Just my luck...

So we started breeding rats or trying to at any rate, in order to get out own food supply going, which I gather a lot of people do when they have a lot of snakes. It's been a few weeks and our rats are growing, but have yet to produce any babies. My husband is the main rat guy, I just check on them and hold them every once in awhile. There are a couple I actually really like out of our breeders, that have names and outstanding personalities.

Seems all is going just fine, right? Okay so maybe not. As it turns out, every time I hold a rat for longer than a minute I get hives. I have never been allergic to any animal before, that I am aware of. Yet it never fails... every time I hold one I come out of it with four, five, sometimes more hives. Itchy red areas with little bumps that go away with a little time, but god do they itch bad.

Just my luck that I would turn out to be allergic to rats, right? An animal I have to have around in order to keep my snake obsession going. Bleh. :P

I'm allergic to my ASFs, so I know how you feel. :P I'm the only one who takes care of them so I try to get in and out of there as soon as possible.

Yeah, I'm allergic to my rats too.

Are you sure it's not mites??

It could be mites. I beleive rat mites also bite humans. But don't quote me on that.


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I see gloves in your future.. No offence

I don't think its mites. I have the same problem as the OP. I have never been allergic to rats, but I get those rashy bumps when my skin comes in contact with their claws. As someone who works with clean mite free laboratory rats often, I have come to a conclusion that it may be a similar reaction as cat scratch. As most know, cat scratch is full of bacteria. When handling rats, most people are unaware of the rat's claws penetrating the skin. While rats are generally clean animals, their feet and claws are not. So this opens the skin to allergens and bacteria the rat may be carrying on its feet.

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Originally Posted by mastaxaph

I see gloves in your future.. No offence

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lol This! - Your facing a dilemma, money vs. comfort. I would choose money but I'm cheap. LOL (don't get any ideas! That's not what I mean)

I highly doubt it is mites. My husband has not come up with those little bumps and he handles them more often then I do. Also they do not last. They pop up, itch for a little while, then are gone within and hour or two. I think that the claw thing mentioned above sounds like it might be the case. When I reach in and pet them, I do not end up with the little bumps, it seems to happen more when I get poked by squirmy rat claws... so maybe it is something to do with their little claws? Who knows... since it isn't something that lasts, I cope. My husband thinks I am crazy for still handling them, but it is just slight irritation for a little while.

Been there honey, done that.

I am severely allergic to rats. Not mice, not hamsters, not gerbils, not ASF, not guinea pigs, not rabbits, but rats. Every time I hold one, where the claws touch me I get itchy red bumps. Sometimes they go away in an hour or so, sometimes not for a few days if they actually scratch me.

Wanna know something really weird ? Babies don't affect me. Not until they hit about 6 weeks old. I can play with little rat pups, they climb all over me, scratch me with their tiny claws, and it doesn't faze me. Once they hit 6 weeks old, the allergy kicks in.

Worse than that, I get what feels like I imagine an asthma attack must feel like when I clean the tubs. My eyes water, my nose clogs up, then my throat closes off. I cough and gag and wheeze. Once or twice when it is particularly bad, my husband thought he was going to have to take me to the hospital because I simply could NOT breathe. Now I got smart. I wear a simple surgical mask when I clean, and have no problems. So whatever causes it is airborne.

My best advice if you have to handle the rats ? Benadryl. You can buy the generic stuff cheap as water at Wal-Mart. Take one about 15 minutes before heading into the rodent room and it will cut the hives down a LOT.

Gale

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Originally Posted by angllady2

Been there honey, done that.

I am severely allergic to rats. Not mice, not hamsters, not gerbils, not ASF, not guinea pigs, not rabbits, but rats. Every time I hold one, where the claws touch me I get itchy red bumps. Sometimes they go away in an hour or so, sometimes not for a few days if they actually scratch me.

Wanna know something really weird ? Babies don't affect me. Not until they hit about 6 weeks old. I can play with little rat pups, they climb all over me, scratch me with their tiny claws, and it doesn't faze me. Once they hit 6 weeks old, the allergy kicks in.

Worse than that, I get what feels like I imagine an asthma attack must feel like when I clean the tubs. My eyes water, my nose clogs up, then my throat closes off. I cough and gag and wheeze. Once or twice when it is particularly bad, my husband thought he was going to have to take me to the hospital because I simply could NOT breathe. Now I got smart. I wear a simple surgical mask when I clean, and have no problems. So whatever causes it is airborne.

My best advice if you have to handle the rats ? Benadryl. You can buy the generic stuff cheap as water at Wal-Mart. Take one about 15 minutes before heading into the rodent room and it will cut the hives down a LOT.

Gale

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I disagree with you about the airborne hypothesis. I work in medical research with lab rats. I think the rashes and your asthma are two different things. You are most likely allergic to rat dander than the bacteria on their feet. Or perhaps you're allergic to the bedding? You mentioned that it only happened when you cleaned the tubs...

Also, the reason why rat pup scratches don't affect you is because rat pup claws aren't long and sharp enough to pierce the skin as an adult.

I only say it's the rat claws giving the rash because in the lab, there are specific ways to hold rats. The area where the rats sit on my arm is the only place that gets the rashes. (Their claws go through the lab coat into the skin)

my wife was the same way , and we found out it was he aspen bedding, since we went to cages insted of tub and use shreded papers no hives. so try different bedding for the rats and good luck

My issue isn't airborn at all. I can be in the same room, even when the tubs are being cleaned, and have absolutely no issues. I also do not believe it's the aspen, because Crawly is still in Aspen and so are my two kenyan sand boas and the little rash does not appear when I handle them... not even when I have to dig through the aspen for the sand boas. (Lemme tell you, fishing through a 20 gallon long for something thats only a couple inches long, can take awhile!)

It seems more like that what Satomi said is true. I do not get the rashy bump things when I touch the rats. I can sit there and pet them for hours, it's only when I hold them that I get the little bumps. They look like mosquito bites almost... just a little puffy area of skin that goes away in an hour or two and itches for the first 10 minutes or so. It doesn't break out in huge patches, maybe four or five at most when I have been holding them for a long while.

The time when it happened the worst, we had just picked up two new females to ad to our colony and they stank terribly, so I gave them a bath in a tupperware tub. They were struggling of course, so it could have led to more nail pricks? It seems to make sense when I think about it.

I just bought a bag of aspen for the first time. Up till about a week ago, I was using granule bedding. And at work we use corn cob bedding and carefresh.

So its not the aspen affecting me either.

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I have been having the same problem wow it's very common I see now every time I go in to handle the rats I have the same reaction I get the bumps and they itch really bad and then it goes away in a short period of time I couldn't understand what was happening to me but it happens a little while after handling them do glad I seen this post it really helped put me at ease

Rat claws do that to me and so do my short tailed opossum's.

I pick rats up by the tails and the possum gets a strip of sandpaper clipped onto his wheel every so ofter. This fixes the problem with both kinds of vermin.