Pet rat...losing hair??

Hi there.

I have two young male rats that I have owned for about a month now. Both are in good health and are developing very nicely. However, I just noticed a few days ago that one of the rats is losing some hair on his back. It looks like a bald patch. I'm a little worried, I have no idea what's going on. Does anybody have an idea of what it could be?

Pet rat...losing hair??

If you do not see any wounds or scabs or excessive scratching associated with the bald patches then there is a good chance that the patchy boy is over-indulgent in self grooming or his cage mate is over-grooming him. In the Rat Fancy we call this "Barbering".

More on Barbering:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?search=Ba...

Some answers here may scare you into thinking that it's something worse. Mites, allergy to bedding, and allergy to food will manifest themselves as sores, scabs, excessive scratching, redness of the skin, ect. If his skin is a clean pink but the fur is missing it's just Barbering. Barbering can, but not always, be brought on by stress and/or boredom. Sometimes it's just an inherited habit that may or may not resolve itself on it's own.

You may e-mail me at spazrats@yahoo.ca if you have more questions. :)

spazrats

"my life has gone to the rats"

Pet rat...losing hair??

Thank you for choosing my answer. :)

I try not to go over-board with my answers. If you had added details other then the healthy pink skin then I would have edited my answer and gone into the more serious of rat skin conditions. No need to send people into a panic needlessly.

spazrats Report It

Pet rat...losing hair??

spazrats the internet cannot teach you everything, because of this you give repeatedly bad advice

showing someone all the options is not scaring them it is education

humility is something you need to learn Report It

Pet rat...losing hair??

I don't understand why you continue to insist that I get all my information from the internet mrs. phas. Along with my own experiences of caring for over 200 rats over the years, I work with the information provided by rat experts world-wide Report It

Pet rat...losing hair??

and if I use a reference from the internet, it's because it is trusted information from a trusted rat expert.

Why are you are so secretive that you won't reveal your credentials. No one on my forums knows anything about you. There is nothing of your so-called work on the internet. Report It

Pet rat...losing hair??

You might be a child for all we know.

Fourth time for this request, e-mail me at spazrats@yahoo.ca

Let's talk privately :)

I really am so sad for your jealous and competitive nature :(

I know you will find your niche somewhere here on Y!A :)

Happy rat-keeping

spazrats Report It

Pet rat...losing hair??

Update: I have found out who mrs phas is from a reliable source in the UK.

E-mail me if you want details. Report It

Pet rat...losing hair??

I recently read something about that but i can't remember now! Best thing to do is visit fancy-rats.co.uk and check out the forums.. Someone will be able to help, their's plenty of rat breeders actively brousing the site.

Hope this helps! :)

Pet rat...losing hair??

over grooming

barbering

both can be avoided by adding more stimulation to their lives

mites- little red dots barely visible

lice- attached to hair shaft

most common thing for loss of fur on back

get some ivermectin from pet store or vet just comes in back of neck drops, if from pet store make sure its one for rats

diet deficiency

make sure your rats diet has enough copper in it

excellent diet for rats

http://www.ratsrule.com/diet.html

labblocks/nuggets do give them a total balanced diet but its pretty boring fare, like us eating rice cakes everyday

a diet to high in protein after kittenhood can also cause hairloss, also rats can be allergic to nuts/seeds/dairy so if your feeding to many of those they may get fur loss

bedding

are you using sawdust/shavings/wood pellet litter? pheneols are released when pee hits them and ammonia is produced both of which apart from being horrendous for their resp tract can cause skin irritation leading to loss of fur

are they rex rats?

poorly bred/petshoprex rats do have thinner fur than standard coated varieties and the density can ebb and flow throughout their lives

not sure? look at the whiskers are they curly? if so your rat is a rex

stress/hormones?

are they coming upto their teenage time[6-9 months] hormones can rage causing hair loss both through stress and hormone fluctuations

the last thing i would consider, but its highly unlikely, i have only ever seen 5 rats in 15 years afflicted and they were kept in appalling conditions, is ringworm, not actaully a worm but a fungal infection related to athletes foot and thrush, but can be transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa

you would need to have a skin scrape looked at by a vet to confirm this

please note:

none of this is meant to scare you, only to give you a wider view of whar can cause hairloss, there is no point in anyone here saying it is X and X only, nothing else, as

1] we cant actually see your rat

2] however much experience we think we have, theres always something we HAVENT seen

ive tried to cover everything there that i have come across in my 15 year real rat experience, not scare you in any way, but not blinker you to one option only either

so i hope it helps =)