Et cetera : New furry friends: FEMA Corps Spruce 2 helps Texas Rustlers Guinea Pig Rescue

Mark Parkhurst playing with new friend Speedy the rabbit.

By Holly Adams

On Saturday, May 11 members of the NCCC FEMA Corps team Spruce 2 volunteered at the Texas Rustlers Guinea Pig Rescue in Lewisville, Texas. Texas Rustlers is a nonprofit whose goal is to rescue and take care of abandoned guinea pigs, rabbits and other small rodents. Every year hundreds of small rodents are abandoned by their owners. They pose a threat to the ecosystem and usually don’t live very long. That is where Texas Rustlers steps in.

Spruce 2 helped organize the Rescue’s warehouse by going through and taking inventory of their donated goods including 1,259 cage connectors, 26 hamster wheels and 10 rodent balls. The Rescue was expecting a large influx of guinea pigs and rabbits do to a hoarding situation the next day so some team members put together cages for the new rodents coming in and lined them and prepared them for their new furry tenants. The key to having a happy and healthy rodent is to make sure you feed them plenty of fruits and vegetables so the team fed the current rodents a combined total of 1 cantaloupe, 4 and half heads of lettuce and plenty of parsley.

The team absolutely loved playing with their new little furry friends and was sad to leave at the end of the day. Corps member Tyler Richard said, “Saturday was a great day. I got to play with some cute animals and leave with the satisfaction of knowing that my work really paid off today.”