# Scabby tail?



## heavy_heart (Apr 12, 2009)

Can anyone tell me what this might be? There are a couple of these patches on various parts of my rat's tail. They don't form a ring around the base or anything like that.


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## Gabrielle B (Jan 16, 2009)

Are there any of the same scabs on his/her ears and nose? What about on his/her cagemates? When my rat had sarcoptic mange, his tail looked just like that. I would hit him with a dose of revolution to see if it clears up  If not, a vet trip might be in order


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## heavy_heart (Apr 12, 2009)

Nope, no other scabs except on the tail. Her cagemate just passed away about a week ago. She didn't have any of the scabs anywhere, but she did have some yellow discolored patches on her back that flaked like dandruff when I scratched them. The rat whose picture I posted had the scabs before the cagemate died. I'll probably take her to the vet on Monday, hopefully. Just really busy this weekend, and the nearest vet open on Sundays is an hour or so away. I've been feeding her multi-grain bread with olive oil on it, which she LOVES, because I was told if she just had dry skin it should help, but I haven't seen it do anything.


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## heavy_heart (Apr 12, 2009)

Just wanted to add, she's about 2 1/2 years old. I clean her cage every week, put in aspen shavings. She mostly stays on the wire parts of the cage, where her towels and tubes are. So that being said, it doesn't seem like it would be from unsanitary conditions. It probably is some sort of parasite.


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## Stace87 (Jun 24, 2008)

Be careful giving bread with olive oil on. It may be best to toast it first as bread is notorious for causing choking.


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## heavy_heart (Apr 12, 2009)

Oh I've been giving them bread with olive oil for basically their whole lives and never had a problem, but thanks for the warning and I will consider doing that next time.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

I use crusts of bread, and its the doughy bread that causes the choke more 

Those almost look like little abscesses. Can you put your girl in a warm water sitz bath and soak those? Older rats drag their tails through everything and sometimes get these...do they seem painful?


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## heavy_heart (Apr 12, 2009)

She's always been really fearful. She hates being taken out of the cage, but she has a blast when she's finally out of it. Baths have been few and far between, and she hates them. I've tried to touch the bumps to get a better look but she resists and moves her tail when I do. She doesn't try to bite and she doesn't yell at me. Should I risk stressing her out to try and soak them? I can't get out to the vet today either, well, at least not right now. We have a bunch of landscaping guys here blocking every exit with machinery and trees and whatnot. Great timing, really. :-\


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## heavy_heart (Apr 12, 2009)

So I took her to the vet today and she did a scraping under anaesthesia since Pepe was way too squirmy to do it while awake. She thought she could see what looked to be mite eggs, but she wasn't SURE so she's sending them to the lab for analysis. When she did the scraping, the part under what came off was just red and raw looking, no sign of tumor. She also gave her a dose of Revolution and gave me another dose to give her in 30 days. I thoroughly cleaned her cage and all the items in it before I returned her to her home. And I thought it might have been a bad bag of aspen so I just put a towel in the bottom for bedding to be on the safe side.


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

It could very well be sarcoptic mites...they need to be treated with Ivermectin, as Revolution won't work.

Sarcoptic mites are usually on the ears but I have heard of the tail being affected as well.

http://ratguide.com/health/integumentary_skin/ecto-parasites.php


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