Omg, thank you! One of my rats has the "nail tail" and I tried finding answers about it and I finally found it!!! Very informative video, there's not much about rat tails on the internet.
Glad to hear the video helped! I agree that nail tail is such a weird thing to see, especially the first few times, and it does see to be something not discussed much online.
I didn't have a warning at first because I didn't consider this gore, but I had a few people ask for a warning so i've added one (and I'll add one for future videos with any potential disturbing images).
Same :( The worst is that it makes people think that it’s a good way to handle them and so sometimes well meaning rat owners do it and they and their rats suffer the consequences
When I bought my first rat, the dude picked him up by his tail out of the tank OTL I'm like ??? If you're that afraid of them, you could've just asked me to pick him up >:(
Well, as far as it goes for domestic rodents, sure. But when it's done on TV shows, it's always wild ones they pick up and want to get rid of that I wouldn't recommend you grab by the body, unless you want to risk getting a disease after you've been bitten, which you obviously will.
Fr. My parents own a cafe and we had a rat that was there as well, it was a baby and my dad picked the poor guy up by his tail and chopped him in half with a shovel to get rid of him :( I was so sad, I could hear the poor screams of that baby..
I actually diddnt know anything about ring tail before i saw this video. Thank you for teaching me, if it happens to my boys i will now be a little more prepared.
I am always playing with my babies tails. My son has a rat that we rescued. She had been picked up by her tail and was degloved. It was awful. We took her in and took her to the vet. The vet amputated the portion of the tail that was exposed bone. She is doing awesome.
@@ShadowTheRat She was a trooper because we could tell how painful it was. She was not quiet about it, but she disnt try to bite at all while we were trying to help her. She has since gone through a tumor removal surgery as well. She is a fighter and is a big snuggler and kisser. 😍
I think a great topic would be foot care! I know a lot of people know about bumble foot but it's always great to learn more. Also, had to learn the hard way that rats can sprain their ankle/foot
Ooh I like that - that will probably be my next video in this series! (Also yup, I've been there with sprains - I swear rats are more prone to them than other animals, but thankfully they typically heal up super quickly)
I discovered my old rat (almost 3 years) had a weird hard point on the tip of her tail a while ago and wondered what it was, thank you for answering that!
One of the best informational videos ever and so happy you covered this as too many people do pick them up by the tail and it is upsetting to me. The other thing people need to understand is closing cage doors on their tails. Always take that extra few seconds to visually make sure their tail and feet don't get slammed in the door. It's amazing how fast they can move at the wrong time. Thank you for a great job on this!
So true, cage doors are so dangerous if they close on your rats and my fear is always trapping their heads that way. I've seen several people loose their rats that way and it just scares me so much, so I pretty much always give treats before closing the door so no one approaches it while I close it!
@@ShadowTheRat a long time ago i pinched one of my rats foot as he stepped on the plastic side as i was closing the door. It didn't do any damage but he squeaked as it had to have hurt. Ever since that i watch all body parts carefully while closing the doors. I have heard of people breaking their tails. 😭 that is why i was glad to see you talk about the subject of rat tail degloving as they don't deserve an injury like that because of negligent handling. You always do a terrific job of helping owners both novice and experienced. Thank-you for your years of dedication and knowledge. You are well known and respected by many! 😇
Thank you so much my 3 yo ratty accidentally degloved about an inch and a half. I had no idea what to do about it..yours was the first video I watched , and I'm so glad you posted this,,it's a relief to know what i need to do for him. Thanks again!
The best way to do it is like with an abscess - a bowl with warm water, some treats to distract, and then try to soak for as long as they allow (aim for 5 minutes but expect just a minute or two at most lol). I''ll try to make a video on it at some point, or if I do one one abscesses then I'll show it and mentioned it can be used on tails as well.
My rat has nail tail and I didn't know about it before! I just called it his 'stinger' because it looks like a tiny little bee stinger at the end of his tail. I just figured he had a weird tail but it's nice to know it's normal and should come off on it's own eventually.
Its pretty weird looking for sure! I've seen a few people mistake it for a partial degloving so I thought it would be a good thing to touch on. Also I love the calling it stinger lol, it really does fit the look!
Rat tales, the best book of Rat rhymes ever, you teach so much and share Rattie love. I can't deny that we are all Rat lovers inside. The furry little ones will always find a way to show us love in the Rattiest way.. Rat love forever. 🐀❤
One of my boys Bean (💕) is almost 2 years old and he keeps his tail baby pink! He keeps his brother Basil's pretty clean as well. I think it's so stinking cute and wanted to share 😍
I'll be doing a video on skin issues soon, so that should cover quite a bit of that. I'll see about a more comprehensive health video at some point once I finish these highlight ones.
whenever people come over to meet my rats I usually tell them to just not touch there tails on purpose like if they touch it its fine but to not pull on it
Same - I tell people that that sort of "tail only" handling is the worst way to handle rats and at worst could easily cause the rat injury. Most people really don't know how damaging and frightening for the rats handling this way is and just go off what they see in cartoon or movies so its good to spread correct information.
My older girl degloved an inch of her tail last year, I simply gave her infant ibuprofen for a few days, and then the tip of the bone dropped off a couple weeks later and she was fine.
Glad it was helpful - if your looking for a good resource on rat health issues then I'd suggest checking out the rat health guide. They have information on just about every health issue rats can get along with information on treatments, case studies with pictures, dosages, and more. Plus its all available free online which is awesome.
Same! Although my current girls only wag their tails when annoyed :( Especially Sugar, she gets annoyed if I try to pet her too much while she eats and will wag at me while squinting lol - then when I stop she walks off with her treat and stares me down from the cage! Little butt!
Can you do a video on how to set up a rat cage comfortably, please! I don't know what other things I should get for my cage. I feel my cage is incomplete and it needs more hideouts and I do not know how to go about that.
Sure! I have an older video on cage setups here: ua-cam.com/video/LPrll-8qnwE/v-deo.html But I will probably make a new one with the critter nation (probably doing a single unit since all is overwhelming) soon!
I have had rats for the past 5 years starting in 2016. I was 12 at the time I had just gotten my first pair of rats, and one of my biggest regrets that I did with one of them was holding them by there tail so often that the end 2 inches of tail came degloved. And after that my parents obviously took him to the vet and had surgery to remove it and he was perfectly fine after that. But still to this day I feel absolutely horrible about doing that to him, his name was Chrysler. And I loved him so much. And obviously I learned my lesson and would never do such a thing. And I know a lot more about rats now that I’ve had them for 5 years and I watch a lot of your vids and other peoples on and how to give them the best life they deserve.❤️but I do feel horrible to this day for doing that to him. I currently have 5 boys and I love them so much🧡
Thank you for this. One of my rats, Ambrosia, was adopted with half a tail. I was worried it was a birth defect, as she came from a pet store, but it's most likely a result of having half of her tail amputated after a degloving
Personally my guess would be that her mom just overhroomed her as a baby - it’s not uncommon for new rat moms especially in stressful places like rodent farms (where most pet store rats come from) to overgroom (aka nibble off) parts of their babies tails or even limbs, and thankfully baby rats can’t really process pain for the first few days because they are born so underdeveloped, so this doesn’t hurt them and they heal up easily. After that since they learn to walk and get around from the start with the removed bits they will function like any other rat. It’s also possible for rats to be born with short tails or even no tails, but it’s pretty rare and hard for even rat breeders to consistently get rats like this, and in most cases any shortened tail seen from a young age is due to a mother rat just nibbling too far when they are babies.
@@ShadowTheRat Ah, alright! Well, thank you. These are my first rats, so I don't know much about missing tails and such. I made sure to take my time and research what I'd need for them to have good and long lives, but there isn't much info online about half-tails. She lives (and balances) just as well as her sisters, so I'm not too worried, but I do like having answers for stuff like that
My 2 baby rats cage fell the first night I got them at 4am, the first one I found was Bean and his tail was degloved half-way down, I nearly passed out it looks terrifying, (lemon was completely fine tho) we couldn’t take him to the vet at 4am but we did later that day, he got his tail amputated halfway down, we think the cat knocked the cage down and Beans tail got stuck but we’re still not quite sure what happened, what’s important is that we’ve learned to be more careful when it comes to keeping the cage away from the cats and he’s okay now, they’re actually about 5 months old now! :D
Sometimes when they are on their death bed from a trap (mortality wounded) , they whip their tales really hard back and forth. I suppose it's to cause pain to a predator.
