Topic: Wool Mites
What a day! The dew point was 58 this morning, and with the temperature at 72*F, this has been a banner morning for working in the barn. Mondays are dedicated to my bunnies, and I enjoy taking all the time I need to hold and check over each fur ball. Their toenails get clipped once a month; their coats get brushed (barely, as they are German crosses who do not require brushing); they get their skin checked for fur mite populations, receiving Ivermectin and Carbaryl flea powder once a month if they need it.
Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know about the battle I am fighting with wool mites that go on, and on, and on... I am having some real success, finally, with the new regime and new Ivermectin dosages. Once a month they ALL get 1 cc of 1% Ivermectin administered orally. Their weights range from 7-11#, and the two bigger girls get a tad more...1.25 cc. Of the 15 I checked this morning, only two rabbits had any signs, and they were "flakey ears" which is the absolute earliest symptom I have been able to link to wool mites. Rabbits can groom off some mites, but they cannot get behind their ears to groom that spot (unless they are living in a colony, where they will do it for each other!)
One interesting new tidbit of information/experience I will pass along is my new thought on foot pads/mats/wool mites. The two rabbits who had some sign of mites (very little sign, but it was there) had slightly matted foot pads last month. I trimmed their pads as short as I could, but there were some hard spots I could not trim down to the skin, so I left them and hoped the Ivermectin would finish off anything living underneath.
It apparently did not.
So, today I trimmed mercilessly, and dosed FEET with flea powder. That is a first for me. I'll report on how it that worked in a few weeks.
