# How long does it take for revolution to get rid of mites ?



## Nijidoragon (Sep 7, 2014)

I applied revolution on three of my rats on Tuesday, but they still scratch with their leg and don't lick it. The day I applied it I didn't clean their cage though, but yesterday I cleaned everything and put them in their cleaned cage . How can I tell if it's working.


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## LilCritter (Feb 25, 2014)

I could tell it was working within days because suddenly my allergies went away... Just give it a couple days and the itching will lessen.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

It can take about a week for the scratching to stop and the scabs to go away or lessen... likely it starts working before that. I know I've panicked after about a week and treated a second time which may not have been needed, but it's very hard to overdose on revolution. So no harm done.


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## Nijidoragon (Sep 7, 2014)

Rat Daddy said:


> It can take about a week for the scratching to stop and the scabs to go away or lessen... likely it starts working before that. I know I've panicked after about a week and treated a second time which may not have been needed, but it's very hard to overdose on revolution. So no harm done.


OK. The vet gave us two doses of revolution to give two weeks later anyway so hopefully that will work. And I froze the litter and wood chips and washed all the fleece and put them in tied garbage bags so they wouldn't get infected again.


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## LilCritter (Feb 25, 2014)

2 weeks? Usually it's 30 days. That's interesting.

Freezing definitely helps. Be sure to freeze it for at least two days to get rid of any nasties.


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## Nijidoragon (Sep 7, 2014)

LilCritter said:


> 2 weeks? Usually it's 30 days. That's interesting.
> 
> Freezing definitely helps. Be sure to freeze it for at least two days to get rid of any nasties.


Yeah its supposed to be two weeks after the first dose


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## Millie & Daisy (Mar 7, 2015)

I froze my aspen chips for 24 hours...? The rest of it is still unfrozen and about two weeks old. You're really supposed to freeze it for that long?


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## LilCritter (Feb 25, 2014)

48 hours is the suggested time for freezing bedding. 24 hours is probably OK and gets rid of most things.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

In truth most wood products are kiln dried. Nothing alive survives the kiln. Now if the pet shop stored the bedding in a damp place around their animals and the bags have holes in them... you might have problems. I buy my bedding from shops that store it dry above ground, away from their animals and I choose bags with as few holes as possible. I store my bedding above ground too to keep it dry and never have a problem. Most mites come in with new rodents or when you carry them home on yourself after handling someone else's infected animal. As it can take weeks to a couple of months for mites to show up most people don't remember where they got them which spawned the myth that they came in with the bedding.

I'm not saying it never happens... but if you really think about it... the wood went through the kiln, it was packaged and compacted by machine, it was sealed in a bag and it laid around for months hopefully still sealed before it got to you... what are the odds that for some reason there are mites living in it... especially with nothing to eat.

But it never hurts to deep freeze or bake your bedding if you want.


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## Nijidoragon (Sep 7, 2014)

Rat Daddy said:


> In truth most wood products are kiln dried. Nothing alive survives the kiln. Now if the pet shop stored the bedding in a damp place around their animals and the bags have holes in them... you might have problems. I buy my bedding from shops that store it dry above ground, away from their animals and I choose bags with as few holes as possible. I store my bedding above ground too to keep it dry and never have a problem. Most mites come in with new rodents or when you carry them home on yourself after handling someone else's infected animal. As it can take weeks to a couple of months for mites to show up most people don't remember where they got them which spawned the myth that they came in with the bedding.
> 
> I'm not saying it never happens... but if you really think about it... the wood went through the kiln, it was packaged and compacted by machine, it was sealed in a bag and it laid around for months hopefully still sealed before it got to you... what are the odds that for some reason there are mites living in it... especially with nothing to eat.
> 
> But it never hurts to deep freeze or bake your bedding if you want.


Yeah that's what I thought because my aspen chips are kiln dried. So if my rats DO have mites, they're probably from my new rat because when I brought it home, i guess i didn't quarantine well enough and my other rats started itching slightly more than usual and not licking their feet sometimes. There weren't any other symptoms though and I'm not even sure if the new rat had mites. The people at the pet store said that they kept them separate from the mite infected rats and that they were mites they could see ( and they were treating them with cat shampoo).


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

If one rodent in the pet shop has mites, they pretty much all do. Pet shop employees don't wash their hands between handling animals. And the type of mites that affect rats are too small to see without a microscope, like the mites that live on your pillow and bedding.... way too small to see without a microscope... Lastly some rats don't scratch so they don't look like they have mites, we adopted one rat the never scratched but infected the rat we already had... about a month after we adopted the new rat our old one was infested.

Pet shops don't want to be 'responsible' for infesting your rats with mites... so naturally it's the wood chips... 

Lastly don't beat yourself up about quarantine, like I said some rats don't ever scratch so they will sometimes go through the best quarantine unnoticed.

The revolution will kill the mites on your rats, who will in turn suck up all of the mites in your house and kill them too. That's why it's so good, it makes your rats mite killing machines for up to 30 days. This is especially important if your rats free range the house.

Rat mites are incredibly common, thankfully there's a quick fix. (and it isn't cat shampoo)

Best luck


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## Nijidoragon (Sep 7, 2014)

Rat Daddy said:


> If one rodent in the pet shop has mites, they pretty much all do. Pet shop employees don't wash their hands between handling animals. And the type of mites that affect rats are too small to see without a microscope, like the mites that live on your pillow and bedding.... way too small to see without a microscope... Lastly some rats don't scratch so they don't look like they have mites, we adopted one rat the never scratched but infected the rat we already had... about a month after we adopted the new rat our old one was infested.
> 
> Pet shops don't want to be 'responsible' for infesting your rats with mites... so naturally it's the wood chips...
> 
> ...


So do mites die after going without food for 30 days ?
I'm kinda worried I didn't apply it right, I tried my best to part the fur and put it on, then I kept them separate for 5 mins but it still looked kind of wet so they could have licked it off each other .


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