Rabbit Ear Mites Gone, Cured by using Baby Oil.

Hello All,

My Bunnies ears are pink and healthy again and they are happily doing what bunnies do best, eating and propagating. Me and Marcy soaked their ears with baby oil, in hindsight we over did it for sure filling up their ears with oil like little gas tanks. But it worked and they did not seem to mind. The oil loosened up the nastiness
and the rabbits shook it out and the rest healed clearing up in 2-3 days. Below is all the info about how this treatment works:

Rabbits kept outside are likely to come in contact with ear mites. Ear mites are not likely to be serious, but left untreated, they can lead to infection and deafness.

The ear mite is a parasite, known under the name of Psoroptes cuniculi. they are a member of the arachnid family, which includes spiders and scorpions! The average life span of an ear mite is 21 days.

If your rabbit has an ear mite infestation you are likely to notice a brown waxy build up inside one or both ears. Your rabbit will likely be scratching or shaking his head more then you have previously noticed. Over the next day or two the waxy build up will become scab-like or flaky in its appearance. your rabbit will also have several scratch marks in his ear.

Treatment for ear mites is fairly simple. There are several over the counter treatments that you can use, such as Rabbit RX or a cat ear mite treatment. You may also use any mineral based oil, such as baby oil or even vegetable oil. The oil will suffocate the mites and kill them.

For the oil treatment:

Warm the oil to a lukewarm temperature.
Use a dropper or small plastic syringe.
On day one, place 2-3 drops in ear and gently massage the base of the ear. You may also use a cotton ball to coat the inside of the ear.
Days 2, 4, 6, 8 & 10: repeat day one.
Treat again on days 14, 21 and 28. Mite eggs live for 21 days so be sure to follow through with this treatment.

With this treatment, your mite infestation should be depleted.

Do not remove the crust that may appear in your rabbit's ear. This will leave open, bloody skin that will easily become infected. It will also be exceptionally painful to your rabbit. The crust will come off when it becomes saturated and your rabbit shakes his head.

It would not be unwise to gently wash your rabbits ears on the odd days during treatment. This will help prevent infection and also help in the bonding process. Again, be careful not to stress your rabbit or to pull at any scabs.

Another treatment for ear mites is the medication called ivermectin. I do not recommend such treatment without the supervision of a veterinarian.

If you use the cat treatment, follow the directions on the package. This goes against the manufacturer's suggested use, but the treatment is effective.

This all comes from By BunnyMama29 at:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/62619/treating_ear_mites_in_rabbits.html

Canaries Creole Pot Massive Mashup!

Close up of ear infection for www.rabbitweb.net.

Here is a close up of the ear infection. Still trying to determine if its ear mites or an ear infection or something else. With limited funds and no access to a vet my options for diagnosis are restricted to other rabbit breeders experience. Please let me know what you think and suggested treatment.




So far one person has indicated that it is and ear infection requiring the antibiotic Pen-G and Bipen. I am leaning towards ear mites, I have found a recommendation from this lady to use baby oil or mineral oil to kill the mites. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/62619/treating_ear_mites_in_rabbits.html

I would like to hear a few more breeders opinions.

Thanks everyone,

Handy my little helper.

When I first started the rabbit project in Canaries every neighbor kids was climbing the fence to see the rabbits or open the hutch for a quick peak. This was making the rabbits very nervous so eventually I had to lock the hutches for the bunnies protection.

Well, Handy would climb over every morning for the first month to watch me feed and water the rabbits long after every one else had lost interest always asking if he could help. He started assisting me on his own by sweeping the rabbits droppings from under the hutches and he would gather banana leaves and other tasty treats for bunnies. I could tell he really bonded with them. I started to give him the key to feed the rabbits and help with them. Seeing his dedication I decided to bring him on as an assistant.

(Here is a picture of Handy. This was his birthday picture last week when he turned 9 years old. He is wearing his new birthday cloths in this picture. All of his other cloths are hand me downs from his other 7 nieces and nephews with shirts that are so small it looks like he is wearing a muscle shirt.)


I pay him around 5EC a week for his assistance to help him out. This provides him money for lunch at the local school where he can buy a Popsicle and biscuit. His grandmother is taking care of him on her own. With all her children living in her house unemployed with their children it is very difficult. Since Handy's mother or father abandoned him and do not provide support he tends to get the short end of the stick when it comes to food, attention, and love.
Most of the mothers money is made from burning wood into charcoal and selling it in the village.

The young man has to really fend for himself. I have to commend him though. He sells a small cooler of Popsicles for .25 EC cents (.09 cents US) every day on the main street to help pay for the food his grandmother provides him. He also takes care of the rabbits with great care and attention every morning. With those strong straits at such an early age he will go far.

