#until i am down to fewer than 4 gerbil cages (goal is 2 gerbil cages)

[bufomancer]

I know I’ve been talking about downsizing basically forever but things keep happening. But since taking in these emergency rats it has REALLY driven home that I *need* to be much further from my capacity limit.

I am not rehoming any of *my* animals, but I am doubling down on my efforts to increase my number of outside fosters so that there’s fewer fosters at my house, and will be keeping much fewer permanent animals going forward.

I am not planning to have any forever rats (except sanctuary rats) going forward, or forever mice. Once my current ones pass I will not be getting anymore. I have 9 gerbils through various circumstances but my limit is going to be 4. I have 3 hamsters & will be setting a limit of 1-2 going forward. I am planning to have no more than 6-7 permanent rodent enclosures (currently I have 14, so I will be halving my numbers essential, as they slowly pass of old age.

Before I ended up with these emergency rats I was doing just fine, not quite at my limit but getting close, and now I am over my limit and not sure when that’ll change. I’m managing, but since I never know when the next emergency will happen I need to maintain more open space and more bandwidth.