Mites or lice

[mwp051699]

So it's that time again. Got a baby feeder and he came with some extra baggage. Well I immediately sa the eggs and treated him. Next day all was well. Cut to the present and my 3 rescue girls have tiny red/brown buck grease flakes on their lower backs. Out of a sense of doubt I pulled a few off my white haired girl and put them on a piece of paper and put a strong light over them. Yup, they were moving. I took a picture and enlarged it. The clarity of my GCam is amazing and I could see that they all looked long and rectangular, not square. And of course I found eggs on their hair, some strands having a half dozen laid at a pretty extreme angle. Anyway, I've always found mite infestations up around their neck and shoulders and upper back, but never their lower back area. And I've never seen them look like this before, just the parasites themselves, no scabs or sores. Up on the shoulders and neck it always looks like a raw, patchy hair loss, raw, scabby mess. So would these be lice? How would they get lice. Only from other rats I thought. So my little feeder came with lice??? Damn. Anyway, any thoughts???

 

[saram519]

Sometimes they can get lice from lack of grooming! I had to do a bunch of research when I noticed my rat had bugs on her- which i happily found out as i was holding her and looked down. Vet diagnosed her with mites that she caught from when we baby sat a cat for an hour. But naturally most rats have micro -organisms on them but are able to keep the populations under control through grooming. Maybe one let up on cleaning and gave it to the rest? Or very well could have been from the new one that was brought in. Hope you were able to treat it!

 

[lilspaz68]

definitely lice. Eggs and visible parasites that move slowly = lice. Btw Lice are Nice compared to mites. Usually one dose of revo for all your rats takes care of it