Using Ivermectin on Rabbits

[PoppyLapine]

So, I have angoras and one of them I have noticed has a lot of white flakes near its hindquarters and tail and also some near the shoulders. At first I thought maybe just dry skin, but then a couple other rabbits have developed some patches of white flakes and they have never had that issue before. Now I'm thinking it may be fur mites. So, after some reading around on here I saw a post where someone suggested using Ivermectin horse dewormer and applying to the ears.
But I have a few questions, how much do I use? What part of the ear and do I do both ears or one? And should I treat all of the rabbits, or just then ones I suspect having the mites?

 

[hotzcatz]

Sounds like wool mites to me! Just a dab of Ivermectin, about the size of two grains of rice in each ear should clear up the mites within about three or four days. If they have crusty redness in their ears, the Ivermectin will fix that, too. At least, it works for the buns here. I'm not a vet and I don't even play one on TV, but we've been successfully treating the rabbits here for ear and wool mites with Ivermection for about a decade now.

Treat the ones who show signs, but if a lot of them are showing dandruff or red ears, then everybunny could be dosed. One tube of the horse wormer will treat a LOT of rabbits.

 

[PoppyLapine]

Thank you for answering! I'll try to put it on tomorrow. Just a couple more quick questions, How far in their ears? And do I have to do any retreatment in a couple of weeks, or just the one time?

 

[hotzcatz]

Basically anywhere in the ears. The back of the neck works too. It's mostly to just let it soak into the skin and not get eaten by the rabbit. The ears have a lot of blood vessels in them so the Ivermectin goes through the skin and then is spread through the rabbit.

Rabbits have a delicate digestion so it's usually better to medicate them by either a topical (on the skin) medication or by injection. Dabbing it on their ears is much easier than using a hypodermic needle and the horse worming gel is much less expensive than the injection version of Ivermectin.

https://www.vin.com/apputil/content/defaultadv1.aspx?pId=14365&id=7259213&print=1

 

[PoppyLapine]

Thanks again for responding! I deffinitly prefer cheap and not having to deal with needles unless I absolutely have to, so I'm very excited about being able to use the gel. I just got the rabbits treated, went very smoothly. Can't wait to hopefully see results.

 

[hotzcatz]

Let us know how it goes, it's always good to have more bunny data to work with. I've had them clear up crusty ears within four days, not sure how long it takes for dandruff since how can you tell if it's new or some of the old dandruff that was already there? We shear the bunnies down to near naked when harvesting their wool, which is usually when we notice and treat for dandruff/ ear mites so I don't know how it will work on a breed that doesn't get sheared. The Ivermectin will kill off the mites, but I don't know how long dandruff stays on a bunny even when no new dandruff is being made?

 

[PoppyLapine]

I agree with the more data the better. A lot of what I know about rabbit husbandry is thanks to this website and the personal exsperiancs shared amongst different ones on here.
So, the rabbits I have are almost all Satin angoras, save for 1 English and 3 English/Satin crosses. The EA had the mites the worse (I clipped him down completely) and then five SA (2 I chose to clip and the other 3 have half grown coats) had them in lesser degrees. I treated all of them on sunday, today is day 4. All of the SAs still have dandruff, but I think less then before. Now the EA on day 3, I noticed the dandruff on his backend/tail area that there was still a lot of dandruff but in the centers of the bigger flakes was a tiny red/brown speck. I'm pretty sure he didn't scratch himself till it broke the skin. So, I pose, was this some of the mature mites that were attached to the skin which had deceased and then the skin flaked off with them? Just a thought, since I have noticed the dandruff never have I seen the red speck on any.
So After I made note of that, I had a lice comb nearby and I gently ran it over the flakey areas to remove some of the dandruff from the hair. Then today, day 4, he has WAY less dandruff! Like, I had to search for it (though I did find it...).
I'd say this so far is going pretty well. Going to observe for a few more days, hopefully the dandruff will be gone or nearly so by then.

 

[hotzcatz]

How do you keep the records on your herd? I have a pedigree program 'Kintracks' which has a 'journal' option. I have a listing for the farm as an animal so I can put journal notes there that are for the herd as a whole.

 

[PoppyLapine]

I recently got Kintracks as well, just got everyone organized in there. But currently for keeping quick notes that are date specific, I had just been using my cellphones calender and I put it down on the days I need. I love that idea for kintracks with making the farm as an animal! That would make keeping notes for my herd so much easier and better organized.

 

[hotzcatz]

In my copy of Kintracks, the animals names are also used to keep them organized. I put an 'F' for Female in front of all the female names and then list their color after: "F Hillside Victoria - black". The bucks have an 'M' for Male in front of their names: "M Hillside Phineas Phogge - lilac". When there's a litter, the litter name will start with a 'zz' to drop it down to the bottom of the list. 'zz VickyPhin 1', etc.

That makes it easier to sort the bunnies by name. All the females will be listed first, then the males, then the babies. Having the color next to their name is helpful for me since I'm generally trying to breed a specific color of bunny for the right color of fiber for yarn.

When it's time to print out a pedigree, then I remove the extra data around their names. When they're no longer in the current herd, then they get the 'F' & 'M' removed, although sometimes I'll leave the color and note the gender. 'Hillside Victoria - black doe'. When reading names in the long 'all animals' list, some of the names aren't gender specific so having it noted after their name is handy.

It's a great program, it's made a huge difference in how well things work here.