Rabbits – ear mites

One of my rabbits got ear mites.  When she first arrived and I checked her over it looked like there was dirt in one of her ears – so I looked it up and discovered she probably had ear mites so I put oil in her ears for a week and thought no more about it.  Then, last week, I noticed one of her ears looked black and, sure enough, her ear was all scabby and the ear mites were back with a vengeance.

So I’m treating both ears with oil every day – any oil is fine but I find sunflower oil flows better than olive oil and I use a medicine tube to administer it.  It’s quite easy and I massage the base of her ears afterwards which she seems to enjoy.

The rabbit ear mite, Psoroptes Cuniculi, is a parasite and has 4 different life stages – egg, larva, protonymph and adult mite with eggs hatching after 4 days.  The oil stops the mites being able to move, mate and lay eggs and eventually they die, but you need to persevere as the cycle can take as long as a month.

There’s no need to bathe the ears as the scabs will just fall off once the mites are destroyed and the ears usually heal quickly.

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It’s really easy to administer the oil with a medicine tube as you can do it one-handed and hold the rabbit still with the other hand.

I shall be treating all my rabbits weekly with oil until I’m sure we’ve got rid of the ear mites altogether and then it’s probably as well to treat them once a month – and that way I can keep a check on them.  My rabbits are kept in cages so there’s less chance of ear mites spreading but it’s still a good idea to move rabbits occasionally and thoroughly clean their living quarters with disinfectant.

_DSC0110rabbit 4 weeks oldSM

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