1000 rats rescued from hoarder's home up for adoption

An unusual rescue mission in the South Bay is underway as animal groups sought to find homes for more than a thousand rats that were discovered during the filming of a reality television show. The population all started with one pregnant pet rat whose owner didn't separate the males and females of the litter. The rescued rodents were taken to Andy's Pet Shop in downtown San Jose and will be featured in an upcoming episode for A&E's reality show "Hoarders."



Danville-based North Star Rescue was one of several animal groups which recently recovered the animals from a home near Palmdale where one man kept them as pets. “The house was literally covered in rats,” said North Star Rescue founder Lauren Paul. “There were rats in every room. Hundreds in every room, so you had to walk carefully not to step on any of them.

The pet shop's extra room was covered with stacks of containers with rats inside waiting to be checked by a veterinarian. In the last 24 hours, 25 baby rats have been born at the temporary rescue shelter. “We had three litters born last night, two the night before,” said Andy's Pet Shop manager Zoe Thoel. “So it's been nuts. Our estimate is about 1000 to 1200 without the new babies being born.”



Workers have wrapped cages with extra wire to prevent any rat escape. The rats won't be up for adoption until December 5th. The shop has already received calls from as far as New York by people interested in taking on a couple of new pets. The animals will be spayed and neutering and adopted in pairs of boys or girls.

With news video. There's a photo gallery here.