Why does the rabbit have hot ears? The rabbit's ears are hot

Many owners of decorative rabbits ask: why does my decorative rabbit have hot ears, maybe he is sick? In this article we will answer this question and what to do if your rabbit has hot ears.

Why does a rabbit have hot ears?

It should be remembered that the body temperature of a decorative rabbit should not exceed 39.4 degrees. If it is higher, then you need to sound the alarm and urgently call a veterinarian. Sometimes the ears of a decorative rabbit may turn red - this means increased blood pressure.

When the air temperature is above 28 degrees, dwarf rabbits experience stress on the body, so your task is to alleviate your pet’s condition in hot weather. It has long been known that with the help of ears, the body of a decorative rabbit fights general overheating of the body, cooling the blood, since rabbits sweat only through the pads on their paws.

Sometimes owners of decorative rabbits notice that their pet has hot ears. They begin to panic, thinking that their “friend” is sick, but this should not be done.

If the decorative rabbit feels good: it eats and plays normally, but its ears are hotter than usual, then there is nothing to worry about. Most likely, the animal is simply overtired and needs rest. If your rabbit's behavior has changed dramatically, you need to measure its temperature.

To do this you will need a rectal thermometer. If, on top of everything else, the pet is breathing heavily and its nose is dry, you should call a veterinarian, but the owner can help the pet himself. You need to wipe the animal’s back with warm water, about 30 degrees, starting from the neck and moving down to the hind legs. The main thing is that the wool does not interfere with the passage of water to the skin. Hot ears of a decorative rabbit should also be wiped; it is better to do this with a wet cloth, but you must act carefully and make sure that water does not get into the animal’s ears.

This procedure will help reduce body temperature until the veterinarian arrives, but remember that decorative rabbits do not like water and can kick! After rinsing, wrap the rabbit in a towel. If there are medications in the first aid kit, then you need to give your pet Gamavit and Corvalol.

Dwarf rabbits are very timid and can even die from severe fright, so the myth of cowardly hares is not a myth at all. You need to take care of rabbits, monitor their health, monitor the temperature in the room, which should not exceed 28. If it is hot, you should relieve your pet’s condition.

To do this, you can freeze bottled water and put it on the cage. Place a small piece of ice in the sippy cup or constantly monitor the water temperature. Rabbits drink cool water more readily.

Decorative rabbits are very sensitive creatures. They can't stand stuffiness. Being in a stuffy room at a temperature of 42 degrees, the animal may even die, so it is necessary to monitor the pet and prevent it from overheating. You should not place the cage close to a window, where the rabbit may suffer from heatstroke from the sun's rays penetrating through the glass. If the house is hot and stuffy, it is better to check the animal more often. If you watch your pet, you can avoid many problems.

The effect of temperature on a rabbit

Rabbits are susceptible to temperature fluctuations, and therefore, to maintain a constant body temperature, these warm-blooded animals need to make great efforts.

Surprisingly, rabbits need long ears, up to half the total body length, not in order to recognize danger in time and respond to it, but precisely for heat regulation.

Did you know? Fleeing from danger, the hare can reach speeds of up to 72 km/h, which makes it almost elusive to most predators. However, the dull slowness of the rabbit, a close relative of the hare, is very deceptive. If necessary, the animal is quite capable of moving at speeds of up to 56 km/h, so a person whose speed record is 44 km/h, and whose average running speed in good shape is no more than 20 km/h, has no chance catch up with your pet if it wants to sneak away from its owner.

The ears of a rabbit are penetrated by many blood vessels, but there is practically no fur on them. This system allows the animal to use its ears as a kind of air conditioner in the heat and a heater in the cold season.

It works like this:

If the animal becomes hot, the blood vessels on its ears dilate and begin to pass through a large volume of blood, which, moving through the thin and hairless ears, gradually cools due to contact with air and, returning to the animal’s body, increases the process of heat transfer.
When an animal freezes, the opposite picture occurs: the blood vessels narrow, and blood circulates only through the organs protected by a thick coat, retaining the maximum amount of heat inside the body.

However, when the blood “leaves” from the ears, their temperature becomes lower than the general body temperature of the animal, and when an increased flow of blood moves through the ears, they, on the contrary, heat up.

