We have raised meat rabbits for a few years. But recently had an outbreak of fur and ear mites. Is it safe to use the pour on ivermectin on the rabbits if we will be harvesting them soon? Also, to prevent further outbreaks, how do I treat the pens?
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- Thread starter Jael
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I do not use ivermectin on rabbits we are going to eat, because I do not want to take ivermectin myself unless it is on purpose, with a measured dose, for a specific reason. Since ivermectin is an off-label use in rabbits, there is no data/information available about withdrawal time (the rate it takes the chemical to be eliminated from the animal's tissues). And even if there were a withdrawal time for rabbits on the insert, all that means is that in clinical trials, that was the time it took for the chemical concentration to fall to a level considered "safe" by the FDA - it does not mean that there was none left in the meat/tissue.
Two other ways to treat mites are oil and diatomaceous earth (DE).
Oil usually works great for ear mites; you can use sweet oil, olive oil, or mineral oil. Coconut oil works too, but it is sometimes harder to work down into the ear since it is normally solid at room temperature (it will melt as it gets warmed by your hands and/or the rabbit's ear, though). I've never had to resort to drugs for ear mites.
I've found fur mites are a little more difficult to eliminate. Oil will work on them as well, but it makes the rabbit pretty unhappy to have large parts of its fur oiled (and can interfere with thermoregulation if it's cold out).
Sprinkling DE lightly through the fur in the places where the mites are evident can sometimes work if the infestation's not terrible yet. It won't hurt the rabbit to ingest a little DE but you don't want it getting a ton inside itself. You also don't want them (or yourself) breathing a lot of it, so apply it carefully.
One more thing that I've heard works, but have not tried myself, is dribbling a line of Listerine down their backs. A breeder friend of mine says it worked wonders on her rabbits that came home from convention with fur mites.
Fur mites are uncomfortable and unsightly, but they're not usually fatal, so if you can't get rid of them without drugs in your meat animals, it's probably okay to give them a little relief with one of the methods above, but not worry too much about completely eliminating them in the meat grow-outs. Of course you'd want to keep them away from infecting your brood stock.
As far as eliminating it from pens, it depends on what type of housing you're using. This is one of many reasons I prefer hanging all-wire cages with no solid wood parts; once the mites are gone from the rabbits, as long as the cages are clean (no build-up in the corners), there's nowhere for the mites to hide. The only way mites can come in again is on hay or straw.
If you have wood edges or floors in the hutches, you need to clean the hutches thoroughly, and then you can sprinkle DE around edges and crevices where the mites could be sheltering. Again, be careful in the application so there's not a lot of it floating in the air. The DE kills the mites by abrading their carapaces as they crawl through it, so one application will usually do.
If you've got rabbits in a tractor, you can still sprinkle DE around the area, but you'll have less control over infestations. Which brings me to a final point...some rabbits are more prone to mite infestation than others. Most can't resist a full-on onslaught, but when we get mites in the barn, not all the rabbits develop issues. So you might watch to see which of yours are more resistant (it has a lot to do with how the animals handle stress, in general), and keep those for your brood stock.
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