Hair Loss and Weanlings iching...

I am hoping that someone can help me out with a few questions and maybe someone else may have experienced these same weird occurences...

First off I have had my breeding colony of ASF for about a year now. I originally purchased rats from 5 different colonies and started off with about 50 breeders.
I did this to avoid any serious inbreeding issues.

I have bred them with success for this entire time without any weird happenings until recently when I noticed that my weanlings started scratching alot. Soon after they all started loosing there hair and go almost completely bald before developing the adult coat. After the hair grows back they do just fine and I have fed all these off because I did not want to introduce anything genetic to the breeding colonies.

Now with that said I am extremely OCD in insuring they are not deeply inbred.

I breed just about every color pattern their is and it seems to have gone across all the colonies and has since stopped. I check them for fleas, ticks, mites the whole 9-yards and can not find a single thing that would lead me to believe they are under attack by any of these blood suckers.

I feed all my rodents quality lab block and a vita rat mix made up of fruits nuts seeds and grains. I only give them the vita rat feed every other day and only a sprinkle as a treat so that the lab block is the staple food source. Fresh water is available daily and changed regardless of the resevoir level every 2 days.

The only thing I can think of is that I recently started a few new colonies and wanted to put all the color patterns of the like together and try to figure out the genetics a little more... Again not inbreeding. In doing this I had to replace a few females that were in with nursing females to accomplish this. So here come the questions...

1) Could the change of females and the nursing had anything to do with it? The original female that dropped the litter remains with her young but the possibility of new females and them nursing is my question. Could the other females milk affect the young? I didnt think so because of the community raising throughout the females.

2) Possible food allergy? I have used the same lab block since day one and never had these problems before. Possibility of contaminated food source? i.e. food purchased was spoiled. Not likely to me because I always buy it when they have fresh shipments. Lab block of choice comes from the SUNSEEDS company located here in florida and is spot on to mimic the more exspensive brands yet it is still not cheap in reality.

3) Possibility of food allergies do to vita rat mix? it contains a mixture of all seeds and grains along with nuts and dried fruits.

4) Possibly weaning to soon? I always insure they are no longer on the mothers teats before moving to raise up bins but I figure not to leave anything out.

Other than that I am at a loss. Hopefully someone else has had this happen and can pass some insite as to why. Thanks for all of your time in reading this long rant and thanks 2 all those who can help.... J

I have been having that same thing happen off & on with a few of mine, not every litter

What are you using for bedding? Could it be causing irritation?

I use kiln dried pine, I used to use aspen.

I don't think either of those two would be irritating. If it was red cedar or pine that wasn't kiln dried, I could see issues cropping up.

A hamster I kept had spontaneous fur loss on her back. It was very odd, and since she was a pet, she was taken to a vet who had experience with rodents. He suggested that she could have a fatty acid deficiency, which can lead to hair loss. She was given a few drops of cod liver oil on a graham cracker three times a week, and it cleared up. While it is less likely, it could be because of a nutrient deficiency.

The other reasons could be diet related still, such as an food allergy or excess protein (which can lead to hair loss in rats and mice). Studies have shown allergies can be genetic, though the parents aren't exhibiting symptoms, and you have such a wide pool of breeders. In mice and rats though, wheat is a common allergen, and the vita rat mix has plenty of it. But the lab block should provide adequate nutrition since it is designed to be complete.

Wish I could be more helpful than just adding possible theories. I've kept rodents for many years, but only once have encountered a skin problem (if the aforementioned hamster).

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Originally Posted by llovelace

I have been having that same thing happen off & on with a few of mine, not every litter

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Yeah, it is on and off with mine also. Glad to hear someone else has dealt with this. Sorry, not glad you have dealt with it but happy it is a little more common.

Like I said before, it is the first time in over a year and I can only pin-point it to being a bad order of lab block. I have since called sunseeds and they readily offered 3 new shipments of my equal shipment value for free. They didnt even hesitate which leads me to believe it is a complaint they have been receiving.

Also they mentioned that they have recently changed the recipe also and improved on it so hopefully that narrows it down.

Dont know if this helps but I just got the email today and hope this will help you also.

Later, J

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Originally Posted by Stacykins

I don't think either of those two would be irritating. If it was red cedar or pine that wasn't kiln dried, I could see issues cropping up.

A hamster I kept had spontaneous fur loss on her back. It was very odd, and since she was a pet, she was taken to a vet who had experience with rodents. He suggested that she could have a fatty acid deficiency, which can lead to hair loss. She was given a few drops of cod liver oil on a graham cracker three times a week, and it cleared up. While it is less likely, it could be because of a nutrient deficiency.
The other reasons could be diet related still, such as an food allergy or excess protein (which can lead to hair loss in rats and mice). Studies have shown allergies can be genetic, though the parents aren't exhibiting symptoms, and you have such a wide pool of breeders. In mice and rats though, wheat is a common allergen, and the vita rat mix has plenty of it. But the lab block should provide adequate nutrition since it is designed to be complete.

Wish I could be more helpful than just adding possible theories. I've kept rodents for many years, but only once have encountered a skin problem (if the aforementioned hamster).

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I will try this starting tonight, to see if it helps

LOL, I have a different approach....

Once I know my food is good, and my water is good, and my substrate is good, and my keeping up with keeping stuff clean is good and I still have such a problem... I feed off said balding babies to make sure they don't some day become breeders, WHALLAH! problem is solved.

I very rarely get the hairless red obviously uncomfortable stuff any more.

A general rule that I have found works VERY well for ASF's...

When in doubt, feed them off. Now only if human children were so simple!

