Becky, others: deworming rats?

[Ginevive]

I have never dewormed my rats, but two recent pet-store additions have me thinking. (They are in quarantine still.)
I have some leftover Zimectrin Gold in tubes from when we dewormed the horses last Sunday. I read that the appropriate dose is a dry-grain-of-rice size for each adult rat. Does it sound OK if I use the Zimectrin, or is it too wide-ranging to be appropriate for the rats? It kills tapeworms, bots, as well as worms in general per the package.
Any tips as to how to best administer it? Flip rat over; put in mouth; close mouth? I wish they made tiny syringes for rats like I used for the horses! Maybe they do?
Also, how long should it be waited (if at all) between deworming a rat and feeding it to a snake?
Thanks!!

[mlededee]

i used ivermectin horse worming paste to deworm/de-nastify my rats. they do make tiny syringes! and they are most helpful in administering uncooked grain of rice sized doses to rats (less than that if they aren't adults that you are dosing). i just picked up the rat, popped the syringe in its mouth and administered (you can fill up the syringe and test to see how much (how many mLs or whatever) equals the amount you want to dose with)--it's such a small amount that once in their mouth or even around their mouth they just lick and swallow. when i was deworming becky advised dosing once per day for 3 weeks--she said otherwise the effects would be minimal if any. it worked great for me!

[sweety314]

Get the little tuberculin (insulin) 1 cc syringes. Works great for the ivermectin. (Just be slow and careful filling the little one out of the horse dosage tube...it can squish out the edges VERY fast!)


Following Becky's grain of rice, I did ours when they had lice. !