Mites Everywhere

Apparently almost every single one of my rabbits has ear mites. All of them... So now for the fun of making plantain salve, mixing it with coconut oil, and then squirting it into their ears... I'm so glad my rabbits are going to love me to the moon and back when this is done and over with... Forgot to ask.. How do mites travel? Is it possible they hopped on me to move from rabbit to rabbit or what?

At least ear mites are usually easy to treat. Most poeple use plain mineral or olive oil in the ears, but your plantain salve may work well too. Please let us know.

I used plantain salve mixed with coconut oil for my doe Turtle and she had what I would call severe ear mites...All the way from deep inside to the tips almost. I used it and within about 2 weeks they were completely gone. Of course I kept up the treatment to be safe rather than sorry though (I can't explain how anxious it makes you to have two nosey baby bunnies trying to lick your fingers while you type and your laptop is on the verge of dying haha.. Oh man.. cutting it close lol)

Depends on the mite how they get around. Some mites live on wood, hay, or poultry and don't infest mammals but will cause itching that can lead to secondary injury and infection. Some can come from wild rodents being on hay or shavings you then use. I'm not sure how bad the rodent mites infect rabbits. Mites tend to be fairly species specific but like using infested hay and shavings other animals may transfer a mite that can't reproduce on them. I knocked a poultry mite off my gerbils while checking for rat mites. Even the rodent mites don't particularly like living on guinea pigs and south american rodents but they will infest gerbils if there are enough of them to get started. Rat mites are the worst experience in my life. When you kill their food source and they start starving they swarm across the area and any living thing. You can see hundreds of them crawling on your skin and every time they bite they burrow a little. Eventually you are dancing around itching your legs, arms, shoulders.... until you can't stand it anymore and have to flee. Then you spend days with itchy rashes full of lumps that slowly go down to scaly skin. I basically slept in DE and bentonite dust because that was the only form we could find and I was ready for anything. That's a stained mattress cover but well worth it. I put ivermectin on myself once too. I have to get all the dust up off my floors now. I still throw some in the bottom of guinea pig and gerbil cages before bedding despite the revolution treatment everyone got.

Sorry for the rat mites! They sound awful!! Me and Rob got tore up by No see ums (Sand Gnats) they were biting hard and there were tons of them! We had little red itchy bumps everywhere and still do now almost a week later.. At least they don't itch as bad now that they are going away! I'm not sure where the mites came from but I can only guess the hay since the indoor rabbits have it as well.. It would be a shame if my hay had mites in it! I got it form TSC

ButtonsPalace":ouel32lq said:

Sorry for the rat mites! They sound awful!! Me and Rob got tore up by No see ums (Sand Gnats) they were biting hard and there were tons of them! We had little red itchy bumps everywhere and still do now almost a week later.. At least they don't itch as bad now that they are going away! I'm not sure where the mites came from but I can only guess the hay since the indoor rabbits have it as well.. It would be a shame if my hay had mites in it! I got it form TSC

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Doesnt matter where you buy your hay from. Its all grown in fields. Some I have seen on here freze the hay before feeding it.That may help I dont do it. I just use ivermectin when needed. On meat rabbits allow 6 to 8 weeks before butchering .

I believe they came from the chickens, my mans stepdad said his chickens have mites really bad so I wouldn't be surprised if it came from them. Freezing the hay? that's an interesting way to do things and yeah I didn't think about the fact it's grown in a field *blonde moment haha*

Freezing things is easy in winter here. Fowl mites bite but they don't survive so if you just set the hay away from birds they should all die. I'm not sure exactly how long. A few weeks? Most mites aren't visible but clover mites (live on plant matter), fowl mites, and rat mites can be seen ranging from looking like specks of dust moving around to a reddish tiny tick like critter. The neighbor has so many pigeons in his roof I am not surprised to find some fowl mites here but it's not enough to harm anything. I even have cockatiels that remain mite free. The mites just die too easy and not enough are being brought by the wild rodents from the pigeon area.

Clover mites live on plant matter... Hmmm... Well I did give them lawn clippings when the yard got mowed last.. I can't really pin where it came from because I can't say exactly when the mites started. I was noticing a lot of head shaking and I was checking everyone's ears about a week or two ago and everyone was clean and pink. I checked again a few days ago and there was scabs and signs of mites... I'm just thankful they all have mites and not that they all have pasteurella or something else untreatable.

Clover mites are easily visible individually, often red and they won't stick around once the food is gone. That's not the only plant matter eating mite but it's the most common and the one people notice because of it's size and color. I did lose a guinea pig to them but this was back 15 years ago when few vets were knowledgeable in antibioitics for them. I had one scratch himself until he developed an infection that spread under the skin. I was given penicillin which is the absolute no for guinea pigs and he died of either that or sepsis. No one else suffered much. That one was just easily irritated by them crawling on him.