How to treat rabbit mange? Try these treatment methods

Rabbit mange is a highly contagious external parasitic disease caused by sarcoptic mites and psoroptic mites. It can occur all year round, but it occurs most frequently and spreads fastest in winter and spring. This disease is also known as scabies, lime foot, and dry claw disease.

I. Clinical symptoms

Sarcoptic mites cause foot mange and body mange. Rabbits often rub against cages and other objects due to severe itching, scratch with their claws, bite with their mouths, and their hair falls out. After the skin rash and blisters rupture, scabs form, subcutaneous lymph fluid seeps out, the scabs gradually thicken, and the skin becomes cracked. In affected rabbits, the disease generally starts from the mouth, feet, lips, nose, area around the eyes, ear tips, and other parts, and then develops toward the whole body. The rabbits gradually become emaciated and anemic, which greatly affects their development.

Psoroptic mites cause ear mange, parasitizing the external ear canal. The affected area becomes inflamed, and the outer ear and part of the ear canal lose hair and form scabs, which after drying look like toilet paper. Affected rabbits constantly scratch their ears because of severe itching.

II. Laboratory examination

Use a sharp spoon to scrape skin debris from the junction between the affected area and normal skin (scrape until bleeding appears), place the sample on a glass slide, add 1 drop of liquid paraffin, cover with a coverslip, and examine under a low-power microscope. If mites are found, the diagnosis can be rabbit sarcoptic mange.

III. Prevention

1. Strengthen feeding management, keep the rabbit house dry and hygienic, and disinfect regularly (flame disinfection or spraying with a 3% trichlorfon aqueous solution can be used).

2. Do not introduce breeding stock from rabbit farms with this disease. If breeding rabbits must be purchased from other places, they should be isolated and observed, kept for 1 month, and only mixed with the group after being confirmed disease-free.

3. Give introduced rabbit groups a medicated bath (a 2% trichlorfon aqueous solution can be used to dip the claws and apply drops to the ears).

4. For healthy rabbit groups, take preventive measures each year before the disease season, that is, give a medicated bath once each in spring and autumn every year (a 2% trichlorfon aqueous solution can be used to dip the claws and apply drops to the ears).

5. Mix Quchongba into the feed and feed on an empty stomach, then repeat the medication once after 7 days, 2 times per year.

IV. Treatment

1. Before applying medication, first remove the scabs with kerosene, then apply a 2% trichlorfon alcohol solution, once every 7 days until recovery.

2. Use ivermectin or abamectin at 0.1 mg per kg body weight as a one-time subcutaneous injection, then inject again after 7 days.

No matter which treatment method is used, the rabbit house, rabbit cages, water troughs, feed troughs, and so on must be disinfected (flame disinfection or spraying with a 3% trichlorfon aqueous solution can be used).

After comprehensive treatment, the skin scabs of affected rabbits begin to fall off on the fifth day after medication, the itching symptoms disappear, the coat becomes glossy, the rabbit group's appetite increases, and their mental state is good.

Rabbit sarcoptic mange is a highly contagious external parasitic disease. If one rabbit is affected, it quickly spreads to the whole group, the disease is stubborn, the mortality rate is high, and economic losses are large. Local treatment, no matter which drug is used, is difficult to achieve the goal of complete cure. Feeding Quchongba and subcutaneous injection of ivermectin are the most thorough, most effective, most economical, and most practical prevention and control methods. As long as this method is used continuously for 2 to 3 years, rabbit farms where this disease is prevalent can completely achieve the goal of eradication.