We understand that there are many reasons people may need to surrender, and there is no 'type' of person who surrenders. We have a culture of non-judgement here, our goal is to support your rats and yourself with transparency, compassion and understanding.
The process is:
- Submit the surrender form below
- Our team will contact via email to arrange an appointment at the rescue
- Attend your surrender appointment and help our volunteers to fill in as much info as possible
- If you would like updates, you are welcome to email in and ask at any time
Our goal from that point is to care for the rats, hopefully they will at soeme point be healthy and happy enough to be adopted, otherwise they will remain with us.
The more information we have, and the more open and accurate it is, the easier and better care we'll be able to provide from the start, especially for rats with medical needs. Remember, we aren’t judging, so if you have to tell us they haven't had vet care, or that they've been outside or living in a mouse cage, or they have mites/lice/respiratory illness, aggression - PLEASE tell us. If we don’t know what is happening for your rat, we might put them in a big colony and stress them out, or a volunteer might not know not to put thier hand in the hammock and get bitten, or we might not discover a medical issue until it's too late. The more we know the best we can support your rats in their transition and keep our other residents and volunteers safe.
The only times we have refused a surrender is in situations where our involvement would have enabled further animal welfare problems. For example, a pet store buying stock from a backyard breeder and asking to offload the sick rats as they pop up.
If you would like to rehome your rat yourself, you are more than welcome to copy our adoption questionnaire to help you make sure they are going to a good home. We advise screening carefully to avoid people looking for free rats for live snake food.
If you're looking to surrender, fill out our surrender application form below and one of our team will be in touch within 48 hours.