YUK! Ear mites

[moongazer]

Three of my cats I think have ear mites.
All my cats are indoor cats and we've
had no new cats in the last 4 months
(Had foster kittens about 4 months back)
Where in the world did they get them from?
Their ears have yuky's in them, they are scratching and shaking their heads.
Anyone familar with this?
Should I just treat everyone? I hear ear mits
are really contagious?
I got some stuff from a pet place, should I take them to the vet?
Or is it ok to treat with over the counter stuff?
owwwwwwwwwwww yuky

[Kathy]

There is ear mite drops you can get from the vet but if you're looking for a home treatment I used sweet oil.

I got mine at the pharmacy. Put the bottle in a dish of warm/hot water to bring the oil close to a cats body temperature. I put about 1/3 of a dropper full in each ear then massaged it so it would get in the nooks and crevices inside their ears.
You can use more if you need to do the outer ear too.

Repeat every 3 days for 10 days.

I have to say it worked wonders for me but then again my cats didn't have the mites very bad.

If the area is red, raw or ozzing; a quick trip to the vets for the heavy duty drugs might be in order.

[moongazer]

Just went through the lot of them
(except one who is hiding.
2 have it bad
2 have it but not real bad
3 have totally clean ears but I treated them anyway.
One is still hiding and wouldn't even come out for canned food.
I cleaned out ears and treated everyone. yuk
where did they get it from, is my question.

[Kathy]

Your question about how cats contract ear mites got me wondering. Here's a link I found and it seems to say that it's only passed from animal to animal.

www.cat-world.com.au/EarMitesInCats.htm

I had to giggle when you talked about the cat that's still hiding. I had one like that; she just knew when we were getting ready to either have the once a month flea control or going to the vet. Poor thing; she'd stay under the bed for hours with those big yellow eyes just watching us from a distance.

[moongazer]

I'm wondering if any of my foster kitties
about 3 or 4 months may of had a mild case and it
took a while to fester in my kitties.

I'm also wondering about Mozart.
His ears when he came here were stinky.
He shakes his head so much his floppy ears got beat up and bled last night (tips of his ears)
I read dogs get ear mites also, I wonder if he could of picked them up on the transport since he was ith another puppy on his trip.
Either way I cleaned and treated all of them even Mozart and Niki.
But it's off to the vet tomorrow or Tues when they have an opening. Cause 2 of my boys liik pretty nasty.
I'd just assume treat the who group and be done with it.
YUKYYYYYYYYYYYYY
THis just grosses me out.
I know have miter ism ;D in my house. hehe