SITH Rattery hosts a pet rat show called Ratstravaganza that is geared toward being fun for the whole family, including the ratties.  Our 9th BC pet rat show, will take place on Saturday February 11th, 2012.  Click here for full details on this show, including links to past show results, show photos.  Up until now this has pretty much been an annual event but we are going to be taking a break next year and may or may not resume holding shows in 2014.  If you have always wanted to attend a BC pet rat show, this may be your last chance for while.

At SITH and Small Joys Ratteries, it has also become a bit of a tradition to hold a vegetarian friendly pot luck style rattery open house party at least twice a year at one rattery or the other.  If you would like to be on the guest list for the next one, please email us. Our objective is to provide local rat lovers with an opportunity to get together and socialize with like minded people.  It’s an opportunity to share information, ask questions, show off photos and brag about your rats to an audience that is actually interested in listening!  We also usually try to time for when we have  cute babies for everyone to play with. 

SITH Star checks out the cookies at a past SITH Rattery Party

The theme of each event may change, but those who have attended previous SITH and Small Joys Rattery events, will know that one thing never changes -- We do insist that you leave your own wonderful rats at home. This is to protect both your rats and ours from exchanging infectious diseases or parasites.  I would further ask that you avoid visiting a pet store that sells rats, or another rattery on the same day as the Open House, and if you have sick rats at home, or have reason to suspect your rats may have recently been exposed to an illness, (see the main page of the RatsPacNW website for details) or if your rats have come into contact with wild rats, please let us know, so that we may discuss additional precautions to keep everyone's rats healthy and safe.   Unlike with other animals there are no vaccines to protect our rats from the many contagious and potentially lethal rat viruses.  These viruses are airborne and can live outside the body of a rat for 3 hours or more.  The most common source of these viruses are petstores that sell rats.  I have known people who just went into a petstore to buy dog food and didn't go anywhere near the rats, yet still brought a lethal strain of SDA virus back to their rats.  It takes a week to 10 days for rats to show symptoms of SDA virus, so if there is any chance your rats may have been exposed, please don't take any chances.