Did you know? Interestingly, the long tails of rats and the huge horns of the African wild bull Ankole-Watusi help regulate temperature in exactly the same way.

Thus, the body temperature of a healthy rabbit remains relatively constant (relatively, because the range of normal temperature in this animal varies slightly depending on the time of year: with normal values of 38.8–39.5 ° C, in winter it can drop to 37 ° C , and in the summer rise to 40–41 ° C), but the ears can be very cold or very hot if the animal freezes or overheats.

Signs of ear disease

Ears that are too large often cause serious problems for rabbits, becoming a source of various types of infections. You can tell that something is wrong with your pet’s ears by the following symptoms (one or more in total):

a large amount of earwax begins to accumulate in the ears, which in certain cases completely clogs the ear canal;
pus appears in the ears;
on the inside of the auricle, and sometimes also on the eyelids, red spots, nodules, wounds and ulcers appear, covered with scabs or dried blood, or small bumps that turn into dropsy, filled with liquid, which burst over time, leaving a scab;
the ears become hot and the tip of the nose becomes dry;
the rabbit shakes its head from time to time, often tries to scratch its ears with its paws, rub against any hard object nearby, in a word, from the behavior of the animal it is obvious that the disease is accompanied by severe itching;
ears are always in a lowered state;
the head constantly falls to the side or leans forward;
the overall body temperature of the animal increases;
the rabbit breathes frequently and heavily;
the animal becomes lethargic and weak or, on the contrary, behaves nervously and restlessly;
loss of appetite or complete refusal of food;
refusal of females to mate, deterioration of reproductive functions;
impaired coordination of animal movements.

Why does a rabbit have hot ears?

Hot ears in a rabbit can be caused by two reasons:

overheating;
illness.

It is not difficult to distinguish these reasons from each other - you just need to assess the general well-being of the animal. If your rabbit is not showing any signs of unhealthy behavior and is not displaying any of the symptoms listed above, then there is no need to panic. Perhaps you should slightly reduce the air temperature in the room where the animal is kept.

Important! A temporary increase in the temperature of a rabbit's ears may not be caused by hot air, but by overexcitation (overwork) of the animal. The ears begin to cool the animal’s body in the same way that sweat cools the human body during active training.

You can help lower your pet’s body temperature by carefully wiping its ears with gauze or a napkin previously soaked in water at room temperature (never cold, otherwise the blood vessels will narrow, further reducing heat transfer in the body).
In addition, you need to be very careful to ensure that water does not flow into the ear canal. These measures are not treatment, but only first aid for the animal. If his condition is not limited to hot ears, first of all, it is necessary to establish an accurate diagnosis.

Psoroptosis or scabies

The incubation period for psoroptosis lasts from one to five days. The disease can affect rabbits of any age, but most often animals older than four months are susceptible to it. Infection occurs from sick individuals, and the infection spreads very quickly: when an animal itches or shakes its head, along with flakes of dying skin, mites fall out of its ears and immediately move to other rabbits.

In order to accurately diagnose psoroptosis, laboratory tests are not necessary. Using a plastic spatula or other convenient object, you need to remove a small piece of dead skin from the inside of the rabbit’s ear, place it in a fatty substance (for example, Vaseline) preheated to 40 ° C and, armed with a magnifying glass, carefully examine it. The size of Psoroptos cuniculi is a little more than half a millimeter, but with a magnifying glass both the adult and even its larvae can be seen.
Having identified specific symptoms, treatment should be started immediately. To do this, you can use traditional methods or resort to the more civilized help of official medicine, however, in both cases, first of all, it is necessary to very carefully remove pus and dead skin flakes from the affected ear, after softening the skin with hydrogen peroxide (you cannot scrape off the growths in no case, only the layer that falls off is removed).

Traditional medicine offers the following treatment options for ear scabies in rabbits:

Apply glycerin mixed with an alcohol solution of iodine 5% (ratio 1:4) to each ear. Repeat the procedure daily until complete recovery.
Every day, lubricate the affected areas of the ear with camphor oil.
Mix turpentine or birch tar (terpenes) with any vegetable oil in a 2:1 ratio and lubricate the ears with the resulting ointment. This mixture is too toxic for daily use; the procedure can be repeated no earlier than after 2 weeks.
As in the previous recipe, you should take turpentine and vegetable oil, but in equal parts, add phenolic-free coal tar creolin to the resulting mixture in the same volume as the other two components. Creolin has a pronounced acaricidal effect, including against Psoroptos cuniculi. The product is used daily.

