Pet rats can be a lot of fun to have and at the same time they can have problems which you might not know how to take care of. Rat Mites might be one of those types of problems. Rats can get lice, mites, fleas, ticks as well as some skin conditions. If your rats have mites, lice or fleas this can easily be remedied.
You can take your pet rat to a Veterinarian’s office and have them apply a topical spray or ointment all over your rats body that will kill whatever parasite he has after it dries. But if you already know your rat has mites, fleas or lice there are things you can do right at home to get rid of them.
How Can I tell If My Rat Has A Parasite?
Some mites and lice can be seen with the naked eye. You may see small reddish dots on your rats skin under the fur, or exceptionally small bugs in their fur. If you see anything on their skin or in their fur, you most likely have mites or lice. Your rats may have some hair loss or they may scratch themselves a lot more than usual which can lead to sores that can get infected.
How To get Rid Of Mites and Lice
If you’ve seen this before in your rats you may already know what to do but if this is new for you, a Veterinarian should be consulted first. You should be cleaning and disinfecting your rat’s cage each week to keep the mite problem from happening or to get rid of them if you have them.
There are over the counter sprays like Ultra Care 8 in 1 Flea and Tick spray. It says it controls fleas and ticks on hamsters, gerbils, mice, rabbits, guinea pigs and mice. The active ingredient in this is Pyrethrins 0.06% and I have used this on my hamsters and rats in the past. I will tell you now that this method does work but you will have to spray your small animal once a week for at least three weeks for this to really work and your animal is not going to be happy about it. I usually sprayed the solution directly into my hands and then rubbed it gently onto my rats fur. It’s less traumatic for your rat than spraying it directly on them.
After spraying them you must clean the cage and disinfect it because if there is even one egg left behind they will get the mites or lice again. After putting the solution on your animals you must keep them out of their cage until their fur is dry and do not use a towel to dry them, you want as much of the solution to get into their fur as possible. Play with them so they don’t start cleaning themselves to much and ingest too much of the spray. While it never hurt my animals I can’t imagine it’s good for them to eat it.
That is the method I used to use but there is another method that I learned from The Rat Fan Club and it worked really well. It’s called Ivermectin and is available as an over the counter horse wormer. You can find it in most feed stores, in some big chain pet supply places or do what I did and order it from Amazon to get rid of rat lice. I bought the single use tube of Ivermectin horse wormer paste because this is the smallest amount that I could find. The dose I used was 0.01 ml/lb (1 unit on an insulin syringe) which is about the size of an uncooked grain of rice. Spread the Ivermectin paste on a tiny piece of bread and add a little jelly or a tiny bit of peanut butter to cover the taste. The piece of bread should be just big enough for them to snatch it and gobble it down before they realize it might taste bad. Do this with the ivermectin once a week for 3-4 weeks to get rid of all the lice. Each time you give them the Ivermectin make sure to clean their cage thoroughly because if their are live lice or eggs in the cage your rats will get reinfected.
I found using the Ultra Care 8 in 1 Flea and Tick spray right on the cage after cleaning the bedding would kill any stray lice or mites that i might have missed. Just spray it on and then wipe the cage down with paper towels. I used plain white paper towels so I could see if there were any little reddish brown dots on it after wiping and if there were I know that I found a few mites or rat lice and killed them. Lice eggs normally hatch in 5-6 days, so any eggs that haven’t hatched after that time are dead and harmless but will remain stuck to the hair until the hair is shed.
The next day take a look in your rats fur and see if any tiny reddish brown spots are in their fur. When lice or mites are dead they will fall off your rats fur instead of hanging on.
Where Did My Rat Get The Mites or Lice?
I always tell my friends who have rats, hamsters, gerbils or any small animals to take any bags of food, bedding or snacks made for small animals and put them in their freezer for at least 4 hours before opening it and using it in the cage or giving the food to their small animals. The reason is one time I found several small worms inside a bag of hamster food. When I called the company to complain I was told that it happens since all their foods are stored in large containers inside warehouses and the best thing to do is to freeze the bags before giving the food to the animals, this will kill any parasites or bugs inside the bags of food or inside the bags of bedding.
Sources:
http://www.ratfanclub.org/skin.html
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