pet rats are losing hair & itching (no bugs)

Question
We have recently adopted four pet rats and don't know much about them except what we were told by the girl who owned them previously. She loved them very much but had to move out of the country. She said that the older male had a skin illness but she said the vet said nothing could be done about it.

Both males are fixed, but the girls are not. We have just experienced one first cycle of one of the females. We deduced that she was in heat by the males reaction to her and fighting between them. The other female has a respitory infection that the previous owner also said was just something heritory and couldn't be helped either. She said she tried many things, but nothing helped her.

We have had them for three weeks and hadn't had a chance to get them to the vet yet, we wanted to get the know them better first to be able to answer any questions the vet might have.

We gave them a bath the first night we got them to make sure there weren't any bugs, but didn't see anything. Nothing in the bath either, but we didn't bath them long because they pooped all in the water. We took them out as soon as that happened and hand washed them individually making sure that we got them clean. We have looked for bugs again since and of coarse cleaned out their cage several times. Their bedding is natural pine bedding. We have some natural aspen bedding we were going to use next.

Now, all the rats are itching and some are sneezing. A couple of them are now starting to loose hair as well. Still no sight of bugs anywhere. What could this be and how do we help our babies?

Thank you so very much for your help!

Answer
Hi

The pine needs to go, and fast. Any pine or cedar is bad for them and can cause serious respiratory problems and even liver damage! The phenol oils are known carcinogens and are found in both beddings. The aspen is best.

The rat with the chronic respiratory infection CAN be helped with the right vet and right medications. If she isnt helped soon she will end up with scarring in the lungs and chronic lung disease. She said it was heredity because of it being mycoplasmosis.  Check out my site about myco for tons of info on what it is, because I feel that all four have it.

What is their diet?  Poor diet has alot to do with their skin believe it or not. High protein and fats must be avoided and can actually make them itch and cause fur loss as well.

My website has tons of info for you about all of these things. Being your new to rats I think you will learn alot and get alot of answers that you seek.  Start with the diet and be sure to read up on mycoplasmosis so you can better understand it.  

As for a vet, they would need to see an exotic vet so if you need one, you can also find more info on my site under the VETS section or I can help you find one, eitehr way.

Here is the link and please let me know after you have read it and we can go from there:

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/skinproblems.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/mycoplasmosispage.htm