Nasty Tails

[Melissa's ZOO]

I was looking at the girls last night and I noticed that Clover had a sore on her tail. She is my only rat that will not groom her tail. So I gave them all baths last night and I put some neosporin on the sore. When I was drying her off I noticed that huge chunks of tail skin were coming off of her tail so I looked at her tail and it is all nasty and covered in this dead white skin. I wiped it off as much as I could but it is still nasty.

What should I do? Should I just bath her tail for the next few days to get the dead skin off? It is mostly on the bottom of her tail she is a major wheel runner so I think that it might be from her tail hitting the wheel wall.

But it is nasty.

Everyone else has nice pretty soft tails, not Clover I think she likes to be the dirty kid of the group she poops in the wheel and then runs in it. No one will get in it unless I clean it out.

 

[jorats]

I've heard of people using palmolive to clean the tails and using a toothbrush.
A few of my rats have very icky tails. I should clean them too.

 

[Melissa's ZOO]

I think I will just get the sore healed and then work on cleaning her tail. I told her last night to not be the dirty girl in school and to clean her tail, otherwise mom is gonna do it and you know you are not going to like it. My dog was starring at me the whole time with this look like what are you doing you crazy woman, just let me eat them and then you will not have to worry about the fuzzy squirrels anymore.

 

[lilspaz68]

I think I will just get the sore healed and then work on cleaning her tail. I told her last night to not be the dirty girl in school and to clean her tail, otherwise mom is gonna do it and you know you are not going to like it. My dog was starring at me the whole time with this look like what are you doing you crazy woman, just let me eat them and then you will not have to worry about the fuzzy squirrels anymore.

Weird thing that I have noticed is the girls have the filthiest tails compared to the boys. Some of my girls get a sink soak, dishwashing liquid, and toothbrush treatment.
I have had some pretty nasty tails where it looks like its peeling off, but its really dirt and urine...blech. uke:

 

[Melissa's ZOO]

Yeah, yuk is right. I think I will go home and let her soak in the sink with soap and scrub on it a little. She really is the only one I have that has a nasty tail everyone else grooms theirs or just stays out of the nasty stuff.

Icky girly. :naughty:

 

[Moon]

Maggie and Emma always kept themselves clean and cute. Lucille and Maeby track through their baby food, drag around their cereal and sit in the water bowls. They get icky pawprints everywhere sometimes. So I feel your pain. Ewww to nasty tails though

 

[user 78]

I was blessed with an OCD rattie, who used to pin her cagemates in order to clean them up. She's always been the subordinate of the group, but if you had a nasty tail or baby cereal on you somewhere, she'd hold you down and make you scream Uncle until you were clean. It's actually pretty funny to watch.

Despite Penn's best efforts, though, they've all needed baths at some point. I jsut fill the tup up a couple of inches and toss everyone in. After about 15min or so of them jumping, scrambling, and giving me the Evil Eye, they're tails are fairly clean, as are their feet and nails. I try to do it about once a month, but usually it's when I go to stroke and kiss a tail and have second thoughts about doing it.