That's usually due to genetics - you can actually breed rats to have super curly tails (think as curly as pig tails even!), but typically we consider it unethical to select for this sort of tail curl because those sorts of tails aren't very helpful for balance or heat regulation. A simple curved tail above the head though isn't a problem though so you don't need to worry. Just a quick heads up though since some people will tell you its wheel tail and that she does this due to a too small wheel - there is absolutely no evidence of wheels (even small ones) causing rats to hold their tails up, and people just make the connection because on a wheel rats will hold their tail up some when running on it. But since some rats have been successfully bred to hold their tails up or even have super curly tails without any wheels in their life, it seems like pure genetics is a more likely reason. Anyways regardless its not something to worry about, but I just wanted to give you a heads up because people can get a bit accusatory for no reason when they see curly rat tails (even though again, unless its super curled then it doesn't affect them at all, and can be considered akin to curly whiskers in rex rats vs straights whiskers in standard furred ones).
Is it normal for little rat scales to fall off? My big girl Bluemoon sometimes has those falling off her tail or they get loose. Is this normal? I have to be careful because if one of those scales gets caught in something she shrieks not the most painful shriek but like I fell. She also has a yellow tail, partly because her tail was always yellow and partly because she always gets her tail stained. I have to wipe it off a lot and sometimes after I wipe it the wipe comes off yellow. Bluemoon what have you been putting your nasty tail in! ❤️🐁🐀. I tell my rats if they misbehave they’ll become a little rat pie 🥧. (I would never do this because I love my rats, what is something silly you can tell them). Thanks for answering all the questions we’ve had!
They do naturally molt scales but they shouldn't be falling off constantly or catching on things - that sounds pretty strange to me, you might try moisturizing it some to see if that help (rub in the direction of the tail). Yellow tail on the other hand sounds pretty normal since they do drag it in pee lol - you can try soaking it briefly while distracting her with a treat and using a toothbrush to gently brush in the direction of the tip to get any gunk off.
This wild rat i caught, he got loose 2 times. Last time, just a few minutes ago, he was under some clothes. So i thought id just grab the very end top of her tail to keep her from moving so i could get a good grip on her body. Soon as i touched her body she pulled away from me and it degloved like almost 2 inches of her tail 🥺 it breaks my heart. Shes too wild for me to do any kind of medication so it can heal. And im broke to take her to a vet. Now im afraid if i left hwr go she will get infected in the wild 😫 i should have let her go a week ago 😔
My rat’s tail has gone limp, she can’t use it anymore. She still eats, drinks, and grooms. She just doesn’t want to move very much and stays hidden in her hidey box. What could this be?
How old is she? Older rats will usually stop lifting their tails as they run around, and that's just something that comes with age. But if it seems like she's uncomfortable or hurting then she may have sprained it, in which giving her some childrens or infant motrin (dosed at 20-30 mg/kg depending on how sore she seems every 6-8 hours) for a few days and limiting free-range and excess movement should help her heal. (If you'd like help with dosing I've made some dosing charts based on weight here: rattrix.weebly.com/rat-medicine-dosage-charts.html ) That being said if she's acting very off then it could be something more serious, so in that case a vet visit may be a good idea. Definitely monitor her weight and behavior and if you don't see improvement in a few days time then I'd definitely be looking at a vet visit. I once had a girl develop a limp tail due to a slipped disk at her tail base (confirmed by x-ray), however she also had other issues going on and so was going to be put on steroids and pain killers anyways and with that and careful handling she lived another year of high quality pain-free life, so even if it is more serious it isn't necessarily untreatable/unmanageable.
I had a rat who probably didn't clean his tail. When I realized, it had gotten to levels where his tail didn't look smooth but all bumpy and patchy. Seemed to me some of his scales grew quite large and a lot of gunk built up between them. Took multiple tail bathings and brushings to get it to decent levels, but since he also started having breathing issues (turned out to be heart problems which my vet never caught) it never cleaned up completely. I'm still wondering if this was "normal" levels of a rat just not cleaning their tail or if he had something else going on.
Same, their balance is amazing and that was actually one of my first rats Shadow! I was amazed that even as a large rat she could balance on such amazingly thin surfaces. Also yes, unfortunately Sugar is developing a mammary tumor :( Its benign and fatty and so it won't spread, but it will continue to grow. I've decided not to do surgery due to her age and a few other concerns, so I'll be monitoring her quality of life and if necessary having her PTS if it grows too large (thankfully its been growing very slowly and she gets around well so right now I'm not too concerned).
My friend was at a breeder and he grabed the Baby rats at there tails.... the breeder had them in Bins whitout houses and a few air holes, but there had water and food. She bought some (older rat "you can breed you own babys whit them!" And babys mostly huskys and dumbo huskys )and supriseingly there are relativ tame
Sounds like your friend wasn’t a good breeder - an ethical breeder would know it to handle them by their tails and that they need much more ventilation in bins. As for their temperaments is likely they started with well tempered rats and just continued that genetics - since a lot of rat temperament is genetic if a rat is predisposed to good temperament they can go through the worst situations and abuse and still be friendly.
I always wanted a pet rat. There was a girl that I dated in high school and she had one of the coolest rats I had ever seen or even heard of. This rat was littler boxed trained and loved to be petted. Every time I went to her house this rat would try and break out of its cage to get to me. She got mad and said I don't know why he loves you so much, cause he doesn't act like that with me. Anyway she had 2 rats and only the one that loved me was OK to roam around the house. The other one was a little bitey and drew blood from me every single time I stuck my hand in its cage. Well this rat would end up getting sick and dying. When people say that animals don't have feelings, they just don't know. The cool rat that loved me got depressed and wouldn't want to do anything at all. I would take him out of his cage and pet him for a minute and then he would get down to go to the bathroom and go right back to his cage and sleep. Unfortunately my little buddy would quit eating and die about 3 weeks after his brother died. Even though I wasn't his owner, I felt like we had a little bond. It was very sad to witness this and there wasn't anything that we could do to make him happy anymore. The chicken I was dating said that she didn't like the other rat at all and the only reason that she kept him was for his brother. She split them up and was fixing to get rid of the mean rat and when she did the nice rat didn't like it one bit. So she ended up keeping them both due to this. I never got to own my pet rat like I wanted too. My wife of 25 years now said that if I ever got a rat, that she would leave. There have been a couple times when I wanted to test this but for our kids, I thought it best not too try it.
one of my rats tail got caught on something and the skin got ripped of is what i think bc i wasnt there at the time but she lived for another 5 months and sadly passed without medication bc my family is poor and theres not alot of vets where i am she was a strong rat
The only time I grapped one of my rats by their tail base was for last minute safety rescue. They were free roaming the living room, I was with them, and one of them was heading straight for the cat. They hate cats. Cat saw rat, cat was getting in position, I jumped up and had to rescue in a hurry. My ratto was trying to hide in an area my arm could not reach. I never grap them by the tails other than for this quick rescue. Only had her by the tail base for 1 second and immediately flipped her on my chest. She bite the cat when he stuck his paw through the cage bars. My cats are afraid of large rodents now.
It hurts my heart seeing rodents picked up by their tails! Its like holding someone by their spine! How can people not realise that the tail is attached to their spines not just their butts! And its never like an aggressive/scared rat or mouse trying to bite. Just an innocent little guy.
One of my boys has nail tail and when i first noticed it I thought it was the tip of the tail bone showing 😅 but I didn't do anything cuz it didn't seem to be affecting him.
Usually its due to an injury getting infected, or something that restricted/prevented blood flow for long enough for the tail to die off. I nearly had that happen to a girl due to her tail being bit during intros, the bite wasn't bad but it got infected, abscessed, and it took several weeks of intense antibiotics and anti-inflammatories to save it (although I would have had it removed if she hadn't slowly improved). Anyways if its already necrotic then it likely needs to be removed by your vet.