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

LOL, I have a different approach....

Once I know my food is good, and my water is good, and my substrate is good, and my keeping up with keeping stuff clean is good and I still have such a problem... I feed off said balding babies to make sure they don't some day become breeders, WHALLAH! problem is solved.

I very rarely get the hairless red obviously uncomfortable stuff any more.

A general rule that I have found works VERY well for ASF's...

When in doubt, feed them off. Now only if human children were so simple!

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I was wondering when you'd chime in :P, I can't feed off appetizers lol.

The OP stated in the original thread that balding ASFs are already getting fed off so as not to introduce them into the gene pool.

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Originally Posted by Stacykins

The OP stated in the original thread that balding ASFs are already getting fed off so as not to introduce them into the gene pool.

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Yeah I have been feeding all of them off. Dont want that blood line dancing with the ladies in the future, if you will...

Now like I said I am OCD and will be conducting a study to see where and how this happened. I have the original breeders that produced the offspring but they have since been seperated from males...

I have the original sunseeds and vitarat mix remaining and will be testing to see if either of those are what gave me the problems...

Thanks to all that have commented...J

Just a quick note about a discovery I made with a few of my weanlings this afternoon!

I, too, started noticing hair loss and itchiness in my weanlings about a week ago...the adults were perfect, though! I am also a stickler about cleanliness...I only have 3 lab-style cages set up with the parents in one and the weanlings/grow-outs in the other 2 separated by sex. I disinfect their cages weekly and use pine pellets for bedding and Mazuri lab block as a diet. I began to worry about microscopic mites that take advantage of immature immune systems as it was only the babies that were affected (ie. Demodex). I took a few of the kids to the clinic with me this afternoon and did a quick skin scraping...sure enough, found mites but of the sarcoptic variety! Fortunately, they are highly host-specific so can't infect humans or other animals...but they do make the babies miserable so I opted to euthanize everyone but the parents and went ahead and treated mom and dad.

Anyhoo, thought I'd throw this out there if you want to do a quick rule out of mites...like I said, I would never had known as they didn't affect the parents like they did the babies and the babies only showed a little hair loss and itchiness (no scale, dandruff, etc.).

Hope this helps!

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Originally Posted by GoBoilers

Just a quick note about a discovery I made with a few of my weanlings this afternoon!

I, too, started noticing hair loss and itchiness in my weanlings about a week ago...the adults were perfect, though! I am also a stickler about cleanliness...I only have 3 lab-style cages set up with the parents in one and the weanlings/grow-outs in the other 2 separated by sex. I disinfect their cages weekly and use pine pellets for bedding and Mazuri lab block as a diet. I began to worry about microscopic mites that take advantage of immature immune systems as it was only the babies that were affected (ie. Demodex). I took a few of the kids to the clinic with me this afternoon and did a quick skin scraping...sure enough, found mites but of the sarcoptic variety! Fortunately, they are highly host-specific so can't infect humans or other animals...but they do make the babies miserable so I opted to euthanize everyone but the parents and went ahead and treated mom and dad.

Anyhoo, thought I'd throw this out there if you want to do a quick rule out of mites...like I said, I would never had known as they didn't affect the parents like they did the babies and the babies only showed a little hair loss and itchiness (no scale, dandruff, etc.).

Hope this helps!

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What did you treat the adults with?

Actually treated the adults with the feline flea product Revolution...just put one drop on each rat and repeat in 1 month. Selamectin (active ingredient in Revolution) is in the same family as Ivermectin (the gold standard, apparently, for mite treatment). If you have cats, you should be able to pick up Revolution at your vet clinic! I even put a small drop on the 1 week old pups...I didn't have the heart to euthanize them and just hoped that the Revolution wouldn't kill them...so far, so good! Obviously, none of these guys will be fed off for months, so I'm not too concerned about the snakes...they've now got a plentiful supply of f/t. :)

I had an issue with mine losing hair but it was due to heat in the garage once I moved them to an A/C building the hair loss thing went away. Probably not the same reason as yours but thought I would mention it.

Just an update, I tried the codliver oil on graham crackers for a couple of days before I left for the mountains, came home and all the little ones are fine & full of fur in a week. :). At least I know mine isn't a mite problem

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Originally Posted by llovelace

Just an update, I tried the codliver oil on graham crackers for a couple of days before I left for the mountains, came home and all the little ones are fine & full of fur in a week. :). At least I know mine isn't a mite problem

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Glad to hear they've "furred up!" Stay on the look-out, though...some mites (like the kind I had) only become obvious on young animals because of their immature immune systems. As the rats grow up, their immune systems strengthen and they are able to keep the mites "at a dull roar" on their own...ie. Juvies and adults may only harbor a few mites because their immune systems keep them in check...but as I found out, they wreak havoc on the babies. If it happens again (or consistently), you may want to have it checked out by a vet!

Is there anything that can be sprayed in the cage on the substrate to kill off mites and there eggs? My weaned soft furs are doing the same thing.

Fortunately, these particular mites live out their entire life cycle on the host. Ie, they don't live very long off of the rat. The eggs actually stick to the fur as opposed to falling off (like fleas). So this means means a couple of things: 1) It takes close, physical contact to spread these guys and 2) any mites/eggs in the environment aren't going to live very long so all you need to do is change out the bedding frequently to be on the safe side.

Unfortunately, this also means that the rats, themselves, must be treated in order to kill the mites. I'm having good luck with Revolution so far...but like I said, I won't be feeding these guys off for months to be on the safe side.

I put the Hartz cat drops on them last night. I think that helped. They don't seem to be itching much if at all today.