Modern medicine offers a large selection of more effective and easy-to-use drugs for this disease. In particular, there are many medications available in aerosol cans, which allow you to quickly and easily apply the medicine instead of mixing not very fragrant ingredients and then treating the infected areas on the body of a frightened animal using cotton swabs or other improvised means.

Video: treatment of psoroptosis in rabbits

These types of drugs include, for example:

Akrodex;
Dermatosol;
Dicresyl;
Psoroptol;
Cyodrine.

Did you know? Rabbits should never be lifted up by the ears. In the wild, animals are often attacked from the air, so the force pulling a rabbit upward causes real panic in it and can even cause illness. You can only pick up the animal from below, lowering yourself towards it so that the fluffy can see what is happening to it.

There are equally effective preparations produced in the form of drops and emulsions, which are used to treat the surface of the ear using the technology described above for traditional medicine recipes. The following tools should be included in this list:

Neocidol;
Foxim;
Sulfidophos;
Chlorophos;
Dekta;
Butox 50;
Valekson;
Deces;
Mustang;
Stomazan;
Unoiled;

At the initial stage of the disease, a single use of any of the drugs mentioned above is sufficient for treatment; in advanced cases, treatment is carried out twice with an interval of 1–2 weeks (in accordance with the instructions). In addition, treatment of psoroptosis in rabbits can be carried out by injection (the injection is given subcutaneously in the withers, intramuscularly in the thigh or directly in the ear). Drugs used for this purpose:

Baymek;
Ivomek;
Selamectin.

Important! For pregnant rabbits, these injections are contraindicated; treatment in this case is carried out only with topical medications.

Unlike psoroptosis, the causative agent of purulent otitis in rabbits is a virus. The symptoms of the disease are very similar to ear scabies, but in parallel, indigestion (diarrhea) may occur. There are no growths on the auricle. Another characteristic sign of purulent otitis is that the animal rolls its eyes unnaturally. If, when examining scrapings from the ears, no mite or its larvae are found, this also suggests the viral nature of the disease.
Viral infections are almost impossible to cure with medications, however, antibiotics are still prescribed in such cases, since a weakened animal often becomes a victim of the activation of various pathogenic microflora. Treatment is carried out by instilling anti-inflammatory drugs into the ears, lubricating the ears with Zooderm or Otodepin, as well as injections of Cephabol, Oxytetracycline and other antibacterial agents (as prescribed by a veterinarian).

Why does a rabbit have cold ears?

If a rabbit's hot ears are evidence of overheating or the development of an infectious disease, then a decrease in the temperature of this organ is a clear sign of hypothermia. In especially severe cases, even frostbite of the ears can occur: blood almost does not circulate through the narrowed blood vessels, the main part of it remains in the animal’s body, saving it from hypothermia, as a result, the tissues of the auricle begin to be damaged and die.
Frostbite in a rabbit's ears sequentially goes through three stages:

The ears become cold, red and swollen. At this stage, the animal experiences severe pain.
Blisters appear on the ears, which eventually burst, releasing a cloudy liquid with bloody clots. The hair on the outside of the ears falls out, and the rabbit can no longer hold them upright.
Blackened areas appear on the ears - foci of necrosis.

To prevent complete frostbite of the ears and to provide first aid to the animal, you need to very carefully rub the cold ears with your hands, and then lubricate them with slightly melted (never hot) fat. You can use pork or goose. At the second stage of the disease, the blisters must be opened and the affected areas lubricated with camphor, penicillin or iodine ointment. At the third stage, it is usually necessary to resort to amputation of the ear or part of it.

Important! In any case, a rabbit with signs of frostbite in the ears should be placed in a warm room until complete recovery.

Preventive measures

To avoid problems with the ears of furry pets, you must strictly follow the following preventive rules:

7 once already
helped

Wax accumulation is not a disease. The release of sulfur is a normal, non-pathological process. A lot of wax accumulates in the ear canal and becomes clogged. A clogged ear canal can cause other ear diseases. The solution to the problem is cleansing. This must be done as carefully and affectionately as possible so that the animal does not panic. If the rabbit gets scared and starts to struggle, it could hurt itself.

