Ear Mites??

[LadyKarli]

So my friend brought her bunny over for a date with my mini buck. She petted all my rabbits & took her rabbit home after she wouldn't lift for my little guy. This was about 1 week or so ago. Now I notice my NZ does are all scratching behind their ears to the point there are scabs & some fur missing. I have been spraying the spot with Vetericyn. Now I mention it too my friend & she says how 1 of her rabbits has ear mites. She is treating it & it is only the 1. HER RABBITS LIVE IN A COLONY! I tried telling her if 1 has it they ALL have it but You know how THAT goes. SO I am pretty sure I have to dose all my rabbits I don't see anything in their ears but could it just be way down in the ear canal? Sound about right?

 

[crittercountry]

sounds about right.

I found that WD40 works wonders and gets rid of mites exceptionally fast. Good Luck....and I would make sure that the next play date, her critters are critter free.

 

[LadyKarli]

Really...that is safe for the rabbits ears? I was just going to get cat ear mite stuff from walmart.

 

[MaggieJ]

I don't like to use petroleum based products for my critters. On the one occasion I had a rabbit with ear mites, I used olive oil. It worked just fine. If you warm it to body temperature, the rabbit will be more comfortable when you put it in and the warmed oil will spread around better.

Other vegetable oils will work too. The idea is to suffocate the mites.

 

[crittercountry]

Really...that is safe for the rabbits ears? I was just going to get cat ear mite stuff from walmart.

yes, I've used it for years. If you don't want to use that, then olive oil or mineral oil works pretty good to. I had a bout of ear mites and I treated ALL of my rabbits (whether they were infected or not) and those that had the mites where cleared up within 4 hours and their ears were squeaky clean to!

 

[LadyKarli]

Wonderful. Thank you will dose them tomorrow morning. Will try olive oil first I think cause I have that on hand. How many days & how often do you think it would take?

 

[crittercountry]

Wonderful. Thank you will dose them tomorrow morning. Will try olive oil first I think cause I have that on hand. How many days & how often do you think it would take?

Oils generally take a few hours to a full day, depending on how bad they are. I'd dose them again a week later and it wouldn't hurt to dose them once a month from then on out if the problem seems to persist.

Ear mites are a big PITA around here so I dose mine monthly.

 

[SatinsRule]

Ear mites are a big PITA around here.

You got that right. I've recently had to deal with it on a large scale, too. It's one of those things that if you don't get a grip on it quickly, it will overwhelm your operation.

VetRx and mineral oil are my potions of choice. If there are any scratch marks in the ears or on the neck, I simply use bactine and neosporin. In the past, I've applied campho phenique gel. All have worked well.

 

[MamaSheepdog]

Do you have or can you get food grade diatomaceous earth? (The type used for pools is toxic!) It is very sharp at a microscopic level, and will scratch the waxy coating on the mites and cause them to dehydrate. I haven't ever used it in the ears, but if you powdered the bunnies and their cages it would prevent the spread of the mites. It takes a couple of days to kill them, but any mites that traveled through the powder would eventually die. DE is safe if ingested, and I add it to all of our animal's feed as a natural wormer.

Our barn cats get ear mites (esp. the kittens) and we just had a litter born yesterday- so if the kittens end up with mites I will experiment with the DE in their ears and see if it works. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't...

Here is a link to treating mites- ideally you should clean the ears to remove the waxy debris before treatment, and treat for 3 consecutive weeks to kill newly hatched mites. This vet recommends cleaning with warm soapy water, but I have found the bubbling action of hydrogen peroxide to be helpful. http://www.dr-dan.com/earmites.htm

I always clean the ears prior to treatment, but since your rabbits were just exposed their ears probably haven't gotten to the stage where they are highly irritated and have produced a lot of the black crusty wax that is the hallmark of ear mite infestations, so it might not be necessary in your case.

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

Ihavefound that nmassaging the oil into the waxy exudate works just fine-- no need to clean before hand-- letthe oil do all the hard work...

and yes, treating the ears for mites at the first sign of itching/scrathching is preferable toletting the critters get to the point of producing visible signs...