Is there anything sharp in her pen or play area she could’ve caught it on? There is no trouble between her and Pacey is there?
I don’t know abut an emergency, but you might want to get it stitched up if it looks fresh, not to mention get something to keep it from getting infected. Sometimes the vet can save the ear that way. Ears are bunnies’ ways of cooling off in hot weather, besides their normal function, so I’d take care nothing else happens to it.

Do you have any other animals who might’ve torn this ear?

Awe – well from the photos it doesn’t look as bad as it sounds, and if you’ve talked to the vets office and they have given you instructions, then you’ve done what you can. The only worry is if it’s torn worse than it looks in the photos and it needs stitches to keep it together, then that would be best to do while it’s fresh so it will have a better chance of healing properly.

Regarding the bleeding. A vet once told me in layman terms that rabbits have a type of vein system that has lots of little shut off valves, prevents them from bleeding so much with certain wounds. (Maybe it mother’s nature’s way of keeping a “prey” animal as safe as possible (as blood would leave a trail, and scent that could bring more predators.) Who knows, but I found the “shut-off valve concept rather amazing. So that is why you may be seeing not so much blood.

But you do have to watch for abscesses forming at wound sites, so just follow the vets office advice and keep it clean.

Keep us updated! Sending Healing vibes Marshmellow’s way!

If it’s not raw I would think some hydrogen peroxide wiped over it would be ok (3% solution) Looks like a layer of skin scraped back. Is the layer still attached? Maybe she’s done this herself – over zealous grooming?

I agree with BB that it looks like it’s behaving well enough as you follow the care advice to be able to wait until Monday if that’s your only option. I would try calling your own vet and seeing if she has a pager to call you back, or an answering machine. My thinking is that you want her to be alert to the problem and get yourself an appointment to come in first thing on Monday. If she calls you back, you will get advice for today directly from her, which is what you want. You can even email her these pictures if she’ll give you her email address.

Having had a rabbit with a torn ear, I can tell you what we did.  We took her in to our vet who attempted to repair the tear, which looked like it was going to work but after a week or so it was pretty evident it wasn’t going to take.  We ended up having the tip of her ear amputated.   We thought it was better that way, rather than risk her getting it caught on something and tearing it off. 

This was the tear in her ear:

This is how he vet mended it:

And this is how it ended up after being amputated:

It looked pretty odd at first, but it honestly didn’t seem to bother her at all and in fact the fur started growing aroung the amputation site quite nicely.  After a while we just got used to it.

– Annette

I would recommend that you have your vet check it out. Find out what he or she says about it and try to fix it. To me it just seems that some of the fur ripped off. If that is the case then just let your bun rest a while.

I’m glad you’ve contacted the vet regarding this. It doesn’t look that bad, but it is still a good idea to have her looked at, just in case. The vet might even want to remove the tip of her ear. My lop has a torn ear tip from a scuffle when he was young that was never repaired. It doesn’t bother him at all.

Oh good. I am still wondering how she did it? That’s very strange. Thankfully you noticed!

Is she housed next to Pacey?  Both Schroeder and Penny got nicks in their ears from louging next to Cotton and letting their ears go thru the barrier (NIC panel).  I think they were taking the “I am ignoring you” game a little too far and got a little to overconfident.  But their nicks were on the edge of ear tips themselves- nothing that really could have been sutured well.

I hope you figure out what it was- that would drive me not knowing what “hurt” my bunnies ear so I could prevent it from happening again.

Julie

That tear does not look bad at all….but I know how worriesome it is to have your bunbun hurt in any way! I would bath it a little and possibly add a little polysporin.

A thought too….sometimes the way rabbits scratch their ears with their little back claws looks vicious. Possibly she nicked her ear grooming this way. Her nails wouldn’t have to be exactly sharp to cause a tiny injury like that.