One of my rats has a red spot on his tail near the base of it and it looks inflamed , I've been trying to figure out what it is but I can't find anything about it. When I first noticed it the spot was only a red dot but now it looks inflamed (kind of like a pimple) I have no idea what it is, but I'm worried about him. Does anyone have an idea of what it could be?
This is super interesting! Thanks for the awesome videos as always! I recently got a rat from a reptile breeder to add to my pair of babies and noticed something weird with his tail. There’s a bunch of tiny bumps/pimple like masses under the scales of his tail. I did a warm soak and it would fall off as I washed it or with a little pressure it would pop out. But it bleeds, and some tend to grow back. Also has some on his ears and nose same exact way. Tiny white pimple looking bumps, I stopped trying to mess with it because it feels like I’m torturing the poor baby lol any experience/advice with this?
Have you treated him for mange/mites? It sounds like that's what's going on, and you'll need to treat him with revolution from your vet. Its super common for feeder rats to come with parasites so I would always recommended getting them treated for parasites - your guys crusties sound like mange so definitely get him treated asap.
Oh man I had no idea! I wish I could send you a picture or something so you could see. I haven’t found a good vet that I’m comfortable with. It’s hard to find one in my area that’s very knowledgeable with rats. I even had one tell me that rats are not social and will become aggressive with other rats. Imagine having to explain the differences between mice and rats to a veterinarian 😂😂 I will definitely look into getting the revolution. If there’s any other things you would recommend I greatly appreciate it!
@@thesickestbro If you have Facebook or Instagram then you can PM me on there with pictures (my user on both is also shadow the rat). Another option would be to email me pictures - I respond to rat questions on my rattrixs@Gmail.com email daily. Also I totally get the vet thing - I live in a small town and up until very recently went to a general vet. Every time I went in I got told by the vet that she had only ever seen rats maybe once or twice before and that the rats she had seen before were my rats lol. I made it a point to print out information from the rat health guide page and gave it to my vet to help kick start her research - I actually had 2 main vets there though, the first one was a super helpful lady who took my advice and experience to heart and would follow up on any resources I gave her with research and even contacted a specialized vet to help treat my rat with brain cancer, and the other was another lady who was the total opposite and who nearly killed one of my rats because she refused to believe she was sick (I ended up treating that rat at home - thankfully I had the right medicine and diagnosed her right, but that vet ultimately made me switch clinics because I couldn't handle getting her again. Thankfully my current vet is very rat experienced, super nice and thoughtful, and while she is about 45 minutes away she is well worth the drive). As for revolution you can buy it here - it does take a few weeks to ship though, so I'd see about calling your vet and seeing if they will sell you revolution over the counter (my vet will sell it to you if you have been there in the last year for an appointment with that animal). Revolution is used to treat dogs and cats and most small mammals for parasites so any clinic should carry it (just make sure you don't get revolution plus, you want the original cat/kitten/puppy revolution): www.canadavet.com/Search.aspx?k=revolution It is a bit pricey but you only need one drop per rat (you have to treat all rats, including those without symptoms since its super common for only one rat to show symptoms while all are infested), plus the tubes last forever so its worth it (I usually treat all new rats with it before adding to my group because I've had too many rats bring in parasites to my main group even though they themselves never showed symptoms).
I tell anyone that holds my rats to never pick them up by the tail. It scares me and I've heard stories about degloving. Do you have any tips on naked rats? How to keep their skin safe from the cleaning of their cagemates? Or any information on naked rats in general
Naked (either double rexes or actual hairless) rats don't have any real care differences from furred ones - depending on the line you may have to watch for eye issues (which can get serious quickly and really should always be seen by a vet), cysts and abscesses (something they are more prone to than furred rats and which are treated with a warm compress twice daily, and if no progress is seen within a week then its a good idea to get them vet checked and possibly lanced), and sometimes dry skin (treated with some higher fat/protein foods like sunflower seeds or meal worms or other high fat/protein treats when needed, plus with rubbing in olive oil or coconut oil into the skin to moisturize it more when need be. If humidity is low then just like with ring tail seen in this video its helpful to raise it using a humidifier which should reduce any dry skin). Overall if you get them from an ethical breeder who is breeding away from the associates health issues than you shouldn't have to do anything extra. But with naked from unknown genetics this is when you tend to see the health issues above being more common than in furred rats. As for scratches honestly you can't prevent them - some people will file their rats nails so they can't scratch them up as much, but even so they will likely have some scratches from time to time. As long as they are superficial then they should heal pretty quickly and aren't something to worry about. My final note is that furrless rats of any type available as pets will have a normal expected lifespan - if you look up hairless rats you will probably see sources saying they live 18 months or less, but this only applies to immunocompromised hairless rats who are bred for labs. There's no way you would get one of these rats without knowing it so with your average pet hairless rat regardless of source you can expect a normal 2-2.5 year lifespan, sometimes more if you are lucky.
@@ShadowTheRat Thanks for the information. My last naked rat must have had been from a bad breeder. She was only 14 months old when she ended up with pneumonia which put her in the hospital, and I had to put her to sleep. She is the one in my picture, I wish I had videos of her to put on UA-cam. I love all your videos and have followed you before owning rats. Your videos made me want the cuties. Thank you for being such an inspiration.
Calling your vet is your best option, otherwise if it’s just a small bit watch and look for any abnormal behavior. Sole people will feed a bit of active charcoal so if you have that then that’s an option as well
Can you help me? One of my rats has a small cut behind her ear, I’m not sure if I should just leave it alone or treat it. She doesn’t seem in any pain but I’m worried about her.
I watched this video before and then a month later I see nail tail on my rats and I thought it was in this video also I noticed my rat has a spot of blood near the end of his tail I don't know if it is ring tail or not but this video helped alot!
Its possible its porphyrin, the rats red mucous - they secrete it from a gland behind their eyes, and it drains out their eyes and nose daily. Usually they groom it off before you see it, but as they age you will see spots of it accumulate on their fur or tail (especially with light colored rats with light fur and light tails).
i heard shadow died a couple days ago even though it was three years ago but i feel you three of my rats died shadows up there watching you R.I.P shadow Edit: im still bawling my eyes out
Shadow died in June of 2017, so her passing anniversary is a while off. Still, I did get her in April of 2015, and I had her for over 2 years. She was a sweet rat, but I'm not sad about her passing anymore. Keeping rats or any short lived pets long term means you do need to learn to cope with their passing, and I've had short lived pets for over 16 years now. So I'm glad she lived a good life, and I look back on her fondly, but I don't think there's any need to look at her passing as sad because she did live a good life and many rats don't get that.
Thanks for your great information. I really need help with two males, one is sometimes very aggressive toward the other but otherwise they are fine. How can I change this behaviour?
Are they intact, and did this behavior start suddenly? Also are they from unknown genetics (pet shop, feeder bin, etc.)? With males the very first thing to rule out is hormonal aggression, so if you see sudden aggression in a male I’d get him vet checked and if nothing else is medically wrong, you may need to consider a neuter. These can either be done chemically or physically, although chemical neutered only last about a year in rats and are less common (due to most vets not having access to them). Definitely a good idea to contact your vet because if it is hormonal aggression then nothing short of a neuter will help, and they can even become aggressive to people as well.
@@ShadowTheRat many thanks! The rats were for about a month kept by a very unstable, argumentative couple and when we got them they both bit us and were in a filthy cage. They haven’t bit us again but one of them is sometimes aggressive toward the other. It MAY be improving but we will keep in mind what you said about a possible neutering. Thanks indeed!
Its plain yogurt! They love it, and its healthy enough to be a regular treat. Other more occasional liquid treats can be anything from chocolate syrup to whip cream, ensure, malt paste, meat baby food, and more - I rarely use those for training, but I will occasionally use them for taming because rats love them so much and in moderation they are fine for rats.
@@ShadowTheRat Thank you so Much! I've been binging your rat care videos to learn more about getting them accustomed to me. The in and out game seems to be working well for that. Thanks again for your expertise!
Is it normal for a rat to loose some skales? Mine shed, like its the same as if you would pull of a fishskale, but of course i do not pull the skales off of my rat.
