Rehabbing wild birds or taking in unwanted exotics, is expensive, and not tax deductible for us, according to the IRS. So we had to economize as much as possible. Fortunately, Jim can build anything. He built the muse, flight pens and cages to hold my rats. Raptors need meat and buying rats at a pet store was too expensive. We were often given frozen chicks to feed but ultimately we had no choice but to buy a few rats and breed our own. At one point I had over 500 rats and was able to supply other rehabbers.