Red stuff in ear

[Desert Rose Rabbits]

When I was feeding yesterday, I noticed a little bit of blood on Stewart's forehead so I pulled him out and took a look at him. Didn't find anything out of the ordinary except for his left ear. It has some sort of red stuff on the inside. It resembles the red gunk dogs get in their ears when they have an ear infection, however, he doesn't have that yeasty smell. His other ear is just fine. He's eating and drinking like normal and the only changes to his diet have been a change in the proportions of of the different grains in their grain mix (it's now primarily whole barley instead of mostly whole wheat), and I was able to get a bale of alfalfa for cheap so I've been using that instead of alfalfa cubes. This change has been in effect for the last two weeks. He's not shaking his head, but it's possible that he may be scratching if the little bit of blood that I found is any indication (his nails are regularly trimmed so I'm not worried about them being too long), but I'm not sure. I do offer a salt lick to all my buns (due to the nature of the grain diet), but I'm not convinced he, or anyone for that matter, actually uses it.

Thoughts? So far, he's the only one that I've seen with this.

Thanks guys!

 

[Schipperkesue]

Could it be he is scratching at ear mites?

 

[ottersatin]

Could he have stepped in a dirty spot in his cage,
and rubbed his ear with that same paw?
try wiping it out with a damp cloth.
Ottersatin. ldtimer:

 

[Desert Rose Rabbits]

Could it be he is scratching at ear mites?

I don't think it's mites... this is starting from the top down instead of the bottom up and I haven't seen anything moving around... no crusties, it's flush with his skin.

Could he have stepped in a dirty spot in his cage,
and rubbed his ear with that same paw?
try wiping it out with a damp cloth.
Ottersatin. ldtimer:

*facepalm* I didn't even think of this. I messed with it a bit, but didn't actually try clean it out for fear of doing damage... or something. I did feed a little bit of manna pro the day before. Same color red. Wonder if he made a mush or something (he's a little strange like that) and somehow got some in his ear. I'll have to give that a go later this afternoon after I run errands!