I think we all have a certain standard of care which we (and the RSPCA I guess etc) agree that domestic animals should receive - When I took Benny and Pepsi on in March I used to clean their litter trays every day and sweep out their shed...When I got the 5 girls in July I tried this for a week and not only bust a gut nearly but ran out of litter in about 3 days!
So I started doing the trays alternate days and sweeping the shed the other days....Now 15 guins have arrived - I carried on with the 'every other day' cleaning for a week and again nearly bust a gut and ran out of litter faster than you would believe...So now I have a cleaning diary and it's every 3 days for the girls (gallons of wee) every 5 days for tidy little Benny, and every 4 days for the guins....How my standards have dropped from when I first got Benny and Pepsi!
Then there's finding time for handling them etc, putting them out to run and all the other to-ing and fro-ing...
When do you get to the stage where you know you absolutely can't care for more animals? Or do you find that it's possible to just work 20 hours a day with 4 hours sleep?? What is a reasonable limit with small furries (ie cages that need mucking out and bottles that need filling and cleaning)? Is there a number beyond which you are merely holding a collection of animals, rather than caring for them properly? How would you know when your standards were too low due to lack of time and space, assuming they're all fed and watered properly - that's the easy bit :?
So I started doing the trays alternate days and sweeping the shed the other days....Now 15 guins have arrived - I carried on with the 'every other day' cleaning for a week and again nearly bust a gut and ran out of litter faster than you would believe...So now I have a cleaning diary and it's every 3 days for the girls (gallons of wee) every 5 days for tidy little Benny, and every 4 days for the guins....How my standards have dropped from when I first got Benny and Pepsi!
Then there's finding time for handling them etc, putting them out to run and all the other to-ing and fro-ing...
When do you get to the stage where you know you absolutely can't care for more animals? Or do you find that it's possible to just work 20 hours a day with 4 hours sleep?? What is a reasonable limit with small furries (ie cages that need mucking out and bottles that need filling and cleaning)? Is there a number beyond which you are merely holding a collection of animals, rather than caring for them properly? How would you know when your standards were too low due to lack of time and space, assuming they're all fed and watered properly - that's the easy bit :?