Its definitely a scary experience - I had a rat have an almost degloving incident a few years back and it was terrible because the poor girl was in so much pain :( Thankfully she healed well though and the tail didn't fully deglove so with pain meds and disinfectant she was on the med quickly.
Its probably porphyrin - blood would be worrying, but porphyrin stains EVERYTHING! You can always wipe it off with a warm wet washcloth in the direction the scales grow (aka towards the tip), but otherwise a bit of staining won't bother them and is also fine to leave alone.
Sorry about the pics - I've added a gore warning in the title and a timestamp in the description so you can skip it. Chris I have added a warning in both title and description - I can't edit the video, UA-cam no longer allows you to change anything post publishing. I'm a bit desensitized to gore I think because I didn't think that was considered gore - that's why I didn't have any warning, but I'll add one from now on.
@@ShadowTheRat it’s totally fine; you’ve done your due diligence and appropriately informed people about this legitimate health and physiological issue. If people want to be properly informed about the care of their ratties, then they need to watch your detailed and helpful video and get over the non-gratuitous and factual representation of relevant risks to their animals.
Can you please make a video about pneumonia in rats Because my one rat passed away because of pneumonia and I don't want my other rat to go through these problems because she is also showing some symptoms 🥺
With pneumonia the best thing is to take them to the vet since they'll need antibiotics, just like a human would. One of my girls had pneumonia but I was luckily able to treat it quickly so she just needed 2 weeks of the antibiotics. The sooner you get treatment the better it'll be as well.
I agree that its best to go to a vet asap - its so much easier to treat an upper respiratory infection than a lower one and it has a much higher chance of successful recovery, so whenever you see concerning respiratory symptoms you want to get the rat vet checked asap. I will do a video on pneumonia in the future though, likely along with a few other common rat illnesses.
@@ShadowTheRat thank you so much but can you please tell me what medications should I give because the vet I have been concerning to doesn't know much about rats and is saying not to give doxycycline but I think doxycycline is important to prevent respiratory distress in rats Can you please tell me? Btw love your videos they are really helpful for many of rat lovers
Yup that's normal, they molt their tail scales. It'll grow back, and their tail will continue to molt their entire life. If the tail seems dry and the scales aren't naturally falling off then you can rub it with coconut oil ever so often to help.
I feel the same :( I found that picture with a bunch of other free stock image pictures of weirdly enough manicured hands holding rats or mice of various colors by the tail - idk who uses those images (other than me I guess lol) but its such a weird thing to find.
I've gotten one of girl's tails in my mouth a couple of times lol. That's never fun. Also, one of my girls has a tendency to stick her face as far up my nose as she can to clean it.
Sorry about the pics - I've added a gore warning in the title and a timestamp in the description so you can skip it. Mary I didn't have the warning when I first published it, I'm not too sure what counts as gore so after seeing people ask about a warning I added one where I could (to the description and title).
@@ShadowTheRat i'm not sure if it's gore but for sure it can make some people uncomftable without warnings but it was important to share awareness about this. I did not known that rat tail could deglove. I never handled mine by the tail i knew it was fragile but not why.
How do you feel about people deliberately breeding tailless rats? I'm against it, and happy to say that I do not think the UK's National Fancy Rat Society will ever approve them as a variety. Rats need their tails! (I am shocked that people breed dogs with no tails too). X
I actually almost went that route - it still interest me quite a bit though, so even though I'm not planning to be a vet I do like to learn about various animals, and of course rats especially interest me.
hello so ummmmm i was playing with my rat alex and accidentally got her tail stuck in the door but don't worry me and my mom are working on healing it with vetresin but i just wanted to ask how long do you think it will take for her tail to heal or if we should bandage it and how thx
What does the injury look like? If its a small cut then disinfecting it with vet spray and letting it heal naturally is fine (you can also give some infant mortrin for any pain, and I have charts to dose by weight in my description), however if its a degloving then your much better off going to a vet.
Omg, thank you!
One of my rats has the "nail tail" and I tried finding answers about it and I finally found it!!! Very informative video, there's not much about rat tails on the internet.
Glad to hear the video helped! I agree that nail tail is such a weird thing to see, especially the first few times, and it does see to be something not discussed much online.
No warning needed. People need to see this so they know what to look for.
I Think the warning was for peopel who like cant See blond and pass out ore something
I didn't have a warning at first because I didn't consider this gore, but I had a few people ask for a warning so i've added one (and I'll add one for future videos with any potential disturbing images).
@@ShadowTheRat I personally appreciate it. Degolving is pretty easy to recognize and bloody images can sometimes trigger panic reactions.
It hurts me whenever I see people pick up rats/mice by their tails on television.
Same :( The worst is that it makes people think that it’s a good way to handle them and so sometimes well meaning rat owners do it and they and their rats suffer the consequences
When I bought my first rat, the dude picked him up by his tail out of the tank OTL I'm like ??? If you're that afraid of them, you could've just asked me to pick him up >:(
Ikr. I hate it so much! It makes my heart hurt.
Well, as far as it goes for domestic rodents, sure. But when it's done on TV shows, it's always wild ones they pick up and want to get rid of that I wouldn't recommend you grab by the body, unless you want to risk getting a disease after you've been bitten, which you obviously will.
Fr. My parents own a cafe and we had a rat that was there as well, it was a baby and my dad picked the poor guy up by his tail and chopped him in half with a shovel to get rid of him :( I was so sad, I could hear the poor screams of that baby..
I'm actually glad you made this video because I never knew about this problem thanks
Glad to hear it was useful!
I actually diddnt know anything about ring tail before i saw this video. Thank you for teaching me, if it happens to my boys i will now be a little more prepared.
Thankfully ring tail isn't super common unless you live in a very dry environment, but its nice to know about just in case for sure.
I am always playing with my babies tails. My son has a rat that we rescued. She had been picked up by her tail and was degloved. It was awful. We took her in and took her to the vet. The vet amputated the portion of the tail that was exposed bone. She is doing awesome.
Glad to hear she's doing well! Degloving is such a terrible thing to see but thankfully rats tend to get through tail amputation pretty well.
@@ShadowTheRat She was a trooper because we could tell how painful it was. She was not quiet about it, but she disnt try to bite at all while we were trying to help her. She has since gone through a tumor removal surgery as well. She is a fighter and is a big snuggler and kisser. 😍
@Arya Stark I adopted my four boys, they were living in an extremely small tank before now they have a lovely cage bigger than me! 😄
I think a great topic would be foot care! I know a lot of people know about bumble foot but it's always great to learn more. Also, had to learn the hard way that rats can sprain their ankle/foot
Ooh I like that - that will probably be my next video in this series! (Also yup, I've been there with sprains - I swear rats are more prone to them than other animals, but thankfully they typically heal up super quickly)
@@ShadowTheRat lol yup! unless they are a super energetic rat who thinks she's a ninja! I swear keeping her calm to let it heal was a nightmare!
Very important video. Thankyou so much for sharing the message. My heart stops when I see a rat being handled by its tail.
Same :( Its so sad how common it is, and many people just do it because they've seen it done on TV or such and assume its safe :/
I discovered my old rat (almost 3 years) had a weird hard point on the tip of her tail a while ago and wondered what it was, thank you for answering that!
Awe sweet old girl, yup, sounds like she has nail tail
You forgot they use them to slap you in the face :D
Cockslapping me is they're favourite xD
Or poke you in the eye when they sit on your shoulder and then turn around
@@Hekateras Hahaha true!
Hahahaha
Hahaha!
I didn't know ANY of this! Thank you so so so much for this video!
Glad to hear it was helpful!
I love your videos, they are so informative :) I am currently in the process of planning to adopt 3 rats and I binge watch your videos :)
Thank you! CongRATs on your soon to be new ratties!
One of the best informational videos ever and so happy you covered this as too many people do pick them up by the tail and it is upsetting to me. The other thing people need to understand is closing cage doors on their tails. Always take that extra few seconds to visually make sure their tail and feet don't get slammed in the door. It's amazing how fast they can move at the wrong time. Thank you for a great job on this!
So true, cage doors are so dangerous if they close on your rats and my fear is always trapping their heads that way. I've seen several people loose their rats that way and it just scares me so much, so I pretty much always give treats before closing the door so no one approaches it while I close it!
