Mites that leave in rabbit’s ear and in rabbit’s fur is a different kind of parasytes. While ear mites is a species called Psoroptes cuniculi, fur mites is caused by species from Cheyletiellosis. Another common fur mites in rabbit called Leporacarus gibbus. You can treat this kind of mites at home, so here are 5 effective ways to get rid of mites in rabbit with home remedies.
What is Fur Mites?
First of all, you must know what you face here. Cheyletiellosis is known more with the name of walking dandruff. Their appearance looks like dandruff, but they crawl along the skin. Good thing is this kind of mites are non-burrowing type mites. The funny thing is these mites might not cause the itchiness in rabbit’s skin at all. The obvious symptom that we can observe is the white stuffs in rabbit’s fur around the neck in the back area of rabbit’s body. In some cases, the itchiness can occur, and it will easy to recognize that there is something wrong with your rabbit.
Even if it didn’t, the flaky white stuff can be easily seen in rabbit’s body. When there’s no underlying disease, the infected rabbit might not show any symptom, so you can just take care of them at home. But, in some cases, fur mites also appears because of other diseases. Then, you might need to go to the veterinarian if there are some other diagnosis appear.
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Home Remedies for Rabbits with Fur Mites
It may look awful, but actually rabbits with fur mites can be treated at home. The most important thing is you can carefully keep the environment hygiene for the rabbit, so the mites don’t come back to disturb your lovely pet. So, here are 5 Effective Ways to Get Rid of Mites in Rabbit with Home Remedies that you can follow.
1. Quarantine the Infected Rabbit
Although fur mites isn’t as aggressive as ear mites, your infected rabbit needs to put in the secluded area. Different from ear mites which is not harmful for human, fur mites in the other hand can cause itchy dermatitis in human skin. Besides, you don’t want any other rabbits or any other of your pets get infected. Even though it’s more common in rabbits, this kind of mites can attack cats and dogs also.
Quarantine rabbit is not enough, you need to sterilize anything that connected to the infected rabbit. You also need to clean yourself up after you treat the rabbit. This part become the first of 5 effective ways to get rid of mites in rabbit with home remedies, because it’s essential to avoid mites spread around the house. And it can happen rather fast.
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2. Throw Organic Materials
If you detect this mites in your rabbit, you need to instantly throw away all the organic materials that have contacts with your rabbit before. Mites can live until 10 days without the host, it means those mites can infect your other pets. It can even infect you or your family member. Furthermore, the organic materials can be the perfect home for the mites since they usually absorb humidity better. And the humidity can attract them to stay and grow there.
After this infection, you might want to consider to use non-organic material for the cage. If you use the organic bedding before, then you can replace it with something that you can easily clean. Because it’s very important for you to keep it clean as much as possible. Not only attract the diseases or mites, the dirty cage can make your pet stress, too.
3. Clean the Environment
You never know whether the fur mites go along the way in your house. So, if you put your rabbit at home, you might also need to clean up your house. Especially, if you let your rabbit wander around the house.
Vacuuming the carpet is also necessary because it can stick there. But, it’s not enough. You need to use miticide powder prescribed by the veterinarian. Boric acid such as Fleabusters, Vet-Kem Acclaim Plus-Sanofi, Staykil-Novartis, Indorez-Virbac, or Acaricide spray can also be useful. The way you treat your carpet is by vacuuming it first, then you can administer the powder or spray. Don’t shampoo or steam the carpet because the humidity will be the comfortable place for the mites to stay. Let’s make not them too comfortable in our house.
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4. Use Comb Regularly
Some of people suggest to take the infected rabbit to bathe regulary, but some don’t. Bathing can be effective to get rid the fur mites. However, it can cause stress in your rabbit, and if you’re not really experienced in treating rabbit, it can end up worse. It can lead into spinal fractures and excessive chilling.
Anyway, you still need to comb the rabbit’s fur everyday to remove scales. Use the fine-toothed comb, so the mites can be removed properly. I will remind you again that you need to be careful and do it gently to avoid your rabbit becomes stress. If you force to remove scale, it will hurt your rabbit. After the use, always sterilize the comb. Or anything else that you use for grooming your infected rabbit.
5. Keep your Rabbit Healthy and Happy
Fur mites apparently come from a stressful environment, thus decreasing the immune system the rabbit. Like I always said, rabbits get easily stress, so you need to make them stay happy. To make the rabbits happy, you need to start with the cage. Prepare the cage that is at least 4 feet long, 2 feet wide and 2 feet deep so your rabbit has plenty of room to move around. And it’s only for one rabbit. Since rabbit is a social animal, you might give him/her company, and the cage should be larger.
Put a special place to litter always can help your pet stay healthy. It means you can easily to get rid the dump that they make. Especially the rabbit, who can dump many, many times. Without place to litter, imagine the dump they make spread around the cage.
Don’t forget to always take them out to play, too. Let them wander around on the fresh grass can make them happy and healthy, too. Just like us, they need to exercise. Otherwise, they can get stress out and it can trigger many diseases to your rabbit. The stressed rabbit also can easily die, too. Of course, you can choose the closed place where the rabbit can’t get away.
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These mites have life cycle around 5 weeks. I suggest you, if after 5 weeks the mites don’t go away, you better go to the veterinarian. Or, if you see another weird symptom because there might be another disease in your rabbit.
Treating this fur mites rather simple and you can always do at home. All you need to follow those 5 effective ways to get rid of mites in rabbit with home remedies I stated earlier, the mites will be surely gone.