. But on a regular basis, I do not go to the animal shows.

When you adopt you will be signing a paper that states that these rats are soy free and that should you keep them soy free that they should have a longer life span. While I can not say this is positively true, the research that I have done leads me to believe that it is and I have gone full into this soy free program. I do ask that everyone who adopts let me know date and cause of death, when this unfortunate time does happen. I need to know for my records and for my study, who is on soy and who is not and I need to know when they pass and from what. By doing your part as an adopter, of letting me know this, it will help rats in the future. It will let us know if they are, in fact, going to live longer than rats who are fed soy. This is why I do not insist on a soy free diet for those I adopt, but do request it. If we can prove that soy actually shortens the lifespan of rats, maybe we can work to have it pulled from commecial pet food.