@@ShadowTheRat a long time ago i pinched one of my rats foot as he stepped on the plastic side as i was closing the door. It didn't do any damage but he squeaked as it had to have hurt. Ever since that i watch all body parts carefully while closing the doors. I have heard of people breaking their tails. 😭 that is why i was glad to see you talk about the subject of rat tail degloving as they don't deserve an injury like that because of negligent handling. You always do a terrific job of helping owners both novice and experienced. Thank-you for your years of dedication and knowledge. You are well known and respected by many! 😇
Thank you so much my 3 yo ratty accidentally degloved about an inch and a half. I had no idea what to do about it..yours was the first video I watched , and I'm so glad you posted this,,it's a relief to know what i need to do for him. Thanks again!
Great video, lots of good info, plus we got see your cuties running around! Donut eating in your hand...so cute!
I love when they eat that way, its just so adorable 😍
Can you show how to soak a tail as you mentioned?
The best way to do it is like with an abscess - a bowl with warm water, some treats to distract, and then try to soak for as long as they allow (aim for 5 minutes but expect just a minute or two at most lol). I''ll try to make a video on it at some point, or if I do one one abscesses then I'll show it and mentioned it can be used on tails as well.
Wow! I have rats but this is a cool thing to watch and learn some things I may not have known before! 😊
My rat has nail tail and I didn't know about it before! I just called it his 'stinger' because it looks like a tiny little bee stinger at the end of his tail. I just figured he had a weird tail but it's nice to know it's normal and should come off on it's own eventually.
I called mine his stinger too😂
Its pretty weird looking for sure! I've seen a few people mistake it for a partial degloving so I thought it would be a good thing to touch on.
Also I love the calling it stinger lol, it really does fit the look!
I can't handle these pictures, but it is great info. Your new babies are so cute :)
Sorry about the pics - I've added a gore warning in the title and a timestamp in the description so you can skip it.
I’m glad this exists, I know how to protect my rats, Tater, Cocoa, and Lily now!
Glad you found the video helpful! I love your rats names btw (especially Tater!)
Rat tales, the best book of Rat rhymes ever, you teach so much and share Rattie love. I can't deny that we are all Rat lovers inside. The furry little ones will always find a way to show us love in the Rattiest way.. Rat love forever. 🐀❤
One of my boys Bean (💕) is almost 2 years old and he keeps his tail baby pink! He keeps his brother Basil's pretty clean as well. I think it's so stinking cute and wanted to share 😍
I would like to see a video about health and things you need to keep in mind about protein intake or something like that or fur/skin symptoms.
I'll be doing a video on skin issues soon, so that should cover quite a bit of that. I'll see about a more comprehensive health video at some point once I finish these highlight ones.
whenever people come over to meet my rats I usually tell them to just not touch there tails on purpose like if they touch it its fine but to not pull on it
Same - I tell people that that sort of "tail only" handling is the worst way to handle rats and at worst could easily cause the rat injury. Most people really don't know how damaging and frightening for the rats handling this way is and just go off what they see in cartoon or movies so its good to spread correct information.
Hi thanks so much for all this information my 2 girls will be in so much health now 🙂
Glad you enjoyed!
@@ShadowTheRat love your channel by the way 😍
My older girl degloved an inch of her tail last year, I simply gave her infant ibuprofen for a few days, and then the tip of the bone dropped off a couple weeks later and she was fine.
In all the research I've done, never once has this come up!! Thank you!
I really need to spring for a medical book on rats.
Glad it was helpful - if your looking for a good resource on rat health issues then I'd suggest checking out the rat health guide. They have information on just about every health issue rats can get along with information on treatments, case studies with pictures, dosages, and more. Plus its all available free online which is awesome.
Oh my goshhh! Donut is getting so big, she's the same size as the others now, how old is she now? She's adorable :)
Donut, Olive, and Pickle are all just over 4.5 months, Sugar is nearly 28 months, and Omelet and Egg are 2 months!
@@ShadowTheRat oh my gosh! I didnt realise I thought they were still babies haha, they grew up so fast!
This might just be but I LOVE rats tails, they are so cute to me and to me it’s just part of their cuteness overall
I ADORE rat tails! Especially when they wag!
Same! Although my current girls only wag their tails when annoyed :( Especially Sugar, she gets annoyed if I try to pet her too much while she eats and will wag at me while squinting lol - then when I stop she walks off with her treat and stares me down from the cage! Little butt!
@@ShadowTheRat I have one girl that wags when she`s happy and getting cuddles. My other two girls only wag when excited and annoyed. LOL
Can you do a video on how to set up a rat cage comfortably, please! I don't know what other things I should get for my cage. I feel my cage is incomplete and it needs more hideouts and I do not know how to go about that.
Sure! I have an older video on cage setups here: ua-cam.com/video/LPrll-8qnwE/v-deo.html
But I will probably make a new one with the critter nation (probably doing a single unit since all is overwhelming) soon!
I use a bunch of little boxes which are great cause you can just throw them away when you clean the cage.
@@ShadowTheRat Thank you!
@@GypsyEquestrian Yeah I have some of those too! Do you know if the rats would like tape tubes in the cage?
I have had rats for the past 5 years starting in 2016. I was 12 at the time I had just gotten my first pair of rats, and one of my biggest regrets that I did with one of them was holding them by there tail so often that the end 2 inches of tail came degloved. And after that my parents obviously took him to the vet and had surgery to remove it and he was perfectly fine after that. But still to this day I feel absolutely horrible about doing that to him, his name was Chrysler. And I loved him so much. And obviously I learned my lesson and would never do such a thing. And I know a lot more about rats now that I’ve had them for 5 years and I watch a lot of your vids and other peoples on and how to give them the best life they deserve.❤️but I do feel horrible to this day for doing that to him. I currently have 5 boys and I love them so much🧡
Thank you. Learned something new here
Glad you enjoyed the video!
Thank you for this. One of my rats, Ambrosia, was adopted with half a tail. I was worried it was a birth defect, as she came from a pet store, but it's most likely a result of having half of her tail amputated after a degloving
Personally my guess would be that her mom just overhroomed her as a baby - it’s not uncommon for new rat moms especially in stressful places like rodent farms (where most pet store rats come from) to overgroom (aka nibble off) parts of their babies tails or even limbs, and thankfully baby rats can’t really process pain for the first few days because they are born so underdeveloped, so this doesn’t hurt them and they heal up easily. After that since they learn to walk and get around from the start with the removed bits they will function like any other rat.
It’s also possible for rats to be born with short tails or even no tails, but it’s pretty rare and hard for even rat breeders to consistently get rats like this, and in most cases any shortened tail seen from a young age is due to a mother rat just nibbling too far when they are babies.
@@ShadowTheRat Ah, alright! Well, thank you. These are my first rats, so I don't know much about missing tails and such. I made sure to take my time and research what I'd need for them to have good and long lives, but there isn't much info online about half-tails.
She lives (and balances) just as well as her sisters, so I'm not too worried, but I do like having answers for stuff like that
The first time I saw nail tail I thought my baby got the tip of her tail de-gloved and it was the bone showing through. It was a stressful night lol
I've seen a few people with similar experiences which is part of why I wanted to touch on it - glad your ratty is okay!
Same with me, I then asked our vet about it and he said it's nothing to worry about, so I didn't. All of our old boys had it😅.
Thank you Esther 😊.
Thank you so much for this video !! Very informational as always !! (;
I'm glad you enjoyed!
My 2 baby rats cage fell the first night I got them at 4am, the first one I found was Bean and his tail was degloved half-way down, I nearly passed out it looks terrifying, (lemon was completely fine tho) we couldn’t take him to the vet at 4am but we did later that day, he got his tail amputated halfway down, we think the cat knocked the cage down and Beans tail got stuck but we’re still not quite sure what happened, what’s important is that we’ve learned to be more careful when it comes to keeping the cage away from the cats and he’s okay now, they’re actually about 5 months old now! :D
Omg thank you, one of my rats has nail tail and I was really worried for a second 😅
Sometimes when they are on their death bed from a trap (mortality wounded) , they whip their tales really hard back and forth. I suppose it's to cause pain to a predator.
