Mites are a turn off for our days. Can you imagine those tiny, but annoying animals attack our cute pets? I’m sure no one will be able to ignore it. Unfortunately, mites are pretty common in pets, including rabbits. As a rabbits lovers, we sometimes feel hard to deal with those chemical substances with side effects that might be also bad. Therefore, I can give you these tips of 5 natural ways to treat ear mites in rabbit.
(Learn more about take care and clean Siberian Husky here : 6 Important Tips to Take Care and Keep Clean your Siberian Husky Coat)
Quarantine and Sanitize
Before we move on to the treatment of the mites itself, the first and foremost thing you can do is to move your infected rabbits away. Mites can spread rather quickly, and they can attack your other rabbits. You can move your rabbit in the secluded cage, where you can also take your time to focus on treating the infection.
After separating the infected rabbit, you also need to clean the environment where the rabbit used to hang out. Sanitizing them is very important since the mites might stay there and spread into other environment, even though without their host. You might as well clean your hand and even change your clothes and just clean them all.
Then, you can calmly treat your rabbit now. Treating the ear mites in rabbit is actually pretty easy as long as you stay careful during the process. I will remind you once again that these mites can spread really fast, therefore you always need to sanitize yourself after you give your lovely rabbit a treatment.
Natural Treatments
For the treatment, there are 5 natural ways to treat ear mites in rabbit. One thing that you must keep in mind is never remove the scales or scabs that grows in your rabbit’s ears. It can be very painful for the rabbit, some reported they can scream during the process. Besides, after the treatment, these scales or scabs will fall out by themselves, so you don’t have to worry.
- Honey
Well, honey is not an oil. But, we know how honey is very useful for our daily life. We, human, can even consume it everyday for our health. Now, it’s time to introduce honey to your rabbit. All you have to do is to mix three teaspoon of honey with three ounces of warm water. Make sure that the honey dissolves into the water, then you can coat your infected ear of your rabbit.
To coat the ears with this mixture, you can use the syringe put few drops into the ears and massage them gently. Not only this massage can make the mixture comes in properly into the ear canal, but also help to make your rabbit relax and comfortable. You can also tilt the head gently to side by side, to make sure the mixture goes into the ear canal and coat the infection properly.
- Any Kind of Oil and Tea Tree Oil
As I said before, oil can be really helpful in treating ear mites, too. You can practically use any oil you have in your house, for instance olive oil, corn oil, coconut oil, even the usual vegetable oil. The oil will help to suffocate the mites, so they can be terminated only by the use of the oil. While the tea tree oil has a different purpose, so you can mix them to get your rabbit become less irritated.
The tea tree oil itself can reduce the itchiness and it has a natural substances that can act as anti-fungal and anti-bacteries. Very useful. But, if you can’t find them, the oil you have around you should be enough.
- Yellow Dock Root Extract
The yellow dock root extract can become home remedies for the mites infection in rabbits. You can dilute nine drops of Yellow Dock Root Extract into one tablespoon water, and you have another good natural remedy for your infected rabbit. However, this extract might not be very common in few countries. So, you can replace it with any oil within your reach.
- White Vinegar
White vinegar is also great to treat the mites infection in rabbit’s ear. The acidity of white vinegar can remove the dirt and debris from the ear. Mix it into the water with the ratio 1:2, which is 1 part of white vinegar with two parts of water.
- Apple Cider Vinegar
Mixing apple cider vinegar with olive oil can help to remove the disadvantage caused by the mites, too. Meanwhile, apple cider vinegar is also very useful for daily health prevention since it contains vitamins, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, minerals, and many more. This product can even maintain the rabbit’s immune system and prevent urinary tract problems.
(Learn more about home remedies for sick rabbit here : 6 Effective Ways to Treat a Sick Rabbit with Home Remedies )
There are 5 natural ways to treat ear mites in rabbit. The administration itself pretty much the same. Ear mites eggs live until 28 days, so you need to keep treating your rabbit until you can break the life cycle of the ear mites. First of all, you can do the treatment for 2 days in a row, then you can continue the treatment every other day. It means you can provide the treatment in day 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14. After that, you can continue treat your rabbit in day 21 and 28. The ear mites should be gone by then, but you always need to ensure that they are really gone.
Since the ear mites can easily stick to anywhere, you need to avoid handling them for a while, so the ear mites can’t transfer into your body. It might not harm you at all, but they will surely attack your other pets easily. I know it’s a torture to not touch your lovely pet, but love can’t go through the easy way sometimes.
Prevention of Ear Mites
For the prevention, you should avoid the straw bedding, since straws can harbor the mites. If you still use it as the bedding, I suggest you to change it into the safer one.
Sometimes, we cannot instantly see the infection of ear mites because it starts in the inner ear of the rabbits. However, you can also observe the abnormality in their behavior. Usually, the mites infection can cause intensely ear scratching and frequent head shaking. If you’re late in giving treatment, the yellow-gray scales or scabs can grow pretty thick to 2 cm. In this state, you may need to go the veterinarian and he/she will usually give oral administration or injected Ivermectin.
(Learn more about symptom of sick rabbits here : 12 Symptoms That Your Rabbit is Sick (Must Know !))
After 10 days of medical treatment, the scabs will fall off by themselves. Your rabbit can get healed then, but imagine how your rabbit feel after so many days of torture! That’s why the prevention is also very important, so your rabbits can keep happy. You can mix the mineral oil with apple cider vinegar for daily treatment. The tea tree oil can be used for daily use, too.
For some cases, stress can trigger the ear mites infection. Just remember to keep the environment of your rabbits stress-free. Of course, cleanliness and hygiene holds a very great deal, too.
(Learn more about lonely rabbit here : Don’t Let Your Rabbit Feel Lonely, Here are 5 Signs)