[hybanana]

So gave my boys a bath last night and noticed one guy has thick yellow scales on the last 1/4th of his tail. It was very dirty covered in pee I think. So I took a cloth and cleaned up his tail in the bath and noticed thick yellow scales coming off on the cloth and that the tip is a bone tail...what's going on here? (Sorry about the hair in the pic its in the bathroom haha)

 

[SaraLovesRats]

It's possible the pee dried up and mixed with dry skin

 

[Isamurat]

The bone tail isn't actually bone, is effectively dried scales forming a semi hard tip. Over here is often caked tail nail which is a bit closer to what it is. It's no worse than the rest of the tail being scaley, they do often come together and it is harmless.

It sounds like your guy isn't effectively shedding his tail scales well. This can be down to a number of factors. The first is diet, you would also expect to see a a longish coat with this one. If he's down a little bit on a nutrient like protien or oil it can slow the regeneration of the scales down. That would be my first port of call. The next is does he have hld or is he an old boy. If so this is possibly a combo of diet and him not lifting his tail out of his business. Some regular cleaning to lift the old scales plus a quick look over what you feed could help.

In terms of improving it tail cleaning is well worthwhile. i use the scourer bits of cheap dish sponges to get the thick off with warm water and a touch of kid safe soap. Then i remove the stubborn bits and any lose scales by gentle brushing backwards with a soft bristled tooth brush. Not scrubbing add this can injure them

 

[hybanana]

Thanks he is only 9months old and his diet is adult oxbow with dry pasta, puff rice rolled oats and a small amount of bag mix no seeds. Should I add anything?

 

[Isamurat]

Looking at what your adding you are effectively watering down the protein and fat element of the oxbow a bit. This is already on the low side (which is usually a good thing) so his diet is probably a bit low in both at the moment. Your choices are to stick to just oxbow (which I think is a bit boring) or to balance out the mix a bit with occasional wet meals, or by adding a bit more protein/fat to your mix. I would probably recommend adding in a wet meal a week going forward and for right now whilst he’s in a bit poor condition do it twice a week.

The kind of thing I mean by a wet meal is something a bit higher in protein than normal, so cooked rice with egg microwaved through, a tin of pilchards with a bit of millet, a tin of natural cat food and so on. The principle is to keep it balanced (so it can be fed to all rats) but top up specific minerals so along these lines. On the days you give a wet meal cut down on the oxbow or don’t feed it (or they will get fat)

70-75% cooked carbs: rice, cous cous, pasta etc – as they are young
10-15% high protein food; egg, fish, chicken, shell fish, cat food etc
15% veg
Add to this a few drops of good oil per rat, salmon/hemp/olive/omega/flax/linseed oil are all good choices, my fave being salmon oil for youngsters and linseed/flax for older rats.
You can add a pinch of a good general vitamin powder if you’d like, look for ones with added calcium, vit d and copper ideally. Not too high on the vitamin A.