My rat usually holds her tail over her back. I didn't see it in the video so I'm not too worried, but is it just some silly thing she does?
That's usually due to genetics - you can actually breed rats to have super curly tails (think as curly as pig tails even!), but typically we consider it unethical to select for this sort of tail curl because those sorts of tails aren't very helpful for balance or heat regulation. A simple curved tail above the head though isn't a problem though so you don't need to worry.
Just a quick heads up though since some people will tell you its wheel tail and that she does this due to a too small wheel - there is absolutely no evidence of wheels (even small ones) causing rats to hold their tails up, and people just make the connection because on a wheel rats will hold their tail up some when running on it. But since some rats have been successfully bred to hold their tails up or even have super curly tails without any wheels in their life, it seems like pure genetics is a more likely reason.
Anyways regardless its not something to worry about, but I just wanted to give you a heads up because people can get a bit accusatory for no reason when they see curly rat tails (even though again, unless its super curled then it doesn't affect them at all, and can be considered akin to curly whiskers in rex rats vs straights whiskers in standard furred ones).
Is it normal for little rat scales to fall off? My big girl Bluemoon sometimes has those falling off her tail or they get loose. Is this normal? I have to be careful because if one of those scales gets caught in something she shrieks not the most painful shriek but like I fell. She also has a yellow tail, partly because her tail was always yellow and partly because she always gets her tail stained. I have to wipe it off a lot and sometimes after I wipe it the wipe comes off yellow. Bluemoon what have you been putting your nasty tail in! ❤️🐁🐀. I tell my rats if they misbehave they’ll become a little rat pie 🥧. (I would never do this because I love my rats, what is something silly you can tell them). Thanks for answering all the questions we’ve had!
They do naturally molt scales but they shouldn't be falling off constantly or catching on things - that sounds pretty strange to me, you might try moisturizing it some to see if that help (rub in the direction of the tail). Yellow tail on the other hand sounds pretty normal since they do drag it in pee lol - you can try soaking it briefly while distracting her with a treat and using a toothbrush to gently brush in the direction of the tip to get any gunk off.
This wild rat i caught, he got loose 2 times. Last time, just a few minutes ago, he was under some clothes. So i thought id just grab the very end top of her tail to keep her from moving so i could get a good grip on her body. Soon as i touched her body she pulled away from me and it degloved like almost 2 inches of her tail 🥺 it breaks my heart. Shes too wild for me to do any kind of medication so it can heal. And im broke to take her to a vet. Now im afraid if i left hwr go she will get infected in the wild 😫 i should have let her go a week ago 😔
Thankyou for your video's 🥰🐀🐀🐀🐁🐁🐁🥰 xx
Glad you enjoyed!
My rat’s tail has gone limp, she can’t use it anymore. She still eats, drinks, and grooms. She just doesn’t want to move very much and stays hidden in her hidey box. What could this be?
How old is she? Older rats will usually stop lifting their tails as they run around, and that's just something that comes with age. But if it seems like she's uncomfortable or hurting then she may have sprained it, in which giving her some childrens or infant motrin (dosed at 20-30 mg/kg depending on how sore she seems every 6-8 hours) for a few days and limiting free-range and excess movement should help her heal. (If you'd like help with dosing I've made some dosing charts based on weight here: rattrix.weebly.com/rat-medicine-dosage-charts.html )
That being said if she's acting very off then it could be something more serious, so in that case a vet visit may be a good idea. Definitely monitor her weight and behavior and if you don't see improvement in a few days time then I'd definitely be looking at a vet visit. I once had a girl develop a limp tail due to a slipped disk at her tail base (confirmed by x-ray), however she also had other issues going on and so was going to be put on steroids and pain killers anyways and with that and careful handling she lived another year of high quality pain-free life, so even if it is more serious it isn't necessarily untreatable/unmanageable.
I had a rat who probably didn't clean his tail. When I realized, it had gotten to levels where his tail didn't look smooth but all bumpy and patchy. Seemed to me some of his scales grew quite large and a lot of gunk built up between them. Took multiple tail bathings and brushings to get it to decent levels, but since he also started having breathing issues (turned out to be heart problems which my vet never caught) it never cleaned up completely. I'm still wondering if this was "normal" levels of a rat just not cleaning their tail or if he had something else going on.
I LOVE seeing them climb on the walls of the playpen and how the use thier tails to balance also ,Is that a tumor on sugar? :((
Same, their balance is amazing and that was actually one of my first rats Shadow! I was amazed that even as a large rat she could balance on such amazingly thin surfaces.
Also yes, unfortunately Sugar is developing a mammary tumor :( Its benign and fatty and so it won't spread, but it will continue to grow. I've decided not to do surgery due to her age and a few other concerns, so I'll be monitoring her quality of life and if necessary having her PTS if it grows too large (thankfully its been growing very slowly and she gets around well so right now I'm not too concerned).
My friend was at a breeder and he grabed the Baby rats at there tails.... the breeder had them in Bins whitout houses and a few air holes, but there had water and food. She bought some (older rat "you can breed you own babys whit them!" And babys mostly huskys and dumbo huskys )and supriseingly there are relativ tame
Sounds like your friend wasn’t a good breeder - an ethical breeder would know it to handle them by their tails and that they need much more ventilation in bins. As for their temperaments is likely they started with well tempered rats and just continued that genetics - since a lot of rat temperament is genetic if a rat is predisposed to good temperament they can go through the worst situations and abuse and still be friendly.
@@ShadowTheRat no she isnt a breeder she bought some rats by the breeder I described! I'm bad in english haha
@@kirstenicevalley Still, no one should be breeding rats except responsible and caring professionals.
@@tiffany7985 yeah sure she technikly rescued them
I always wanted a pet rat. There was a girl that I dated in high school and she had one of the coolest rats I had ever seen or even heard of. This rat was littler boxed trained and loved to be petted. Every time I went to her house this rat would try and break out of its cage to get to me. She got mad and said I don't know why he loves you so much, cause he doesn't act like that with me.
Anyway she had 2 rats and only the one that loved me was OK to roam around the house. The other one was a little bitey and drew blood from me every single time I stuck my hand in its cage.
Well this rat would end up getting sick and dying. When people say that animals don't have feelings, they just don't know. The cool rat that loved me got depressed and wouldn't want to do anything at all.
I would take him out of his cage and pet him for a minute and then he would get down to go to the bathroom and go right back to his cage and sleep. Unfortunately my little buddy would quit eating and die about 3 weeks after his brother died.
Even though I wasn't his owner, I felt like we had a little bond. It was very sad to witness this and there wasn't anything that we could do to make him happy anymore.
The chicken I was dating said that she didn't like the other rat at all and the only reason that she kept him was for his brother. She split them up and was fixing to get rid of the mean rat and when she did the nice rat didn't like it one bit. So she ended up keeping them both due to this.
I never got to own my pet rat like I wanted too. My wife of 25 years now said that if I ever got a rat, that she would leave. There have been a couple times when I wanted to test this but for our kids, I thought it best not too try it.
This is a good educational video for me so I can overcome my phobia of rat tails.
I don’t know if this is right but I think my rat feels like she is gonna fall when I pick her so she wraps her tail around my arm
one of my rats tail got caught on something and the skin got ripped of is what i think bc i wasnt there at the time but she lived for another 5 months and sadly passed without medication bc my family is poor and theres not alot of vets where i am she was a strong rat
the thumbnail hurt my soul..
Same :( It’s not a pic of my rats, just a stock pic, but it was so sad to see how many pics were available of rats being held this way :(
Thank you!
The only time I grapped one of my rats by their tail base was for last minute safety rescue. They were free roaming the living room, I was with them, and one of them was heading straight for the cat. They hate cats. Cat saw rat, cat was getting in position, I jumped up and had to rescue in a hurry. My ratto was trying to hide in an area my arm could not reach. I never grap them by the tails other than for this quick rescue. Only had her by the tail base for 1 second and immediately flipped her on my chest. She bite the cat when he stuck his paw through the cage bars. My cats are afraid of large rodents now.
First of were did yoo get this rat toy thingy things toys pleasssss tell mee PLSSS
What rat toy things are you talking about?
