Home remedies for mites

Question
QUESTION: My daughter's pet rat just returned from a 4 month stay with a vet/animal control...he's been home about 3 weeks now and he now he has mites.  We have been rat parent's for at least 6+ years and NEVER had mites with any of them.  I cannot afford a vet visit and was wondering if there are any home remedies that might work to relieve this.  I read one response that said for cage care the mites don't like vinegar...could I bathe the rat in a diluted vinegar solution??  Are mites spreadable to other pets/people??  please help.
Briana

ANSWER: Mites that attack rats are generally species specific, although there are a few that can/will spread to other animals. Generally not people, we bathe far too often for them to enjoy living on us. First of all, what kind of bedding do you use? Whatever you have in the cage now obviously needs to be thrown out when you go to treat him. If you use a bulk bedding like aspen, coconut, etc (anything except pellets, basically), you need to freeze it in order to kill any miteys that may be hiding in the bedding. Believe it or not, thats more common than people realize -- mites have come in more often on my store-bought bedding than I can count. Secondly, yes, there are two things you can do.

I wouldn't use vinegar on your pet, mostly because they are SOO sensitive to smells and skin irritations that you don't want to hurt him. However, I would recommend one of two things, or both, if you feel comfortable enough doing so.

1) Bathe him in a tea-tree oil (I use melafix, which can be found in the fish section of any pet store). Dilute it with water in shampoo. I like to use a 1:2:3 ratio, one tablespoon of melafix to two tablespoons of pet-safe or unscented/tearless shampoo and three tablespoons of water. Obviously, you can mix as much or as little of this as you want, and some people like to cut the water out of it altogether - thats fine, too. I've used this several dozen times and it works marvelously. Soap your ratty up - he'll hate you for it - and make him sit in it for at least two or three minutes. If he won't stand for it, just repeat the soap up two or three times and rinse him very very well. The tea tree/melaluca oil found in melafix is all natural remedy that actually smothers mites and lice and kills them fairly quickly, which solves the immediate issue, but certainly not the long term (which would be the mites re-hatching).  

2) IF you feel comfortable (and I stress that!), go to your local tack shop and buy Ivermectrin paste wormer for horses. It comes in a long white tube. Give your ratty the equivilant of a grain of rice. It's hard to get some to eat it, so I usually pull their lip up and wipe it on their front teeth so they HAVE to lick it off. Do that once a week, as needed, and you should be mite-free. Generally, one dose is all you need. Some persistant mite cases take two or three dosages. Never repeat it more often than every 7 days. You can repeat the baths in the meantime, and if you don't feel comfortable dosing your ratty, DO NOT. I never recommend people do something they're uncomfortable with. As an alternative to the medications, you can give your ratty a bath in the Melafix solution every 4 to 5 days to cut off the mite lifecycle. Eventually you'll kill everything and be mite free.

Keep in mind that I am NOT a vet and that I have absolutely no way of knowing if your individual pet will be more sensitive than others to ivermec, so this advice is the advice of a hobbyist and pet owner only. I am absolutely not qualified to diagnose and prescribe medications, however the above is what I would do in your situation. (In other words, please don't sue me if something horribly rare happens :))

Good luck!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Ok...I have purchased the Ivermectin paste you suggested.  After dosing the rat, how will i know if I should repeat it in a week?  And will adverse reactions be noticable?  Do you have any suggestion what I should look for?  And should i change the bedding the same time I do the dosing?  Won't the mites jump off the rat into the new bedding and start the process all over again?  Tanks in advance for any further suggestions you may have. :-)  
Briana

Answer
There are three different mites that bother rats - the fur mite, the burrowing mite, and the bloodsucking mite. After you treat the rattie with ivermec, he becomes a walking mite killer, basically. Ivermectrin doesn't just repel the mites, but will kill the adult mites on him (especially in the case of the fur mite and the burrowing mite, that stay on him as a host). If he has bloodsucking mites, he may have mites that try to escape by diving off of him and into the bedding, however the mite lifespan is so short (14-21 days) that by bathing him and then treating him simutaneously you're eliminating a host for them to come back to. As the nites and larvae in your bedding and cage begin to move and mutate and make it back onto their animal, they discover what their predecessors already have -- your pet is no longer so tasty and actually pretty deadly to them now. By eliminating their main food source, you're heading them off at the pass.

In a week, check your pet thoroughly. Look for scabs and scratches around his chin, cheeks and neck; and look for patches of hairloss.. the resultant of the mites. If you're mite free, you should not have any more fresh scratches, and your rat should be healing up. Also, if you have white hair-tips on your rat where you normally wouldn't (the nits, the egg-sac of the mites), wipe them off and see if they easily fall off the hairtip or if they're stuck on. Not many people see nits on their rat, so if you do, thats one way to tell.

Make sure you clean your cage every time you dose your rat. If in doubt, dose him again, even if you think you may be in the clear - just to make sure. It won't hurt him for a little extra safeguard.