Lop eared bunnies and ear problems

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Hermelin

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Hi everyone, as a few of you know already my boy Toste struggle with ear problems.

In my country they recently did a study on rabbits. They had 100 rabbits (50 lops & 50 upright eared). The 100 bunnies where bunnies who visited a specific clinic who specialize on rabbits. They either went to the vet to get vaccination and spay & neuter etc. None went in to check the ears or control the ears.

From this study 64% of the lops had an ear problem of any kind while only 5,9% of the upright had it.

What they wanted to carry highlight from the study where the importance of health check up and that you as a lop owner should be aware of the risk of ear problems. They often don’t show any signs because rabbit hide really well their problems.

The study but it’s written in swedish except the abstract. You can find similar studies about lops by doing a search on research engines like PubMed. There are articles who will explain the difference on the ears and why lop ear have a higher risk. Where they will show pictures and different treatments that currently exist to treat lop eared rabbits.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DY_ItJB1vzm816S7YSvO1Yokrd4_qPGR/view?usp=sharing
How many of you that have owned a lop ear rabbit and had to handle ear problems?
 
Just recently Nova had what looked like dandruff on her ears. We looked it up and thought it was waking dandruff but we did further investigation and it is not. Thankfully there is no more dandruff!
 
I have three rabbits (my fourth passed away in Oct 2020), but of the buns, two are uppity eared, one was a Helicopter, and the last is a lop. The little Holland lop has definitely had more health issues. She gets respiratory infections once a year, and has had ear infections in the past. Her biggest issue, though, is a constant buildup of ear wax. I check her ears and clean them every other week (she hates it!), but it needs to be done. I figure it's caused by moisture that's caused by having a floppy set of ears... but definitely worth keeping an eye on if you're a lop owner!
 

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