But of course the cats decided to go get it. So the next thing I knew, Stephen was carrying it in all cupped in his hands. He ended up putting it in a plastic box in the garage. I mentioned that what we needed was a snake person, and we talked about how we should probably put it out of its misery and kill it. Stephen, not being an animal killer in general, spent some time later in the garage with a large spatula in his hand, thinking he should whack it, but in the end we are big chickens and neither of us could kill it. We thought it would just die during the night, but in the morning when I went to look, it was still alive.
So I did a Google and discovered that there is a lot of information out there about how to care for wild baby mice and rats. Soak a piece of bread with milk and drip it in their mouths. Feed them soy milk. Esbilac. Kitten milk replacement. Make sure it doesn't suck in any air because rats don't burp. And my personal favorite: be sure to massage it's backside so it can go to the bathroom. I also found a website that described the differences between a mouse and a rat, which is when I figured out that it was a rat.
So of course I started feeding it. Several times a day. And once during the night. And massaging it to make it go to the bathroom. And Stephen put little felt mice in the box to keep it company. And of course we had to take a picture.
It may be crazy, but it seemed like the right thing to do. And one of the things I like about us is that we do these things.
After a couple of days I posted a message on craigslist that I needed help with a baby rat. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were plenty of people out there with lots of information. I also discovered that there is woman known as "The Rat Lady" in Chico. I emailed her and got a response right away that she would take him. A couple of days later we brought him to her house. We were amazed and impressed by the number of rats (in cages) she had in her house. There must have been a dozen cages in what was once a living room. Some of the cages were rigged so the rats could scamper up a tube and sit up on top of the cage. We also found out that she was an advisor on the movie, "Ratatouille" which we had thought was very well done for a cartoon. She told us that we had a roof rat and assured us that she would take care of the little guy until he was old enough to be released in the wild.
Anyway, now the baby rat has a new home and we can get back to normal around here. Until the cats bring in another critter we'll need to rescue.
