Fleas on a rabbit - how to remove and check for a white sock

Fleas, biting parasites, feed on the blood of warm-blooded mammals, including humans, cats, dogs, rabbits and chickens. Flea bites are painful and cause irritation, scratching and the risk of infection through wounds. Since a flea lays about 2000 eggs during its life directly on its owner, about 20-40 per day, and the eggs hatch in 3 weeks, you can imagine the scale of the disaster if you let everything take its course - with a hundred percent probability fleas will come into the house. 

Rabbits can become infected with fleas from cats and dogs; the parasites, being incredibly agile, travel in the grass, and therefore are sometimes carried in with collected hay. 

Fleas can carry viruses that are fatal to rabbits, such as myxomatosis and rabbit hemorrhagic disease . Both diseases are contagious, fatal and have virtually no cure. 

Fleas can also cause anemia and painful wounds in rabbits. Excessive scratching due to flea bites leads to abrasions and infection through them. Symptoms of a severe flea infestation include hair loss, open wounds, and flaky skin due to scratching. Sometimes parasites sit directly on the nose or ears as a sign that the owner does not care at all about the sanitation and HEALTH of the animals in his rabbitry.

In summer, it is advisable to check aviary rabbits for fleas once every two weeks, in winter - once a month. Thesethe insects are dark in color and move quickly through the fur while combing the animal with a fine-toothed comb. They also leave behind “flea droppings,” which resemble small particles of dirt. A common way to test whether specks are flea droppings or just dirt is to place them on a paper towel and drip with water. If a red ring is formed, which is blood, this is the remains of fleas. Having identified parasites in one rabbit, it is necessary to treat the entire livestock and rabbitry. 

How to remove fleas from a rabbit

Important warning. Never bathe your rabbit in the first flea shampoo you come across, intended for cats and dogs. If the wrong product is used on the wrong species, it can be deadly. 

Additionally, rabbits are highly stressed if placed in water (since in the wild rabbits only swim as a last resort, such as during a flood), and some of the chemicals in flea shampoos and solutions for cats and dogs are very dangerous to rabbits. For the same reason, do not use dog and cat flea collars for rabbits, which also cause suffocation.

At the same time, there are safe flea medications used for cats, dogs, and rabbits. When contacting a veterinarian, they can prescribe two safe remedies for fleas in rabbits - cat drops on the withers "Advantage" (active ingredient imidacloprid) or "revolution" (active ingredient selamectin), these drops are already available for cats and dogs. The veterinarian will calculate the correct dosage and time to re-treat, probably after 3-4 weeks, to ensure that any remaining flea eggs do not hatch. Both products kill insects throughout their entire life cycle, including adult fleas, larvae and eggs. They will also prevent your rabbit from becoming infected again for 2-4 weeks.

In the case when the situation has gotten out of control, or rather the owner has let the rabbitry become a flea mess, the veterinarian can prescribe “capstar” with nitenpyram - a potent remedy that quickly kills fleas within a few hours after administration. Your veterinarian will again advise you on the correct dosage. Taking Capstar is further supplemented with other treatment methods, since it only kills adult fleas. Eggs and fleas in their larval stages remain unharmed.

Returning to the topic of WHAT NOT to treat rabbits for fleas, let’s highlight “frontline” with fipronil - according to veterinarians, rabbit owners often poison their pets with this particular drug, sometimes to the point of death. 

Treatment with insecticidal solutions against fleas or boric acid is necessary - spray enclosures and cages, removing the animals to a safe place for at least 24 hours, which is easier to do in the summer. To check if there are still many fleas left in the enclosure, place a white sock there - these insects are attracted to the color white, so if there are a lot of them left, they will gather on the sock.