How to clean a rabbit's ears:

Gently bend the edge of the ear.
Use a cotton swab to clean the inner surface of the ear, removing accumulations of wax and other dirt.
It is forbidden to push a tampon deep into the ear - you can damage the eardrum.

A healthy ear has smooth, pale pink skin. While cleaning the rabbit's ears, they examine them at the same time - if there is redness, peeling, or abscesses, you need to show the animal to a veterinarian.

Preventing the accumulation of earwax is simple - you need to periodically clean the ears of animals, without waiting for wax plugs to form.

A piece of cotton wool moistened with a special lotion for cleaning the ears of animals is wrapped around a medical clip.

Purulent otitis media

At the initial stage, this disease is difficult to differentiate from psoroptosis. Moreover, the disease is generally difficult to detect - the source of infection is located behind the eardrum, so it is not possible to visually see the problem.

Symptoms:

lack of appetite;
inadequate reaction to touching the ears;
when the disease worsens, purulent discharge appears in the auricle;
with progressive otitis, the functioning of the vestibular apparatus is disrupted - the animal makes strange movements, moving, as if it does not see surrounding objects;
the eyes are constantly moving - rotating or moving horizontally.

If otitis is suspected or detected, contact a veterinarian to clarify what to do and what medications to use.

Self-medication is not allowed - if you choose the wrong medications, the rabbit’s condition may worsen. For treatment, medications are usually used in the form of drops - they are instilled into the ears to relieve pain and eliminate inflammation.

Myxomatosis

A dangerous disease in which, along with inflammatory processes, purulent conjunctivitis develops. The animal's body is covered with cones and blisters.

Symptoms that can be used to diagnose myxomatosis appear 20 days after infection. But if you carefully examine the animals every day, you can recognize the disease at the initial stage - by red spots on the skin and by lumps that appear on the ears and eyelids.

Symptoms of progressive myxomatosis:

Temperature jump - up to 41 degrees. But after a while it drops to normal.
Watery eyes. The condition resembles conjunctivitis - the lower eyelids are filled with purulent clots.
The body is covered with tumors comparable in size to a pigeon egg.
The head and genitals swell.
The ears are drooping, the scalp is covered with folds.
Inflammation in the oral cavity. Wheezing and purulent discharge appear.

Myxomatosis in a rabbit

Tumors on a rabbit's ear

Severe myxomatosis in a rabbit

Timely and correct treatment gives a positive result. The veterinarian prescribes strong antibiotics and immunomodulators. Injections of Gamavit, Baytril or Ringer are given subcutaneously. Drops prescribed for myxomatosis are instilled into the nasal passages, and the wounds are treated with iodine.

If the symptoms are not recognized in time and measures are not taken, one sick rabbit can cause the death of the entire livestock.

Recovered and sick rabbits are kept in a warm room, always isolated from the herd. Rehabilitation after treatment is three months.

Many rabbit breeders treat myxomatosis, and quite successfully, with folk remedies. True, the effect occurs only at the early stage of the disease. Methods for treating myxomatosis using traditional methods:

treating affected areas with overcooked sunflower oil;
treatment of wounds on the ears with urine previously kept in the sun for 3 hours;
feeding fresh horseradish leaves;
adding pumpkin pulp and freshly squeezed pineapple juice to the food;
aromatherapy with eucalyptus oil;
injection into the shin with a solution of camel thorn.

A breeder tells how he cured myxomatosis in his rabbits:

Inexperienced rabbit breeders often do not pay attention to an alarming symptom - falling ears. Often this phenomenon has nothing to do with pathologies. But the rabbit breeder’s task is to carefully examine the ears.

Psoroptosis (ear scabies)

The source of this infectious disease is ear mites. This insect hides in the ear canals and is difficult to notice. The incubation period is 3-5 days. If rabbits are kept in cages, the disease becomes widespread. The epidemic usually rages in winter and spring.

Causes of ear scabies:

Infection occurs when wax falls out of the ears of a sick animal, or through contact with its dander.
Equipment and other items that were used when caring for a sick animal and were not disinfected.
Scabies can be transferred from sick rabbits to healthy ones by people caring for them.

