Provent-a-mite on rodents?

I somehow have lice on my rats again.. I think they came with some rats my cousin gave me.

Anyway I've been using a mite and louse treatment made for birds.. but all the warnings on the label make me really nervous! The real problem with it is that it doesn't kill the eggs.. I know provent-a-mite does! Is there any reason why I can't treat the rat cages with it?

Go to the feed store, pick up a tube of 1.87% ivermectin ONLY horse deworming paste. It is around $5. Give an UNCOOKED grain of rice sized dose per rat once per day for 2 weeks. It works well on external parasites as well as internal parasites if you have never had a fecal on them.

Some of mine liked it when we had tropical rat mites here, and some put up a big ol' hissy. I just put the dose on my finger, restrain rat, and shove my finger against the side of their mouth so they have to clean it off. Works well and will get rid of the lice easily.

Please don't use the PAM. Maybe on the carpet around the cages so as to prevent the spread of the lice, but not in their cages. They would ingest it somehow. You can always use Kitten Revolution(selemectin) and it lasts a month, but I prefer to use the ivomec as the selemectin sometimes has mixed results.

Good luck, and maybe consider giving the tranquil ones a bath in some Dawn/Palmolive.

Ok. I have some puppy/kitten shampoo that kills the lice. I can bathe them in that. It worked before. I'm really paranoid about putting stuff on them because if there's any trace of the stuff on them the snakes are going to eat it. Do you recommend I bathe the rats before they are put into the freezer to get rid of any possible residue from the treatments?

What do you mean by residue? I wouldn't bathe them in the puppy/kitten shampoo, I have never trusted any brand that does that except for one in particular sold at a veterinarian.

Just use the ivermectin paste orally once per day for 2 weeks and the lice will be gone, no bathing needed. It won't hurt the snakes as the ivermectin will more than likely be out of their system a week later.

Oh ok. I just have a terrible time with lice.. never think I'm rid of them! One problem is that I have a ton of young and baby rats. I wouldn't think I could give them the ivermectin too.. can I? If I can't, won't the lice just hang out on them?

The babies, don't worry about it, but the older ones just use half the dose of the adults. If the babies are still nursing, I believe ivermectin crosses the milk barrier, so they will get some protection from the lice. You could try bathing them in the kitten shampoo, but I've known alot of products like that to cause seizures and death, so just be careful with it.

You an also spray the Provent-A-Mite on the carpet in the rat room, but don't let it get on their cages or anything, they might lick it off.

I used the shampoo before several times.. even on rat pups with no problems.

Ok I got a tube.. they all seemed to say anthelmintic and boticide.. is this ok?

~rise up oh dead topic!~

I was wondering the same thing as the OP about POM and rodents. I've stopped my in-house rodent breeding for a time to re-think/organize how I want to do it. Anyway I've started buying rodents from a women who runs a pet store. At first things went pretty good and the animals looked healthy but the last couple times not so good. I usually keep the rodents for a week or so especially this time because they where just not clean. I keep them in tubs and give them as much food/water as they want. This last batch of mice is looking even better visually over night.

Backup to yesterday...being that I'm not a bit nervous with the quality of the live rodents (they are fed pre-killed) I wondered if I could treat their fresh bedding with POM so I did some searching. I found this on Ralph Davis's website in the first page of search hits:

Quote:

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Lately all I use is POM for mites..........it works every time...........I had a bad experience with lice in my rodent collection a while back..........nothing I did would get rid of the rat lice............and the vets and professionals I spoke to said that the lice were really not a problem..........they were species specific.............and that they would just live on the rats...........they would not hurt me or my snakes.

Well I hated the fact that their were lice around............even though they are not easy to see.............you just know that they are there and that bugged me.............anyway...........BK did not work at all.................so I called Bob Pound............he said to use the POM in the bedding...........or to spray the POM on cotton balls and let the rodents bed in it..........

I chose to just spray it in the bedding...............We did this once a week for a month.............not only did the POM kill the lice................but it killed every bug that even came close to the rat room..........there were dead flies, moths, worms, spiders.............you name it ..............everything was dead!!

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In that last line "everything" does NOT include the rodents he was treating.

Reading this was enough to convince me...I have POM in my herp supplies so I treated the bedding. I gave it a lite spray in each tub (rats/mice) I then agitated the bedding to "mix it up" and each tub got some drying time outside.

