Help. Important!

Hi everyone,
now alot of my breeder rats has what seems to be bumps all over there ears, like something biteing them and makeing them appear. There lake scabs.

What are these ? What should i do ?

thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PYTH0N BOY

Hi everyone,
now alot of my breeder rats has what seems to be bumps all over there ears, like something biteing them and makeing them appear. There lake scabs.

What are these ? What should i do ?

thanks

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rats can get mites and lice, i'd check for both. they can also develop allergies. what are you using for bedding?

Just delt with this myself and spent a week researching it, so heres what you do.

Basicly they are mange mites, nasty little buggers but theres hope. Now there are a few diffrent ways you can fight this. One of them involes going to the feed store and doseing your rats with a product called ivomec. Its a paste used for worming horses. You give your rats a rice grain size dose on days 1,7 and 15. it fights the mites from the inside out. There are however a few drawbacks to this method #1 is ivermectin, the active ingedient in ivomec, stays in your rats for 30 days after the last dose so they are no good for feeders until then. #2 is ivermectin has been shown to be passed from mother to offspring in milk and it kills your pinks. So there no good for breeders either. #3 is it is very easy to overdose your rats with ivomec.

Ivomec is better but harder to get right and your production shuts down.

Fortunately there is an easier way.

Go to any of the big box stores or your pet store and pick up a flea and tick spray for use on Cats and Kittens what your looking for as the ingredient is Permethrin between.05 and .06 % as long as its good for cats you are good to go. Dog flea and tick spray will kill them. Mange mites have a 21 day life cycle so you need to treat for 3 weeks. Spray down rat and bedding on day 1,7, and 15. Just be sure to rinse any rat that has been sprayed or been kept on sprayed bedding before you use it as a feeder. Using this method feeding and feeder production can go on as usual without having to call a lhalt to the whole thing.

Now then all that being said. I am on week two of trying the spray method I have used sprayed and rinsed rats as feeders with no ill effects. I got the method from a local person who breeds rodents for feeders on a large scale. The ivomec method I got of various places on the internet, mostly from pet rat sites who use it because they dont have the issue of having to feed off a medicated rat.

Thanks for that mate, im just going to kill them all and refresh new breeding stock.

If the rat has these mites, can i feed the rat to my snake ?

Or can i feed F/T is i put the rat in the freezer first ?




Once i kill them all off. Im going to get the flea spray, wash the tub well. Spray it on the beeding ect...

Just ot be safe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PYTH0N BOY

Thanks for that mate, im just going to kill them all and refresh new breeding stock.

If the rat has these mites, can i feed the rat to my snake ?

Or can i feed F/T is i put the rat in the freezer first ?




Once i kill them all off. Im going to get the flea spray, wash the tub well. Spray it on the beeding ect...

Just ot be safe.

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You can feed off mite infested rats to snakes. Mammal mites are different than reptile mites. I would be a little leery of feeding unhealthy rats to my snakes, but it should be fine.

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Originally Posted by SlitherinSisters

You can feed off mite infested rats to snakes. Mammal mites are different than reptile mites. I would be a little leery of feeding unhealthy rats to my snakes, but it should be fine.

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great stuff.

going to raise all the babys up away from the adults and then once im ready ill kilL ALL adults and scrub rack and tubs and bring the babies in :D

thanks mate

I would recommend Proventamite. I think that's what its called. It was safe enough to spray on the snake and the substrate. I don't know about rat mites but I would try it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomfromtheshade

I would recommend Proventamite. I think that's what its called. It was safe enough to spray on the snake and the substrate. I don't know about rat mites but I would try it.

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i know its good for snake mites, but i wpuldnt think enyone could recomend it if you dont know if its good with rat mites.

Ill just kill em all and refresh stock, i cant be botherd with them lol :D

I've used PAM on mice mites before with great success and no ill effects on the mice or pinks. Sprayed it in the tubs and on the bedding, let it dry, mixed it up a bit, and re-applied one more time then let it set for a couple hours outside.

Never saw them again after that. It was a bad infestation too, I tried PAM as a last resort before I ditched the whole colony and started over.