UGG! I think my rats have lice...Help!

you might also toss a moth ball into the Garbage when you change litter then bundle up the bag and take it away. I hate all those little blood sucking insects... kill them all!


birds eat insects birds eat insects my personal mantra of why they should not all be eradicated from the planet...

You can use Revolution on rats-basically just a drop per and repeat every 2 weeks for 3 times. Or you can give ivermectin injenctions weekly for 3 weeks. Of course you needs some sort of vet acces for these. Or work in a clinic

Don't use Diatamaceous Earth!!! That stuff is friggin messy as all getup. You'll have dust everywhere in no time, and it doesn't work. It does work on indivudual louse, but the amount you have to use, and dusting the cages, you'll hate the stuff... Not to mention, while it is safe for consumption, breathing it in can be hazardous. It works like little knives, rough microscopic edges, that break the louse's exoskeleton, causing it to dehydrate to death. But, enough of it breathed in, can cause irritation to your lungs.... Trust me, I've been down that road...

As for Provent a Mite, yes the stuff works wonders, but it's too expensive to use in each cage, even though it lasts an entire month. PAM is made with permitherin. That is the mite/louse killing agent in it. Go down to Home Depot/ACE/Lowes, get a gallon of Bed Bug and Flea spray, made by Hot Shot, uses permitherin, a slighly lower percentage, .2% to PAM's .5%.
Spray the cage, not the animals. I spray around the edge of each tub every single week when I clean. While it won't kill the mites on the rats themselves, they won't have anywhere to go, and will die shortly. You will thank me later, trust me on this... I've been using it for a long long time. When I buy it, I always get funny looks, because I usually buy the store out!
I use it on my entire buildings, inside and out about once a month. It works! Don't try all the hocus pocus mumbo gumbo, they don't work, or barely work, I've tried them all.

As for infestation, rat lice are species specific, so they won't infest other animals, not even mice. Mice get mites too, but a different species. They will however, try them out! We used to get a flare up every once and a while before I found the permitherin. They will bite humans as well, but they don't feed on us, but it's annoying as all.

When we moved into our new buildings a couple of years ago, we got absolutely infested. I brought in two seperate pest companies, one wouldn't even touch us for fear of killing animals, the other tried, but failed miserably. Once I started using Hot Shot, they started dying off, and within a weeks period, were off the animals, looking for new places to go, because I couldn't spray inside my store(fish,birds,reptiles, etc) it took another week to 10 days before they died off completely.
I use it religiously now, and the absolute only time I ever see, feel a mite, is when I bring in animals from another source, and they don't last long.

You can get ivermectin at feed stores...
But, I've tried that as well. It does work, and work well, but it's a pain to give each individual rat an injection or a rice sized bite of the ingestible. There's a pour on ivermectin as well, but it's too strong, even the sheep version, and it will kill alot of your animals...

Those bugs look like fleas to me.. Anyone else agree? I thought lice were white. I may be wrong, but from lice checks back in elementary school I remember it being harder to detect them in blonde hair. Dont ask me how the hell I remember that and not my history tests..

There are hundreds of species of mites/lice...
These are not human lice.

They do however, look more like tiny fleas...Mites, are super tiny.
Permiterin will take care of those too....

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Originally Posted by cdavidson9

Those bugs look like fleas to me.. Anyone else agree? I thought lice were white. I may be wrong, but from lice checks back in elementary school I remember it being harder to detect them in blonde hair. Dont ask me how the hell I remember that and not my history tests..

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They are white on a paper towel when photographing them and they look brown on the rats. I think it probably has to do with them being full of blood (or maybe the little dark spot is just their innards) or because they are so transparant.
Either way I hope the treatments you guys suggested will work on either fleas or lice. :)
whatever the hell they are I dont want them!

Generic head lice bedding spray works well too, it's basically the same chemical.
Ivermectin works but won't kill the eggs so the stupid bugs just come back over and over.
Hot shots no-pest strips helps keeping them gone, as does spraying Pyrethrin once every 5 to 6 weeks.

Jerry, do you use this on the bedding? I use it to spray borders around all my racks, caging, doors, and room perimeters in my reptile room, but I'm concerned with the toxicity of it. Is it really safe for treatment of bedding?

I'm having a problem with wood mites right now. They get on me and bite. It drives me nuts. While I seem to only have them in that room due to bags of bedding and rat racks, I can't seem to completely get rid of them. Every time I think I have, they pop back up.

Wood mites i take care of by using No Pest Strips under the racks. I rarely see them but if i do they dont last long.

And i have used PAM on my rats bedding years ago when my cat got fleas. Treated all the furry animals bedding let it dry and everything worked out well. Just dont feed live out of that rack for at least a week to two weeks.