Pictures of scabs. Much larger than mite scabs, came suddenly!

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TheoBennyWinston

TheoBennyWinston

Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2012
Messages
36
Location
Chicago, IL
I have 3 male rats Benny, Norman and Gus Gus. All three have been treated with Revolution (one drop, cat revolution) about 4 weeks ago because I noticed tiny scabs forming. The scabs disappeared. I have treated with Revolution successfully four or five times in the past few years and I have some in my pantry just in case...

But the scabs on Norman don't look like mite scabs so I'm hesitant to treat with revolution again. They are much larger and there are SO many of them! His shoulder blades and sides are covered. The scabs are flat to the skin, they don't form bumps, and they look raw.

They appeared within about one week. At first he had one scab and I thought, oh no mites again. At the same time I noticed his foot was swollen. I looked for signs of an attack (but my boys have never fought) but there were no cuts or bruises on his foot. I assumed he fell or caught a nail on some fabric or bed and twisted it. I gave a warm compress on his foot every 6 hours for 5 minutes each time, and the swelling went down after 24 hours. I gave him 0.5mL of childrens Motrin every 12 hours for 36 hours (3 doses) while I was doing the warm compresses. He started walking on his foot again, and now it is back to normal so I stopped the Motrin.

I wonder, is this a reaction to the childrens Motrin? :scratch: Could it be mites? :scratch: I inspected the other two boys and no scabs. Sorry so long!!
 
If the scabs are "paired" then they could well be bites. Usually when a rat bites another it forms a puncture wound kind of like if you punctured yourself with a staple puller (a puncture from the top teeth, and a separate nearby puncture from the bottom teeth.) When rats bite each other, they usually target the shoulder blades...
 
I've had a rat with huge scabs that did turn out to be from buggies but since you've already done revo... this is a concern and I would be worried of something dermal. I would do a vet visit if I were you.
 
Hi, I gave Norman another dose of Revolution since it's been a month since the last dose and I read on here that you are supposed to give 1 drop once a week for 3 weeks. I didn't do that before -I just gave once drop, once. It has only been 2 days and his scabs are almost completely healed! They heal fast:wow5:. I'm going to freeze the bedding from now on. I had NO idea mites could live in bedding from the store.

I have another question about bedding. I used to shred junk mail and other papers in a paper shredder and use that as bedding (it was free) but then my paper shredder broke and I haven't bought a new one. Since shredders are only about $30 and the bedding is about $15 a month, I was planning on going back to shredding paper to avoid this mite problem... UNLESS anyone on here sees an issue with shredding paper. At first I was worried they would get paper cuts or something, but I never saw anything like that in the 24 months or so that I did it. Any thoughts?
 
I do believe others on here shred paper. I don't think there is anything wrong with it as long as the ink used isn't toxic and I don't believe it is anymore, but you'd have to check. Don't know about freezing that. I found out the hard way too about needing to freeze bedding - 15 rats with mites. Hope your ratties feel better, but the 3 treatments is only for ivermiticin (I know I spelled that wrong) not revolution - revo is only once, but your rat could have gotten mites again since you hadn't frozen the litter you used.
 
Revolution is a one time drop. But good thing it's working now, sometimes they are just too persistent and need an extra, a month later.
Shredded paper is fine so long as you know the ink is vegetable base.
 
Shredded paper is a wonderful option for bedding. I also shred up our old bills and the rats love to toss their bedding around. I've never had a problem with it being too dusty or had bugs, plus it's nice and free! :) Though I try to avoid newspaper and flyers and I wouldn't use any ink that is made from soy or vegetable unless you know how old it is. I once read a story in the news about a veterinarian hospital using soy ink based newspaper to line the cages for the birds.. and since it had been sitting around a while, it developed mold and bacteria, killing all their birds. The ink starts to go bad after after about a month of being printed.
 
LittleSparrow said:
Shredded paper is a wonderful option for bedding. I also shred up our old bills and the rats love to toss their bedding around. I've never had a problem with it being too dusty or had bugs, plus it's nice and free! :) Though I try to avoid newspaper and flyers and I wouldn't use any ink that is made from soy or vegetable unless you know how old it is. I once read a story in the news about a veterinarian hospital using soy ink based newspaper to line the cages for the birds.. and since it had been sitting around a while, it developed mold and bacteria, killing all their birds. The ink starts to go bad after after about a month of being printed.
Click to expand...


That's very interesting. Just out of wondering, how do you find out what it is made out of anyway?
 
Most of the time you will have to call the place that distributes your papers. They should know! Though I just avoid newspaper all together because it has the highest concentration of any ink.
 
My two old rats had scabs just like that and it turned out to be lice. If you don't have money for a vet you can try to give him a bath in olive oil(soak his body) let it sit for two minutes then rinse it off and bath him with baby shampoo. You will see the eggs and bugs fall from his fur as you was him. Put him in a completely clean cage so no left over bugs get back onto him. If its lice usually in a week the scabs will be gone. Also try some vaseline on the scabs so its not irritable for him.
 

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