My rats have lice, they vet is charging me 20 bucks per inermectin oral thing or something like that. That is like 180 bucks to cure them.

I talked to a friend who is a nurde vet thing at the vet office and said baby shampoo works great and that they recently had a puppy brought in with lice, they shampooed it with baby shampoo and it killed them flat.

I have been usuing flea powder. Could I just shave my rats to rid of the nits and shampoo them for protection of actual lice?

I wouldn't shave them either... i doubt the would hold still for that and you could cut them.

Your best bet would be to either get the ivermectin horse paste wormer, which you *can* overdose your rats on so have to be extremely careful. Or you can go to www.kimsarkrescue.org and order their Ivermectin liquid and dose your rats properly according to their weight. These are the only two options I'd ever consider for treating lice or mites.

-Melina

no, that isn't the place I read about 4-6 months prego thing.

I read that with the horse paste stuff to dose them it should be about the size of a grain of uncoocked rice, and for small rats half that. How can I weight my rat?

I cant find the ivermectin on kimsarkrescue.com

I KNOW horse paste IS ivermectin. I can't find the ivermectin at kim's ark.

Okay, thanks

The flea powder is not safe because the chance of them inhaling it is HIGH and they have very delicate lungs and are prone to respiratory infections.

What book exactly are you reading?

In addition to the ivermectin, rubbing olive oil on your rat will help kill the lice and nits. It's non-toxic.

Personally, I feel more comfortable giving the correct dosage of liquid ivermectin. Rubbing or spraying anything on their fur can lead to trouble as they groom it off.

The same thing happened to me.  My little Trinket (only a year and a half old) already had some neurological impairment and it just seemed to speed up the problem.  We believe it was a brain tumor.  She passed within 12 hours of the injection.  We can't prove for certain that the Ivermectin hurt her, but I will not ever use it on any of my others except as a last resort. 

I prefer using a very low pyrethin shampoo, and rinsing them well.  This is in addition to bleaching cages, freezing bedding, and shampooing the carpet.

There is some observation of ivermectin use in humans (for scabies, the human mite) that when it's used in geriatric situations, it can lead to earlier deaths. The average for the study I looked at was 6 months premature death in a couple of nursing homes. Ivermectin in humans is given orally in  pill form. So I guess there is valid reason for concern. But for me, the health implications of mites outweigh the potential for an earlier death from  neurological causes. The low permethryin shampoo is a definite possiblilty if you don't want to go the ivermectin route. I think you can get the shampoo without a prescription from Canadian pharmacies (at least for awhile  )

I would just leave it on and let the rats groom it off themselves. The olive oil shouldn't be used instead of the Ivermectin, it should be used along with the Ivermectin.

I wouldn't use vinegar. It is very acidic and I wouldn't want it sitting on my skin of any length of time. I would get the nits off using a lice comb.

When my great-niece had lice a few years ago. The only thing that worked was using olive oil, leaving it on overnight and combing the nits out. She has very thick hair, so it was really time consuming.

If your rats have any open sores at all from lice (and it's almost a guarantee they will) the vinegar will sting SOOOO badly that I doubt it's worth even trying. Your rats will be quite uncomfortable, if not in pain! I would let them just groom off the oil, nits and lice. They'll do a fine job of it.