When I was training him on how to raise rabbits I gave have him some handouts explaining how to feed rabbits, take care of them and so forth. The little guy flipped each page looking it over carefully. When he was finished I asked him what he thought, he could not tell me, and to my horror I realized he could not read.

I worked with him for a few hours teaching him to sound out letters but it is going to take heavy tutoring to bring him up to speed and with me having no teaching experience. I do not know if I can really help but of course I will have to try. In fact the entire family (my neighbors less then 3ft away) cannot read. How could Handy have a chance to learn to read and break free when he is the last in line when it comes to resources, when the rest of the family is illiterate and finally when he has no support except for what little his grandmother can provide.

Despite all this I have high hopes for him, my childhood was no honeymoon either and looking at his hardworking attitude and his maturity demonstrated clearly by him taking two part time jobs selling Popsicles and caring for the rabbits when everyone else is playing I know he has the inner qualities and strength to make it.

I would like to ask two things of someone out there who feels their heart go out this young man after hearing his story. 1. Send me a really good workbook to teach him how to read. 2. Help me repair a hutch so he can raise rabbits with me.

The neighbors have an old rabbit hutch up in the rain forest they are going to let us have. However, it is in extremely bad shape with only the frame being usable so it will need some heavy, heavy repairs. Send a check for $50 for Handy and we will fix it together so he raise his own rabbits in my backyard with it. With them reaching maturity at 9 weeks providing $9-12EC per pound this would be a real way to help him and his grandmother out long term.

Anyone who would like to help Handy please let me know,


Take care everyone, love you all,

Confessions of a NEW rabbit breeder.

We are now into the 3rd month of the Rabbit Program. So far $240US has been raised with the additional funding to start the project being roughly $600US.

For details on the Co-op plan and budget please review past entries or run a search with "rabbit" to see all entries.

I have ran into a few hitches of late that I am going to document here and I am open to suggestions from other rabbit breeders and animal lovers.

First some pictures of my rabbits which consist of 4 females and 2 males. Most of these consist of Flemish giants and New Zealand's, the breeder informed me that he had been cross breeding the two to try to create a breed that was better with the young but still large.


This is my large brown female, I believe she is a Flemish giant.















Here is the large white female which I also believe is Flemish. She has very nice markings.
















Here is my spunky female mixed brown, this bunny is very alert and can be aggressive. The other rabbit is my white albino male. Both I believe are New Zealand's, though who can be sure?
















This is my grumpy black, she has the most advanced ear infection. When I first received her the blockage was completely up the ear canal in the upper ear. It took at least 45 minutes just to clear it out. It looks like its come back a bit, but nearly as bad, I will be cleaning her up Saturday with my little helper Handy. She may be pregnant and her fur seems a bit thin around her ears and hocks.
















Hear is a picture of what appears to be an ear infection thanks to the tips and advice from my friends at http://www.rabbitweb.net/. I hope to get antibiotics from Castries from one of the vets, according to Jeremy I need Pen-G or Bipen an antibiotic that runs 10US in the states. I am hoping they have it and will not charge an exorbitant fee since I live on $546 US month to cover all my costs.
















Here is a picture of my big brown male who appears Flemish, he appears to have fur matting on hind legs, I am just wondering if it is an early sign of some sort of Hocks irritation. I put a board of wood inside just in case he is not getting enough support from mesh screen.
















My last major issue has been breeding. The females have not been receptive to the males keeping there rears flat on the cage floor to prevent copulation. I went with some tips from a chat group again at rabbit web to actually hold the rabbit up slightly in the air pulling the tail back so the male can get his business done.

I tried this morning and in the process received a hell of a scratch.















So that is the update, I think with the antibiotic and the mating assistance to help the males I should be seeing babies in 28-32 days. PS nothing quite like holding a female rabbit up with the tail pulled back having the male hump your hand. Jeez, wish me luck on the project!

Fond D' Or Jazz

Mad props for Landon for securing four volunteer jobs so that we could attend the Fond D'Or Jazz concert Saturday. What a blast, instead of having to shell out 80EC for a ticket I worked the bouncing castle for the little kids for 2-3 hours and then I enjoyed some fantastic Jazz and Salsa music.























We all had a great time below are pics and videos from the fun day and night.



Star on stage having a blast.




And my all time favorite: Nick dancing, pay particular attention to the signature wind up hand move he pulls at the end, that ah boy Big Dog!



Last one of us enjoying the great Salsa music, Lando and Grover are grooving good in this one.

Marcy's Aunty in law ,Andra, and Kids

Andra and her kids visited me and Marcy last weekend for Creole Pot. We had a great time. I wanted to upload some pictures.

Christian



















Puppies


















Marcy and Aunt


















The kids-from left, their friend, Chelsea and Pixie



















Pixie




















Chelsea




















Roxann



















We never took a picture of Eric, thats Marcy's fault and Tamara is in Barbados.

Marcy