My rats love tangling their tails in my hair. Every time they sit on my shoulder.
This video needs to be sent to the Disney Channel's "I'm with the Band" show for holding a rat by the tail. I was pissed.
terrific video thank you
Glad you enjoyed it!
It hurts my heart seeing rodents picked up by their tails! Its like holding someone by their spine! How can people not realise that the tail is attached to their spines not just their butts! And its never like an aggressive/scared rat or mouse trying to bite. Just an innocent little guy.
One of my boys has nail tail and when i first noticed it I thought it was the tip of the tail bone showing 😅 but I didn't do anything cuz it didn't seem to be affecting him.
Can you explain why a rats tail is rotting or has necrosis from the end of the tail for about 1.5 inches.
Usually its due to an injury getting infected, or something that restricted/prevented blood flow for long enough for the tail to die off. I nearly had that happen to a girl due to her tail being bit during intros, the bite wasn't bad but it got infected, abscessed, and it took several weeks of intense antibiotics and anti-inflammatories to save it (although I would have had it removed if she hadn't slowly improved).
Anyways if its already necrotic then it likely needs to be removed by your vet.
One of my rats has a red spot on his tail near the base of it and it looks inflamed , I've been trying to figure out what it is but I can't find anything about it. When I first noticed it the spot was only a red dot but now it looks inflamed (kind of like a pimple) I have no idea what it is, but I'm worried about him. Does anyone have an idea of what it could be?
This is super interesting! Thanks for the awesome videos as always! I recently got a rat from a reptile breeder to add to my pair of babies and noticed something weird with his tail. There’s a bunch of tiny bumps/pimple like masses under the scales of his tail. I did a warm soak and it would fall off as I washed it or with a little pressure it would pop out. But it bleeds, and some tend to grow back. Also has some on his ears and nose same exact way. Tiny white pimple looking bumps, I stopped trying to mess with it because it feels like I’m torturing the poor baby lol any experience/advice with this?
Have you treated him for mange/mites? It sounds like that's what's going on, and you'll need to treat him with revolution from your vet. Its super common for feeder rats to come with parasites so I would always recommended getting them treated for parasites - your guys crusties sound like mange so definitely get him treated asap.
Oh man I had no idea! I wish I could send you a picture or something so you could see. I haven’t found a good vet that I’m comfortable with. It’s hard to find one in my area that’s very knowledgeable with rats. I even had one tell me that rats are not social and will become aggressive with other rats. Imagine having to explain the differences between mice and rats to a veterinarian 😂😂 I will definitely look into getting the revolution. If there’s any other things you would recommend I greatly appreciate it!
@@thesickestbro If you have Facebook or Instagram then you can PM me on there with pictures (my user on both is also shadow the rat). Another option would be to email me pictures - I respond to rat questions on my rattrixs@Gmail.com email daily.
Also I totally get the vet thing - I live in a small town and up until very recently went to a general vet. Every time I went in I got told by the vet that she had only ever seen rats maybe once or twice before and that the rats she had seen before were my rats lol. I made it a point to print out information from the rat health guide page and gave it to my vet to help kick start her research - I actually had 2 main vets there though, the first one was a super helpful lady who took my advice and experience to heart and would follow up on any resources I gave her with research and even contacted a specialized vet to help treat my rat with brain cancer, and the other was another lady who was the total opposite and who nearly killed one of my rats because she refused to believe she was sick (I ended up treating that rat at home - thankfully I had the right medicine and diagnosed her right, but that vet ultimately made me switch clinics because I couldn't handle getting her again. Thankfully my current vet is very rat experienced, super nice and thoughtful, and while she is about 45 minutes away she is well worth the drive).
As for revolution you can buy it here - it does take a few weeks to ship though, so I'd see about calling your vet and seeing if they will sell you revolution over the counter (my vet will sell it to you if you have been there in the last year for an appointment with that animal). Revolution is used to treat dogs and cats and most small mammals for parasites so any clinic should carry it (just make sure you don't get revolution plus, you want the original cat/kitten/puppy revolution): www.canadavet.com/Search.aspx?k=revolution
It is a bit pricey but you only need one drop per rat (you have to treat all rats, including those without symptoms since its super common for only one rat to show symptoms while all are infested), plus the tubes last forever so its worth it (I usually treat all new rats with it before adding to my group because I've had too many rats bring in parasites to my main group even though they themselves never showed symptoms).
Rat eye health issues would be a good topic
My rat is barely alive, something hag to fall on her tail, because the tip of her tail was ripped off
I tell anyone that holds my rats to never pick them up by the tail. It scares me and I've heard stories about degloving.
Do you have any tips on naked rats? How to keep their skin safe from the cleaning of their cagemates? Or any information on naked rats in general
Naked (either double rexes or actual hairless) rats don't have any real care differences from furred ones - depending on the line you may have to watch for eye issues (which can get serious quickly and really should always be seen by a vet), cysts and abscesses (something they are more prone to than furred rats and which are treated with a warm compress twice daily, and if no progress is seen within a week then its a good idea to get them vet checked and possibly lanced), and sometimes dry skin (treated with some higher fat/protein foods like sunflower seeds or meal worms or other high fat/protein treats when needed, plus with rubbing in olive oil or coconut oil into the skin to moisturize it more when need be. If humidity is low then just like with ring tail seen in this video its helpful to raise it using a humidifier which should reduce any dry skin).
Overall if you get them from an ethical breeder who is breeding away from the associates health issues than you shouldn't have to do anything extra. But with naked from unknown genetics this is when you tend to see the health issues above being more common than in furred rats.
As for scratches honestly you can't prevent them - some people will file their rats nails so they can't scratch them up as much, but even so they will likely have some scratches from time to time. As long as they are superficial then they should heal pretty quickly and aren't something to worry about.
My final note is that furrless rats of any type available as pets will have a normal expected lifespan - if you look up hairless rats you will probably see sources saying they live 18 months or less, but this only applies to immunocompromised hairless rats who are bred for labs. There's no way you would get one of these rats without knowing it so with your average pet hairless rat regardless of source you can expect a normal 2-2.5 year lifespan, sometimes more if you are lucky.
@@ShadowTheRat Thanks for the information. My last naked rat must have had been from a bad breeder. She was only 14 months old when she ended up with pneumonia which put her in the hospital, and I had to put her to sleep.
She is the one in my picture, I wish I had videos of her to put on UA-cam.
I love all your videos and have followed you before owning rats. Your videos made me want the cuties.
Thank you for being such an inspiration.
Thank you for doing my suggestion X3
Thank you for suggesting it! I really enjoy this type of video and hope to do more of them in the future!
My rat just ate a small piece of a plant that's toxic to them, please help! What should I do? 😭
Calling your vet is your best option, otherwise if it’s just a small bit watch and look for any abnormal behavior. Sole people will feed a bit of active charcoal so if you have that then that’s an option as well
Call poison control. They will have the best information on whether to be concerned and what to do, if anything.
Word of advice: don't Google 'degloving' if you're not into gorn. It isn't restricted to rats.
Just got my first case of nail tail how long does it take to fall off
Besides the face, the tail is honestly my favourite part of a rat 😍
I love their tails, little paws, and little snoots - they are just too cute!
Can you help me? One of my rats has a small cut behind her ear, I’m not sure if I should just leave it alone or treat it. She doesn’t seem in any pain but I’m worried about her.
My Rat yin yang likes to wrap its tail around my neck my other one doesn't do it Ben
I watched this video before and then a month later I see nail tail on my rats and I thought it was in this video also I noticed my rat has a spot of blood near the end of his tail I don't know if it is ring tail or not but this video helped alot!
Its possible its porphyrin, the rats red mucous - they secrete it from a gland behind their eyes, and it drains out their eyes and nose daily. Usually they groom it off before you see it, but as they age you will see spots of it accumulate on their fur or tail (especially with light colored rats with light fur and light tails).