Symptoms:

Anxiety, animals rub their ears with their paws, shake their heads.
In mild forms, inflammation develops, reminiscent of weeping eczema.
There are red swellings on the inner surfaces of the ears, which eventually become blisters. The latter burst, yellow liquid flows out, it dries out, turning into crusts. The ear canal becomes clogged with lumps of wax.
In severe forms, the lesions merge, and abundant discharge of sulfur and pus is observed. The resulting crusts completely cover the ear canal.

If ear scabies is not treated, the inflammation penetrates deeper - to the brain. The meninges are affected, and the animal experiences a central nervous system disorder.

The diagnosis of psoroptosis is made after examination of scrapings. To identify a tick on your own, take a scraping from the ears and place it in Vaseline oil. Under a magnifying glass you can see ticks - if there are any.

Treatment of psoroptosis:

Isolation of sick animals from the herd,
Treatment of the ears with acaricidal sprays, foams and ointments - Psoroptol, Tsiodrin, Acrodex, Dicresil. The treatment is done once a week until the ticks are completely eliminated.
Injections are administered subcutaneously for general therapy - Baymek, Ivomek.

Preventive measures:

How to treat ear mites in rabbits is described in the video below:

Frostbite

Rabbits' ears are quite delicate; when they are in cold rooms, they are the first to suffer. The causes of frostbite are low temperatures.

Symptoms of frostbite are easily identified:

The ears become cold and swollen. Touching the ears causes pain to the animal - this is the first degree of frostbite.
With the second degree of frostbite, blisters appear on the ears, which, bursting, form purulent ulcers. The skin, drying and peeling, becomes covered with open wounds;
The third degree of frostbite is accompanied by severe pain and death of the affected tissue.

The injured animal is transferred to a warm place. For the 1st degree of frostbite, lubricate the affected areas with fat - pork or goose. In the 2nd degree, camphor or iodide ointment is used for treatment. With stage 3, you cannot do without the help of a veterinarian. The dead areas will have to be removed, and the wounds that are formed in this case are treated in the usual way.

A breeder shows a rabbit with frostbite on the ears:

To prevent frostbite in the ears, the cages are insulated with straw mats - they are used to cover the enclosures on the side of the barred walls on especially frosty days. Straw is thrown into the cages so that the rabbits can hide in it when it’s cold.

Cold ears

Rabbit ears are a kind of indicator of well-being. Body temperature is greatly affected by fluctuations in atmospheric temperature. To maintain its own body temperature, a rabbit often lacks the heat received from the skin and subcutaneous fat. An animal loses a lot of heat through its ears. They cool down if there is weak venous blood flow in the capillaries of the vessels.

Cold ears can be caused by:

Reflex compression (spasm) of capillaries due to exposure to frost.
Low blood pressure.
Stress, fear.

If the animal feels well, cold ears can be ignored. But if the air temperature drops below minus 15 °C, it is necessary to take measures - insulate the cells, eliminate drafts. Cold ears are not an important diagnostic sign. They usually indicate frostbite.

Body temperature: 38.5-40 °C
Respiration rate: 50-150/min at rest
Heart rate: 120-150/min at rest
Puberty: small breeds 10-14 weeks, large breeds 4-5 months
Pregnancy: 28-33 days
Number of litter: 4-6 rabbits
Lifespan: 6-10 years

Olfactory organs

Eyes

Rabbits' eyes are located on the sides of their heads, which provides the animal with an almost 360-degree field of vision. This helps rabbits, as runaway animals, identify the predator, no matter which side it is on. But they hardly see what’s happening in front of them, so they can easily get scared. Rabbits cannot see in three dimensions and can barely distinguish colors other than red and green.

Ears

Rabbits have excellent hearing (16 to 33,000 Hertz). At the same time, they can move their ears independently of each other (exception: ram rabbits). Rabbits also perceive sounds at frequencies that humans cannot hear. Noise is stressful for rabbits. The rabbit's ears serve not only to register sounds; a certain position of the ears indicates the rabbit's mood. Ears pressed to the back when communicating with relatives indicate submission. One raised ear registers a sound that the animal is not particularly interested in. Both ears stick up and point forward - registering a sound that has completely interested the animal or expecting something pleasant (for example, the owner with food). The ears of “rams” are an unnatural deviation during selection. In addition to ear diseases, the risk of which increases with age, the rabbit does not hear as well as its relatives with protruding ears, which often means additional stress for this breed.

