Does anyone here own rats? At the present time, or in the past? I need advice, badly. Or maybe just support. I dunno.

I own three rats:
Miles (oldest, over a year and a half, black rat and a whopping 700-800grams!)
Allan ("middle child" about a year and a half old and two-three months younger than Miles, white rat and normal weight)
James (youngest, about 8 months old, black hooded rat, small but growing)

Miles has scabs. Lots of scabs. I can feel quite a few, and he flinches and doesn't like me touching him. I thought in the beginning that it might be mites/lice, but I'm thinking not. I was just woken up by the most horrible screeching. Get to the cage, and Miles is a prickly porcupine (rats can make themselves look huge when they're stressed/mad) but I can't see who started anything.

But the only one I've seen beating up Miles is James... and I think he may be causing the scabs. Which sucks because if it's an aggression issue, I CANNOT afford to neuter James. He's a perfectly lovely rat otherwise, but it seems that whenever food gets involved in some way that the rats go a bit crazy.

What am I supposed to do here? I don't want to separate them, but I'm wondering how Miles is going to heal if the scabs keep reopening.

To top it all off, I have a vet appointment later on Monday. I think they all have varying degrees of an upper respiratory infection.

God give me strength... I love those boys.