1 + 1 = 16

or 18, or 25......

It seems that Small Animal Rescue never gets animals coming to them one or two at a time.....no unfortunatley, it's 8, 10, 15, 25, 32 all at once.
Everytime I think to myself, why not look for help after the *first* litter....why wait until there have been 4 litters born, the babies are now breeding with their siblings and "oh yeah, the mother is pregnant again"...

In the past few weeks, we've had calls from someone with 18 degus, 15 gerbils (mixed group so that number will go up exponentially), 6 guinea pigs (again mixed group), various pairs of rabbits and then the owner of an unaltered pair of rabbits and their 3 year old thought it would be nice for them to be friends.

We suggested that she get the female spayed right away however she emailed back to let us know the neighbour took them, impending kits and all. I have a feeling we'll be getting a call to re-home 12 rabbits in a few months from now.

To add to the frustration, when a shelter gives our number to people, the people tell us the shelter could only accomodate maybe 4 of the 18 max.....that's good but *seriously* where do the other 14 go.

What do people do with small animals they can not get rid of? Most of the time, they just let them go. One lady called once with a degu she took out into the back yard, opened up the cage and waited for him to leave.....once she realized he wouldn't leave, SARS got the call.

Anyways, I don't think that people realize the scope of the problem. One guinea pig plus one guinea pig makes 5 guinea pigs and if you don't split them up immediately, the mother is pregnant again and the babies will be soon as well.

I think a math lesson is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy overdue. The animals don't add - they multiply.

Oh yeah....did I mention the 51 chinchillas (most pregnant)