The ears also regulate body temperature. A rabbit's ears are very well supplied with blood. If the rabbit's ears are warm, it means the rabbit is getting rid of excess heat. If a rabbit is cold, it flattens its ears and thereby reduces the surface area that gives off heat. This way it saves energy.

Nose

Rabbits are very good at smelling. The nose serves as a direct landmark for the area. Only A rabbit's nose is connected to the lungs, so animals cannot breathe through their mouth. The nose is a barometer of a rabbit's mood. Of course, with a certain mood, the breathing rate also changes. If the rabbit's nose hardly moves, this is a signal that the rabbit is relaxed and resting. If the nose is shaking, then the reasons can be different - from curiosity to stress, heat and illness.

Mustache, eyebrows

Rabbits use their whiskers and eyebrows to navigate in the dark.

Teeth

Rabbits have 28 teeth, just like hares. A rabbit's front teeth (incisors) grow throughout their lives, with the lower jaw growing faster than the upper jaw. Between 27 and 35 days of life, rabbits complete the development of their jaw and teeth. Premolar milk teeth are replaced by permanent teeth. There are two incisors in the upper and lower jaws. On the upper jaw, directly behind the upper incisors, there are two premolars. Molars have an open root and grow in the same way throughout their lives. The front side of the teeth is highly mineralized, but not as pigmented as in rodents. Their color ranges from white to light yellow. Without natural wear and tear (wearing down) when eating grass and hay, a rabbit's teeth grow by 1-1.5 cm in a short period.

Additional information about rabbit teeth:
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Peculiarities

Wool

Rabbits shed twice a year: in the fall they grow winter fur, and in the spring they grow summer fur. Sometimes the hair falls out so much that there are bald patches in places. As a rule, there are no bald places. At this time, rabbits can be combed. Rabbits living in apartments with central heating may shed more often.

Collar

The collar is a deposit of fat directly at the base of the head. Collars come in different sizes and also in different places at the base of the head. In wild rabbits, the collar was a kind of reserve reserve of fat. The dewlap in an unsterilized female is a sexual feature. Males have particularly large collars. Some breeders breed rabbits with specially large collars to make the rabbits look cuter. Moreover, a large collar on a decorative rabbit is a direct evidence of obesity (the rabbit’s head rests on a double chin). If the animal loses weight, hanging fabric remains in place of the collar.

Anal gland

The scent gland (anal gland) is located near the anus. The secreted secretion also covers the feces, which the rabbit uses to mark its territory.

Gland on the chin

The rabbit also has a scent gland on its chin. The rabbit rubs its chin to mark its territory.

Glands in the groin area (inguinal testes)

Two 1.5 cm yellow-white glands are located in the groin area.

Heart

Heart weight: 0.22 – 0.24% of the weight of an adult animal

Pulse rate: 120-150 beats per minute

Rabbits, just like dogs and cats (and humans), can suffer from high or low blood pressure.

Digestive system

You can read about the features of the digestive system of rabbits in the corresponding article: “”

Internal organs and skeleton

Internal organs: 1.Trachea / 2.Lung / 3.Heart / 4.Liver / 5.Esophagus / 6.Stomach / 7.Small intestine (duodenum, jejunum, ileum) / 8.Cecum / 9.Colon intestine / 10.Anus / 11.Bladder/ureter

Rabbit skeleton: 1. Two regenerative, double incisors in the upper jaw, followed by premolars. / 2.Two regenerative incisors in the lower jaw / 3.6 molars on each side in the upper jaw, 5 in the lower jaw / 4.The spine consists of 7 cervical vertebrae, 13 thoracic vertebrae, 7 lumbar vertebrae, 4 sacrums and 16 caudal vertebrae / 5. Front paws with 5 toes / 6. Hind paws with 4 toes

How to determine the gender of a rabbit

The inguinal glands are pockets on either side of the anus. Healthy rabbits clean these areas themselves. Sick and overweight rabbits often cannot reach these pockets. Thus, a hard and painful scab forms in these places. In this case, you should regularly check these areas and, if necessary, clean them with a cotton swab soaked in water until the rabbit can do this on his own. After cleaning, lubricate the affected areas with Vaseline or zinc ointment.