New rats have brown ear tags

[IanG]

Hi there, looking for advice please. New pet rats, young females have small brownish tag like things on edge of ears - not sure if parasite, fungus or what.
Any advice appreciated.

[cyber ratty]

Sounds like they could be mange mites - an antiparasitic treatment should clear them up. You can order harkamectin from lots of places online.

[IanG]

Thank you Mary! I'm in Nairobi and products are a bit limited (not so many rats as pets here)... Is it possible to use a kitten product or similar?

[[cub]]

Rat keepers here frequently use spot-on ivermectin treatments marketed for birds (e.g. Harkamectin) so using products aimed at other species is not necessarily wrong. However, getting a suitable concentration might be an issue if you're using something for a significantly larger animal: you don't want something so concentrated that you run the risk of overdosing your rats. (On the other hand, you don't want something so dilute you drench the poor creatures. )

If you can get something for pigeons or similar, that tends to work well: you want roughly a 150μg (i.e. 0.15mg) dose for a 300g rat. Make sure it's ivermectin though.