# Pulling out fur



## Lesath (Jul 14, 2007)

One of my rats has started to pull out it's fur. His backlegs are almost completely bald. It looks like chicken skin. Is this from stress or illness? He does scratch himself into scabs often, I'm always treating this one rat because he gets these little bloody spots all over from scratching. I've been looking into mite treatments for them all (I'm sure that if one has them they all have them) and found that Revolution used carefully is the way to go. They are all going to the vet next week so hopefully we can stop this scratching and bleeding bit.

The other rats scratch but NEVER to the point of blood. It makes me feel so bad for him. Now I've noticed his bald back legs. I'll try to get a picture of his legs in a bit.


Light quality is pretty bad but it should give you an idea of the pattern of how he is pulling out his fur.


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## Forensic (Apr 12, 2007)

Some rats will cut their fur short or gnaw it off entirely if stressed or bored, but it does sound like they may have mites.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

the mites could exacerbate the barbering (excessive grooming, shaving off of fur on body parts). Lets hope once they itchies pass that he settles again.


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## Lesath (Jul 14, 2007)

He could be both stressed and bored then. They lost a cage mate recently and the fur pulling didn't begin until after the sick rat was removed from the cage.


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## Lesath (Jul 14, 2007)

Just an update here, Sylvester stopped pulling his fur and it's growing back nicely! I guess he was just stressed from a mixture of losing a cagemate and having a myco flare up! Poor guy. I'm glad he is feeling better now.


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