Feeder rat problem . Any insight appreciated .

Mites would definitely be my first guess. They scratch, and scratch and get scabs all over.

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Thank you very much new2dis . Interesting read with a lot of info I have never seen . Appreciated !

My guess are parasites such as mites, pretty severe infestation to show like this IMO.

When rats bite each other it's a lot more gruesome.

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I had one rat from Big Cheese who had some sort of skin condition. Not as bad as that one but it was missing some fur and had kind of scaly looking skin where the fur was missing. I gave that rat to the cats instead of the snakes. Cats are tough ;). And probably snakes in the wild eat all kinds of diseased rodents but no reason to tempt trouble if you don't have to.

I can imagine one janky-looking rat slipping past quality control but if there are more than that in your shipment you should contact them to file a complaint.

A huge thank you to all who have posted there opinions and have shared info . I do appreciate it . A complaint has been filed with this company so we shall see . Not expecting much , but I will be quite interested in hearing back from them . Thanks to you all again for your input .

That is a great Article maybe a mod could save this here on BP

That looks like a bad mite infestation.

What is the company? I am getting ready to order rats, I dont want any of those.

Thanks for the input jeanne . I don't want to deliberlty throw any company under then bus , but for the sake of people like me and you I will say it's probably the largest most well know company for feeders . I discarded the "infected" rats sent a email and hopefully this won't happen again. I've never had any issues what so ever with this company , aside from this .

Absolutely without a shred of doubt, mites. A really bad case too. Those rats were miserable before they died and were likely kept in really crappy conditions. rodent pro is my guess on source. Try to find a local source and support your community breeders if you can. One of the reasons some companies sell so cheap is because they sell crap like this. It won't hurt your snakes if they eat them, but I'd take a pass on any future business with whoever they came from.