Ear gunk but no ear mites?

[Binkles]

I took Peter to the vet today for a full health check, particularly his ears because he’d been scratching and shaking them a lot. I thought for sure he had ear mites but when the vet swabbed them out and looked at the gunk under microscope there were no mites. She says that bunnies sometimes just get gunk that builds up in there like that.

Is that true? Poor Peter is still shaking his ears and scratching them. Does it take a while for the irritation to go down or something?

 

[Sarita]

I would say that since your vet sees many rabbits and animals that you should take her word for it. I imagine that if she took the gunk out that yes there is some irritation from that – if you’ve ever swabbed your own ears then you will notice that putting something like a swab in your ear and cleaning it out will definitely cause irritation.

Vibes to Peter.

[KatnipCrzy]

pets can get a build up of debris in their ears- but it is commonly associated with ear mites or an ear infection.  She obviously checked for mites- did she make a slide to look for fungal or bacterial organisms in the debris?

But like Sarita mentioned- even if it was just debris- no infection or mites- it probably did feel odd to have the ears swabbed and it could be a strange sensation afterwards.

[Author]

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