Already yesterday evening I had a mouse in bad shape I would guess nerve/neurological damage as he was leaning heavily to the side...practically laying over. When attempting movement it was more or less in a circle and could not get to food or water...I took his misery away. I noticed he had some bite/chew marks under the tail close to the base of the spine also.

Now today I have another mouse who is showing similiar signs of leaning over and and while CAN still get to food and water walks in the same cicular pattern but not as bad as the one I found yesterday. This mouse was seperated with easy to reach food and water for observation.

Now I'm worried if its the POM doing this?? Or severe inbreeding which takes pretty deep in-breeding I had thought? OR something related to the conditions at the shop I purchased them from. At this point the other remaining mice are fine. The rat tub was treated in the same manor as I said but I have not seen any of them having issues.

I'm thinking I will dump the bedding to be safe? I've raised mice for years but this one of the few times I have done any sort of "treatment" and the first time with POM. Would it affect them this quickly? One nearly dead in just a few hours and another looking that way the next day? I did not pick the mice nor inspect them aside from putting them into my own containers when I picked them up but that would not have been long enough to see these signs.

Any suggestions, comments, or experiences?

I would say it's the POM. I've never had any just die from bad genetics or anything like that. They're pretty hardy. Those mice could have grabbed a piece of bedding as they always do, and chewed on it, getting the poison into their system, and killing them. I would not use that bedding if you've sprayed it all.

Thoroughly clean out the tubs to get rid of any residue, even in the rat cages, and replace them with clean bedding. If you need to, go to a feed store or another similar store and pick up Zodiac Kitten/Puppy Powder. It gets rid of fleas, mites, etc and is very gentle. You can even use it underneath your snakes' bedding as a preventative measure.

Also, you can treat every rodent that comes in your door with a small dose of Ivermectin paste(1.87% horse paste, usually costs around $5). Dose is an uncooked grain of rice once a day for 2 weeks(or until fed off). They should do fine with it and it won't affect the snakes any.

Yeah, I'm almost positive it was the POM......POM is only for treating mites that feed on snakes-they're species specific. THe mites that rats get are different than the snake ones.

Actually, it's an all-purpose spray and will kill any insect. You can use it as a room barrier too. It contains pyrethrins, if I'm correct, and that's a general purpose insecticide. I don't think the spray specifies which insect it actually can kill, but that it is reliable in killing snake mites(meaning it has been tested and approved for use in snakes only).

It just seems odd to me that someone like Ralph Davis uses it in the same manor I did. I suppose maybe it wasn't "exactly" I sprayed the bedding itself...maybe it should have just been the bottum of the empty tub?

They will get fresh...untreated bedding today for sure. This was purely a preventitive measure, I was not able to actual see any mites, lice, etc but I wanted to be sure as they where not well groomed when I picked them up.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Changed out the bedding yesterday, no other rodents showing signs...in fact some are getting a little frisky which is a good thing ;) The mouse I pulled looked pretty good this morning, was inquisitive, had drank a good ammount of water, is eating well, and doesn't seem to be falling over himself as much.

I'm planning on sending an email to RDR for advice and his practices with POM and rodents just for my own clarification.

Just curious if you ever got anything back from Ralph on this subject?

I have actually thought of how cool it'd be to use PAM in my horses' stalls.. no flies..?! But there would be too much of a risk of them ingesting some, by eating their hay or by stepping from the would-be-treated bedding onto their hay and eating that. I would never treat mammal habitats with it, because it is not made for that and as Becky said, they could ingest it. But I do use it on my windowsills when bees come in! (not near any animal cages.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shelby

I somehow have lice on my rats again.. I think they came with some rats my cousin gave me.

Anyway I've been using a mite and louse treatment made for birds.. but all the warnings on the label make me really nervous! The real problem with it is that it doesn't kill the eggs.. I know provent-a-mite does! Is there any reason why I can't treat the rat cages with it?

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Thats crazy i had the same problem, and my buddy who owns a bird and fish store gave me this louse and mite spray for birds and it worked like a charm, i sprayed the bedding and that was it.

I have a Pyrethin sprayer (for horses) in my rat room it sprays every 15 minutes a light mist. I have had this system for 5 years and since have not had ANY bugs what-so-ever(if anyone wants more info on it let me know).

Pyrethin are safe for use with your rodents

...though PAM has pyrethin as the base ingredient it also has some "other" ingredients that make it "last" and keep on working. It could be these extra ingredients that cause the issue. It is proprietary so we don't know what they are.

