Rats and Allergies

Believe it or not, rats can have allergies too. But how do you know? Well, as you may know, I have two rats, a dwarf rat named Chelsey, and a standard rat named LuLu. And I have been noticing some bald spots on LuLu's neck, and earlier I had seen Chelsey chewing on LuLu there. So I figured the minor bald spots were caused by chelsey's aggressive cleaning, they were. But then they started getting bigger and I noticed scabs on the spots too. So I went to PetCo and bought a separate cage for Chelsey, and I was going to separate them until LuLu's bald spots went away. I noticed that LuLu wasn't getting any better. So I did some research and found that a common problem for bald spots and scabs around the neck, shoulders, face chin, and forehead are from allergies. I also found out that common food allergies for rats are peanuts and dairy products. Such as the common rat treat called yogies. I had been giving my rats 2 yogies every day starting right before LuLu's bald spots worsened. So i stopped giving them yogies, and the results have been great. It is rare for a rat to be allergic to or sensitive to most litters though, beside pine or cedar shavings. It also possible for your rat to have eczema, which causes itching.

If you have been noticing bald and scabby spots on your rat, and you think it might be allergic to a treat or the food you are buying him or her, to help speed the process of healing, a topical ointment such as neosporin can help, just watch your rat while it soaks in so it doesn't ingest any of it. There is a chance that bald spots could be related to stress, but that would be for obvious reasons, such as the rat isn't in a healthy, quiet, air conditioned room. Most of my information was from http://www.ratfanclub.org/skin.html

*Take note that to help your rat if it has bald spots, you may need to trim his or her nails. I will be publishing a post about this as soon as I can.*