Rash or Dry Skin?

[fortheloveofbunnies]

My little girl Netherland dwarf, Almond, has been experiencing some discomfort on her ear. After watching her scratch and clean her ear for just long enough to become a concern, I searched to find that she had some redness at the base of her ear. No flakes, no signs of mites, no open sores or sign of infection other than her skin at the base of her ear on one side is red and warm. I noticed this late Wednesday night, we spent most of the day together and she wasn’t scratching it until that point.

I searched this forum and all over the internet and eventually decided to try some coconut oil on the area. It did manage to really relieve her and she was able to fall asleep while I massaged her. Over the last day, I can tell the oil has definitely been helping and she hasn’t been scratching or acting unusual (normal eating, drinking, sleeping, pooping, peeing and, of course, binkying). 

However, I’m still a neurotic mother, so I wanted to check with the community to see if anyone has had any experienced anything like this. Should it have healed by now? What could have caused it? Could it be dry skin? I should mention my husband and I have been experiencing dry skin from the air in our home so my immediate thought was dryness but the absence of flakes threw me off. I turned on two humidifiers with the hope that would help if it were dry skin and also help our other rabbit. 

I’ve been trying to avoid a vet visit for the sheer fact that it terrifies Almond. In addition, the exotic’s vets in our area (recently moved away from our old vet) are not well versed in rabbits so I’d want to have a good idea of what it could be before bringing her in if it comes to that.

Any advice would be very much appreciated  Sorry for the long post! Thanks in advance!!

[Luna]

Is the area still red? Luna has dry flakes (vet confirmed not mites) on her ears right now due to the winter weather, but I’ve never seen any signs of redness.

[Author]

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