I recommend you go to Wal-Mart and pick up a can of Equate bedding spray (designed for lice about $4 a can) it has pyrethins and works like a charm.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

I have actually thought of how cool it'd be to use PAM in my horses' stalls.. no flies..?! But there would be too much of a risk of them ingesting some, by eating their hay or by stepping from the would-be-treated bedding onto their hay and eating that. I would never treat mammal habitats with it, because it is not made for that and as Becky said, they could ingest it. But I do use it on my windowsills when bees come in! (not near any animal cages.)

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But they make pyrethin sprayers for your horse barn that have the same active ingredient...that work perfectly. Pyrethins don't affect mammals (when used as directed)

Hm.. I thought with all the talk about the dangers of rats ingesting the PAM, it would be a bad idea.. but if people use them for horses, then it must be OK for rats.

I was doing a little research on this myself and came across the following information from http://www.cababstractsplus.org/goog...No=20053170966

English Title: Use of permethrin eradicated the tropical rat mite (Ornithonyssus bacoti) from a colony of mutagenized and transgenic mice.
Personal Authors: Hill, W. A., Mandrell, T. D., Randolph, M. M., Boyd, K. L.
Author Affiliation: Department of Comparative Medicine, College of Medicine, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
Document Title: Contemporary Topics in Laboratory Animal Science, 2005 (Vol. 44) (No. 5) 31-34

Abstract:

The tropical rat mite, Ornithonyssus bacoti, was identified in a colony of mutagenized and transgenic mice at a large academic institution. O. bacoti is an obligate, blood-feeding ectoparasite with an extensive host range. Although the source of the infestation was likely feral rodents, none were found in the room housing infested mice. We hypothesize that construction on the floor above the vivarium and compromised ceiling integrity within the animal room provided for vermin entry and subsequent O. bacoti infestation. O. bacoti infestation was eliminated by environmental decontamination with synthetic pyrethroids and weekly application of 7.4% permethrin-impregnated cotton balls to mouse caging for five consecutive weeks. Visual examination of the macroenvironment, microenvironment, and colony for 38 days confirmed the efficacy of treatment. We noted no treatment-related toxicities or effects on colony production.

Publisher: American Association for Laboratory Animal Science

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TekWarren

~rise up oh dead topic!~

I was wondering the same thing as the OP about POM and rodents. I've stopped my in-house rodent breeding for a time to re-think/organize how I want to do it. Anyway I've started buying rodents from a women who runs a pet store. At first things went pretty good and the animals looked healthy but the last couple times not so good. I usually keep the rodents for a week or so especially this time because they where just not clean. I keep them in tubs and give them as much food/water as they want. This last batch of mice is looking even better visually over night.

Backup to yesterday...being that I'm not a bit nervous with the quality of the live rodents (they are fed pre-killed) I wondered if I could treat their fresh bedding with POM so I did some searching. I found this on Ralph Davis's website in the first page of search hits:



In that last line "everything" does NOT include the rodents he was treating.

Reading this was enough to convince me...I have POM in my herp supplies so I treated the bedding. I gave it a lite spray in each tub (rats/mice) I then agitated the bedding to "mix it up" and each tub got some drying time outside.

Already yesterday evening I had a mouse in bad shape I would guess nerve/neurological damage as he was leaning heavily to the side...practically laying over. When attempting movement it was more or less in a circle and could not get to food or water...I took his misery away. I noticed he had some bite/chew marks under the tail close to the base of the spine also.

Now today I have another mouse who is showing similiar signs of leaning over and and while CAN still get to food and water walks in the same cicular pattern but not as bad as the one I found yesterday. This mouse was seperated with easy to reach food and water for observation.

Now I'm worried if its the POM doing this?? Or severe inbreeding which takes pretty deep in-breeding I had thought? OR something related to the conditions at the shop I purchased them from. At this point the other remaining mice are fine. The rat tub was treated in the same manor as I said but I have not seen any of them having issues.

I'm thinking I will dump the bedding to be safe? I've raised mice for years but this one of the few times I have done any sort of "treatment" and the first time with POM. Would it affect them this quickly? One nearly dead in just a few hours and another looking that way the next day? I did not pick the mice nor inspect them aside from putting them into my own containers when I picked them up but that would not have been long enough to see these signs.

Any suggestions, comments, or experiences?

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POM? whats that....you mean PAM

Holy double thread necromancy batman!

The last post before the one you quoted was in 2005, the last one before you posted to quote it was from 2007.

Using the search button you have been. :ninja:


dr del