Olivia has a dandruff patch

[LittlePuffyTail]

I posted about a month ago about Olivia having a bald, dry patch right under her ear and she was scratching her ear. The bald patch kept getting bigger so I brought her to the vet (not my usual rabbit vet, but she does treat some rabbits). She checked the ear and said there was a large chunk of wax lodged deep in the ear that was probably bugging her. As per the vets instructions, over the next week I cleaned and massaged the ear with a solution to try to work the wax out and applied Polysporin to the bald patch so it wouldn’t become infected if she was scratching it. We got the ear rechecked in a week and the wax was gone. Soon after, all the hair regrew on the bald patch and she was fine for a while. Now that same spot has become all dandruffy and sort of losing a bit of hair again in places.

Going online, all I can read is fur mites but if it was fur mites, why would they have gone away and the fur regrown just to move back into that same spot? I had also e-mailed my rabbit vet when I noticed the bald spot a month ago and she said fur mites are very unlikely. I assume because they are rare in my area and Olivia is never exposed to outside rabbits.

Any suggestions?

[BinkyBunny]

My first thought was ear mites as well. My thoughts would be that you were able to kill a large amount of the mites with the cleaning, but without meds, there may have been a few that just procreated and started the whole cycle again. But since both vets have said it was not likely, then I am stumped. Did they do a check at all for fur or ear mites? They should be able to do a skin scrape.

[RabbitPam]

You could try the same treatment procedure for a few days to see if it clears up the same way. It doesn’t treat the cause of the excess earwax – only the vet can discover that – but if it is the same issue, then the same treatment should work until your vet does further analysis.

[LittlePuffyTail]

My rabbit vet is opening up her clinic probably in another week so I will probably bring Olivia to get her to check under a microscope. It’s strange with regard to the ear wax, her ears are as clean as a whistle, it was just that one chunk. Strange. I doubt it’s ear mites because her ears are so clean and she’s not digging or scratching at her ears or the dandruffy patch.

I figure it can’t hurt, so I might trim the fur with my little electric clippers and put Polysporin on it. Maybe that’s what cleared it up last time. I checked my two boys and they don’t have anything suspicious on their fur.

[BinkyBunny]

Oh that is great to hear about your vet. I know you have been waiting for her clinic to finally open!! Keep us updated with what happens with this mysterious patch!

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