Are these ear mites?

[blackdutch]

The chocolate buck has a problem with his ears.We just noticed it today, the ear is scabby [light brown color,flake-type shape] andwe put some vasalinein it, and some of the scabs came off and the ear was bloody. Could it be a bad case of ear mites? I have a not-so-great picture, here it is.

 

[naturestee]

Yes that's what it looks like, and a very bad case at that. Here's some articles that show similar pictures:

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Parasitic/earmite.pdf

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/furloss.html

He'll need his ears cleaned and treated, and you should probably treat your entire herd too plus some serious disinfecting. Do keep in mind that cleaning that crusty stuff out of his earscan beextremely painful. Medirabbit recommends waiting to clean until several days after ivermectin treatment, which gives it time to loosen a bit on it's own. Even then, it might be best to have a trained vet tech do it.

 

[blackdutch]

naturestee wrote:

Yes that's what it looks like, and a very bad case at that. Here's some articles that show similar pictures:

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Parasitic/earmite.pdf

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/furloss.html

He'll need his ears cleaned and treated, and you should probably treat your entire herd too plus some serious disinfecting. Do keep in mind that cleaning that crusty stuff out of his earscan beextremely painful. Medirabbit recommends waiting to clean until several days after ivermectin treatment, which gives it time to loosen a bit on it's own. Even then, it might be best to have a trained vet tech do it.

Thank you SO much. That first article has a picture that looks exactly how his ear looked when some of the scabs came off. Wow.. I'm glad I saw this kind-of early.. Some of the pictures are really sad! :shock:

 

[blackdutch]

Today we started treating him.. we gave him the sheep ivermectin (I asked my vet - the horse paste is bad, but he cattle/sheep stuff will work) - a few drops in the ear.

What should I do to the other bunnies to prevent them from getting it?The only one he's gotten contact with was my doe in September.. do you think we should be treating her with anything? (Mineral oil???)

Also, what should I use to disinfect cages that won't harm bunnies?

 

[Haley]

Im not sure about the rest of the herd. What did your vet have to say? I would think it would be good to at least treat the doe, or any others whose cages are in close proximity. If its too expensive for you to treat them all, sometimes a vet will prescribe you the meds and you can order them online to save money. Or you can just monitor each one very closely and take them in if you see signs. I would think preventative meds would be the best choice if you cant hough.

For washing down the cages, I would just use a 50/50 solution of water and white vinegar. Give everything a good scrub with hot water.I dont know about outdoor bunnies, but when my boys had mites my vet recommended using a flea/tick powder to treat the environment (carpet etc).

Have you given all the others a good look to be sure he's the only one?

 

[aurora369]

In this case I don't know if vinegar would kill the mites.

Can you clean the cages with bleach, and then rinse really, really well? Bleach is okay to use as long as you rinse well. You could also possibly check at a feed store for disinfectants, I'm sure they would have something designed for disinfecting stalls.

--Dawn

 

[naturestee]

Bleach would probably be best. Vinegar works for some bacteria but not little bugs. And make sure you take care of him last, after all the other buns, to prevent infecting the others. Personally I think it would be best to treat all the herd, or at least any within a few cages of him and the doe he had contact with. It's possible you could have transfered mites to your other buns on your hands.

From my experience with my kittens, early ear mite infections can sometimes be hard to see. Sometimes they're only deep down in the ear canal and can only be seen with a scope. My kittens didn't have much for external symptoms and the vet would not have scope her ears if I hadn't asked her to. Eve's ears were so bad they bled easily, you just couldn't see much without a scope.So it's quite possible that some of your other buns are infected even though you can't see anything yet.