rabbit ear mites

[chump]

Me and my husbund bought two rabbits from our local feeder store that sells them every year. We eyed them for couple of weeks to see how healthy they were. They seemed fine so we bought a couple. They're adorable. Of course. We named them Acorn and Wizard. They have wonderful personalities and are lively and healthy. We have three other rabbits we've owned since last summer that are very healthy too. We put them in a box of hay on way home so they would be more comfortable. Couple days after we got them they started shaking their heads and scratching at fur round faces. Read that it could be ear mites. Our other three rabbits have never done this or had ear mites and rabbits at store were not doing this. Only thing i can think of is the hay we put them in. Our other rabbits use same hay though and have never gotten ear mites. Could some one whos had experience with this tell me safest way for rabbit to deal with it? They act so unhappy and scratch at ears even worse when use medicine from store on them.

 

[Bunnylady]

My favorite weapon against most rabbit parasites is Ivermectin. The formulation that I use is actually horse wormer, but the injectable cattle wormer works well, too. Plain ol' vegetable oil can be put in the ears to smother the mites, but it is a bit messy.

 

[redhen]

Yep..my rabbit had them. He got shots of Ivermectin from the vets.... went back in 2 weeks for another shot. They were all gone.
Wouldnt of spent all that money if i knew i could just go to TSC and buy ivermectin...

 

[BarefootMom]

VetMed Rx They have it at most feed stores. cost about $7...

Comes in a yellow box.

They also have it for poultry and goats. works great.

 

[chump]

Been using miticide for cats cause we couldnt find any actual meds for rabbit ear mites/ Used less than box said to use in case it wasnt good for them. Dont have money to go to vet. ill probly try the oil thing then. dont really like using miticide on them. my husband said it was ok but i dont think he knows anymore than i do bout it. Still curious as to where they came from. OH WELL. How much oil exactly would i need to use and for how long or how many times?

 

[Okla-doodle-doo]

Just put a few drops of baby oil in the ear. Then very gently massage the ear so the oil soaks all the way thru the crusty stuff. You can either remove it or let the rabbit ske it out. Sometimes I make a mix of baby oil and camphofeneuqe(spellin) and use it. Helps kill the mites and heal the itching open sores so they heal.It can be healed this way very easily and quickly. Please do it for the poor rabbits sake. Can you imagine the headache they must be haveing!

 

[chump]

THEY DONT HAVE ANY BLACK OR CRUSTY STUFF LIKE IVE BEEN READING BOUT ONLINE ASSOCIATED WITH EAR MITES. Is it usually down in ear canal where u cant see it? i think maybe they got it from hay somehow because they just acquired it it seems. From our place somewhere. other rabbits dont do it though. will try it. Dont want them to be uncomfortable

 

[therealsilkiechick]

when 2 of my mini rex had it i noticed it a few days after giveing them new hay. they had brown crusty stuff in the ear looked jammed to the rim full of it. just use cat ear mite drops and don't remove the junk the bunnies will nock it loose and out themselves. if u try to remove it makes it really soar and bleed(if that happens just add vacileen to protect the soar. we used half the dose on label and only 1 time a day so it wasn't to strong and in 5 days was totally gone and never came back since.

 

[dewey]

Those are cute names.

It'd probably be a good idea to treat all the rabbits since mites are highly contagious & easily transmitted. They can have mites and not show symptoms. Most of the scratching, at first, anyway, is due to an allergic reaction to the mite's excrement, just some rabbits are less allergic to it. Yours could have picked them up at the feed store or from around your place or they could have already had a low population of them that could have increased under stress. They can be carried on almost anything including our own hands and clothes.

One of the things about topicals is that those won't be able to get all the way down to the mites deep in the canal if there's inflamation in there, and won't get on any mites that might be on the body, and the topicals like vetrx (which I happen to like) will be painful on irrations if they've been scratching for a while. But, they can be used on bred does and table rabbits.

Like bunnylady mentioned, the ivermectin horse paste can be used, and the 1.87% paste is cheap (only about $8 at feed stores around here) and will go a very long way because the dose is so tiny...like a single tiny rice-grain dot or less of paste per 4-5 pounds of weight. I got some to use this time instead of using the cattle 1% injectible (given orally) because I didn't feel up to rabbit wrangling or mixing it up on individual treats. A pat of the paste smeared on a foot and was done.

 

[mckee farms]

That is what I was wondering, does ivermectin work well for ear mites and mites on rabbit ears. and how much do you inject?