Updated: 5/14/10

Still needs some tweaking, but this is the basics.

Below you will find our code of ethics when it comes to breeding and rescueing, as I have had some ppl that seem to think I have a conflict of interest.

Our Breeding Ethics:

1. We only breed healthy, well tempered rats. We look at color and markings last, not first.

2. We will never breed a female more than 3 times in her lifetime. If she was previously bred, we do not add 3 on top of that, but a total of 3 times.

3. Females that have issues with a pregnancy or delivery are immediately retired. We will not intentionally risk their lives for more offspring.

4. We will not breed a female from another breeder or another person without first getting breeding rights. We will inform that person of our intention to breed before breeding and attempt to get as much family background as possible.

5. We do have breeding goals, but we may stray from those goals in the interest of education. If we wish to learn more about a particular rat's genetics, we may do a test breeding with a rat of known genetics to see what we come up with.

6. We will not breed rats that have known health issues such as cancer or aggressive tendencies either in them personally or in the family history.

7. We will never breed a rescue!

8. We will never cull a litter, no matter the reason. Injured and disabled babies will live their lives out here. We enabled them to be brought into this world, we will give them the best life that we can while they are with us.

9. We will never knowingly sell for feeders or feeder breeder purposes. We do try to screen for these reasons to ensure that all of our babies and retired breeders (those we adopt out) go to pet homes.

10. We will not breed unless we have room for all of the babies as adults. If we are unable to find them homes, we will keep and care for them until it is their time to cross over.

11. We will not let a rat suffer needlessly. We believe in helping them cross over, if needed. We treat all conditions as soon as discovered, even if that means putting them to sleep.

12. Females will not be bred before 4 months, preferring to wait until 6 months old before breeding.

13. Males, unless they come from our own lines, are not bred until at least 1 year of age, preferring to wait until at least 18 months, to ensure that they are healthy and not aggressive once their  hormones kick in.

14. We give a minimum of 6 weeks rest between weaning a litter and rebreeding. If that rat was used for a foster litter, she will be given more than the minimum time to recover from nursing.

Our Rescue Ethics:

1. We will never breed a rescue! It does not matter how healthy, how loving or how pretty he or she may be, they will never be bred by us.

2. We love our rescues as much as our own rats and they get the same love and attention as the rest of our rats.

3. We feed a soy free diet, just as we do with our own rats, to help ensure the best possible health we can.

4. We usually try to find homes for our rescues before our own bred rats.

5. We believe in keeping things as natural as possible, so do not believe in spaying or neutering, unless medically needed.

6. We know that rats can decline fast if not treated fast, so we do keep meds on hand and have taken the time to educate ourselves on how to diagnose and treat most rat illnesses and injuries.

7. We will not adopt out rats that are known to have health or behavioural issues. Rather they will become sanctuary rats and will live their lives out with us.

8. We will not go to pet stores to "rescue" rats as we know this is not a rescue but a purchase.

9. Normally, we do not go to places like reptile shows to "rescue". If we are there for other reasons, such as supplies, we may go to a feeder breeder that we are familiar with and purchase some of his friendlier pregnant females. We believe that although we are not "rescuing" the mother, we are rescuing the babies.

Please keep in mind that we do NOT hold ourselves to your standards, or those of the rat community, but we hold ourselves to our own standards. We follow our own code of ethics, even if other ppl do not follow our code of ethics, it works well for us. It has allowed us to do a few things that most rescues or breeders can not do.

1. We have successfully integrated a rescue into a breeder's rattery, not once, but twice now.

2. We are self sustaining. While our Lebanon, IN facility is still working towards that goal, we have discovered, through the Chicago one, that it can be done in less than a year.

3. We have cut our costs, but not at the cost of the animals. This is something that most ppl have not found how to do, but we have managed to do it through hundreds of hours of research and the willingness to learn and educate ourselves.

4. We have learned to balance rescue work with family and home. A lot of times rescue work will interfer with home life, or vice versa, but we have managed to find a middle ground that works well for our family and allows us to be able to truly care for the rats.