Recently we announced an official partnership between HUHA, NZAVS and the University of Auckland where we will be rehoming groups of rats regularly from the university. This is a huge win, it’s not often that an institute using animals for science, opens its doors and decides to work with animal advocacy groups to help change the lives of animals in a positive way.
Just recently, we got 51 more rats from the University of Auckland!
The rats will be desexed and microchipped, ready to be adopted. Please be mindful that these animals are still quite shy and will require homes where they are given lots of patience, time, and love! We have a strict vetting process in place with HUHA to ensure that they will live out their best lives.
A special message (meet one of the rats we were able to rehome from the University of Auckland):
How you can help
1. Adopt!
Rats make great companions and are easy to train (especially when treats are involved!). We need to find suitable homes for over 50 rats and we’re willing to rehome them anywhere in the country!
These rats were bred at the University of Auckland but have not been used for research or testing. They have had limited handling, but they are very sweet and should do well in a caring environment.
However, we are looking for kind and patient homes that will appreciate that they may not be able to be handled for a little while and may take some time to adjust to their new life and new surroundings. We ideally rehome them in pairs as this seems to help with the transition and offers them some familiarity.
There are both male and female rats available of different ages and they have all been desexed and vet checked.
If you can’t adopt rats yourself, please share our Facebook or Instagram post about it with your friends and whānau.
2. Gift food, toys and cleaning supplies
We’ve had some incredibly generous donations so far from caring Christchurch locals. If you have spare rat toys or food, then you can send them to our Freepost address:
NZAVS
Freepost 258132
PO Box 9387
Tower Junction
Christchurch 8149
Items we’re in need of:
- Dry food
- Toys for enrichment (i.e. chew toys designed for rats)
- Compostable cleaning wipes
- Litter (we use a litter that’s made from recycled paper – it’s better for the environment and doesn’t have dust like many of the other types. You can see an example of this here).
You can also share our Facebook and Instagram posts about this with your friends and whānau to help increase our chances of getting these items gifted!
3. Donate
If adopting or gifting items isn’t an option, you can always make a donation to our Out of the Labs campaign. Any donations made towards this campaign are shared equally between NZAVS and HUHA.
A bit of background info:
Launched in 2014, the Out of the Labs campaign is a collaboration between NZAVS and HUHA.
Over 15,000 people signed our joint petition, asking the government to introduce a mandatory retirement policy for animals used or bred for science. From this petition, the government started developing initiatives to support rehoming – a good step in the right direction!
Over the past few years, we’ve been able to change the fate of many animals. We’ve helped rehome rats, mice, zebra finches and pigeons!
Of course, this isn’t the only work we do, we aren’t an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – we are change-makers! We work hard to make systemic changes at the core of this industry so that we will one day see the end of animal experiments. However, it is important that we as the primary charity defending animals used in science, make the time to help these animals wherever possible.