Thanks u for sharing. 😗
Is that why my old rat moon smacked me with his tail 😅
i heard shadow died a couple days ago even though it was three years ago but i feel you three of my rats died shadows up there watching you R.I.P shadow Edit: im still bawling my eyes out
Shadow died in June of 2017, so her passing anniversary is a while off. Still, I did get her in April of 2015, and I had her for over 2 years. She was a sweet rat, but I'm not sad about her passing anymore. Keeping rats or any short lived pets long term means you do need to learn to cope with their passing, and I've had short lived pets for over 16 years now. So I'm glad she lived a good life, and I look back on her fondly, but I don't think there's any need to look at her passing as sad because she did live a good life and many rats don't get that.
Thanks for your great information. I really need help with two males, one is sometimes very aggressive toward the other but otherwise they are fine. How can I change this behaviour?
Are they intact, and did this behavior start suddenly? Also are they from unknown genetics (pet shop, feeder bin, etc.)? With males the very first thing to rule out is hormonal aggression, so if you see sudden aggression in a male I’d get him vet checked and if nothing else is medically wrong, you may need to consider a neuter. These can either be done chemically or physically, although chemical neutered only last about a year in rats and are less common (due to most vets not having access to them).
Definitely a good idea to contact your vet because if it is hormonal aggression then nothing short of a neuter will help, and they can even become aggressive to people as well.
@@ShadowTheRat many thanks! The rats were for about a month kept by a very unstable, argumentative couple and when we got them they both bit us and were in a filthy cage. They haven’t bit us again but one of them is sometimes aggressive toward the other. It MAY be improving but we will keep in mind what you said about a possible neutering. Thanks indeed!
What is the white stuff you feed them as a treat? I just got rats and would like to get them familiar with me in a positive way. Thank you!
Its plain yogurt! They love it, and its healthy enough to be a regular treat. Other more occasional liquid treats can be anything from chocolate syrup to whip cream, ensure, malt paste, meat baby food, and more - I rarely use those for training, but I will occasionally use them for taming because rats love them so much and in moderation they are fine for rats.
@@ShadowTheRat Thank you so Much! I've been binging your rat care videos to learn more about getting them accustomed to me. The in and out game seems to be working well for that. Thanks again for your expertise!
Is it normal for a rat to loose some skales? Mine shed, like its the same as if you would pull of a fishskale, but of course i do not pull the skales off of my rat.
Yes its normal for them to molt their scales - as long as they don't act in pain while molting then its nothing to worry about.
Omg thanks if this happens when they grow up I would be scared but not anymore thanks
Its definitely a scary experience - I had a rat have an almost degloving incident a few years back and it was terrible because the poor girl was in so much pain :( Thankfully she healed well though and the tail didn't fully deglove so with pain meds and disinfectant she was on the med quickly.
Lol my rats tails are covered in snot or blood idk because there both the same color
Its probably porphyrin - blood would be worrying, but porphyrin stains EVERYTHING! You can always wipe it off with a warm wet washcloth in the direction the scales grow (aka towards the tip), but otherwise a bit of staining won't bother them and is also fine to leave alone.
Might need a gore warning for the degloving. 😬
seconded, @author, please add some text warning
It is in the title of the video
Sorry about the pics - I've added a gore warning in the title and a timestamp in the description so you can skip it.
Chris I have added a warning in both title and description - I can't edit the video, UA-cam no longer allows you to change anything post publishing. I'm a bit desensitized to gore I think because I didn't think that was considered gore - that's why I didn't have any warning, but I'll add one from now on.
@@ShadowTheRat it’s totally fine; you’ve done your due diligence and appropriately informed people about this legitimate health and physiological issue. If people want to be properly informed about the care of their ratties, then they need to watch your detailed and helpful video and get over the non-gratuitous and factual representation of relevant risks to their animals.
Can you please make a video about pneumonia in rats
Because my one rat passed away because of pneumonia and I don't want my other rat to go through these problems because she is also showing some symptoms 🥺
With pneumonia the best thing is to take them to the vet since they'll need antibiotics, just like a human would. One of my girls had pneumonia but I was luckily able to treat it quickly so she just needed 2 weeks of the antibiotics. The sooner you get treatment the better it'll be as well.
@@killerdanceing thank you so much now I have been concerning to a vet for my second rat.....
I agree that its best to go to a vet asap - its so much easier to treat an upper respiratory infection than a lower one and it has a much higher chance of successful recovery, so whenever you see concerning respiratory symptoms you want to get the rat vet checked asap.
I will do a video on pneumonia in the future though, likely along with a few other common rat illnesses.
@@ShadowTheRat thank you so much but can you please tell me what medications should I give because the vet I have been concerning to doesn't know much about rats and is saying not to give doxycycline but I think doxycycline is important to prevent respiratory distress in rats
Can you please tell me?
Btw love your videos they are really helpful for many of rat lovers
@@seemaagrahari1590 I replied to your comment on the other video
Ooooo cute reptile food.
Hi, my boy was degloved today. He is in so much pain and I can't find the link to your Tylenol dosage. Help?
Poor guy :(
Here's the chart - scroll down to the mid-way point for Tylenol: rattrix.weebly.com/rat-medicine-dosage-charts.html
I noticed a single scale on one of my rat's tail is kind of sticking out, as though it was going to fall off. Is that normal? Will it grow back?
Yup that's normal, they molt their tail scales. It'll grow back, and their tail will continue to molt their entire life.
If the tail seems dry and the scales aren't naturally falling off then you can rub it with coconut oil ever so often to help.
I love rat tails! X
oh god the thumbnail gaveme a heart attack 😭 poor ratto!
I feel the same :( I found that picture with a bunch of other free stock image pictures of weirdly enough manicured hands holding rats or mice of various colors by the tail - idk who uses those images (other than me I guess lol) but its such a weird thing to find.
I have a rat with a cute dip tail!
Awe she sounds adorable!
Perfect Video!!!
100% ^_^👍😇
Thank you!
The many times a rats tail has ended up my nose 😅.
I've gotten one of girl's tails in my mouth a couple of times lol. That's never fun.
Also, one of my girls has a tendency to stick her face as far up my nose as she can to clean it.
@@lazuliartz1296 😂 rats are very caring little guys/gals or she might of been hungry searching for green gold😂.
Oh gosh put up a warning for the images >.> it made me feel pain just seeing images, but anyway as usual a great video !
It says there's a degloving warning in the title?
Sorry about the pics - I've added a gore warning in the title and a timestamp in the description so you can skip it.
Mary I didn't have the warning when I first published it, I'm not too sure what counts as gore so after seeing people ask about a warning I added one where I could (to the description and title).
@@ShadowTheRat i'm not sure if it's gore but for sure it can make some people uncomftable without warnings but it was important to share awareness about this. I did not known that rat tail could deglove.
I never handled mine by the tail i knew it was fragile but not why.
Omgggg i grabbed my rat by middle of tail whe it tried going under the couch Dragged very hard and nothing happened luckily:o
Love them tails. Sugar is so much bigger. Love You all
She really is! She can still beat them at basketball though, and is surprisingly energetic when playing the younger girls lol.
@@ShadowTheRat Younger girls can't show up the Queen Sugar! They are all so Precious.
Augh!! There should be a warning for- [actually reads title]
Oh
How do you feel about people deliberately breeding tailless rats? I'm against it, and happy to say that I do not think the UK's National Fancy Rat Society will ever approve them as a variety. Rats need their tails! (I am shocked that people breed dogs with no tails too). X
You should be a veterinarian!
I actually almost went that route - it still interest me quite a bit though, so even though I'm not planning to be a vet I do like to learn about various animals, and of course rats especially interest me.
hello so ummmmm i was playing with my rat alex and accidentally got her tail stuck in the door but don't worry me and my mom are working on healing it with vetresin but i just wanted to ask how long do you think it will take for her tail to heal or if we should bandage it and how thx
I wouldn't bandage the tail. Not only could your rat be able to reach and chew it off, you could potentially wrap it too tight and cut off circulation
@@mitsukitai2713 thx
@@kirmitdefrogsayshi1000 just keep an eye on it and make sure it stays relatively clean. Rats heal surprisingly fast.
What does the injury look like? If its a small cut then disinfecting it with vet spray and letting it heal naturally is fine (you can also give some infant mortrin for any pain, and I have charts to dose by weight in my description), however if its a degloving then your much better off going to a vet.