Out of pure curiosity and a striving for more knowledge in how to care for my rabbits in such cases, can rabbits get fleas and\or ticks, and if so, how would YOU treat it?
Yeah they can get ticks & fleas. Seemingly easier than any other animals sometimes
Well when they get a tick you remove it get the head out as well is extremely important.
However, tick prevention is pretty easy these days, there is a vaccination for ticks, keeping the run away from ferns, wild deer (and other wild heavy carriers), old wood & certain other vegetation (list is too exhaustive) Certain ticks (like brown) can be extremely resilient to any environment and will move from host to host filling then detaching so they can persist annoyingly. Any wood you have in with your rabbits should be sanded and varnished, all vegetables washed well before feeding, give your rabbits a tick vaccination, make sure wildlife can't that close to them, deer carry tons, or your own stock animals if you have others & keep them in your controlled environment, no free running in the woods. Ticks can be pretty damaging to rabbits causing lots of nastiness.
Added note here ... no trees should overhang their run. ticks like to drop out as well as being brushed on to.
Fleas, well I have never found a fool proof prevention. Once we get fleas on the property we run around lil headless chickens with flea shampoo and cleaning everything, including blankets and towels, and yeah just everything. Flea repellent can work reasonably well. Some rabbit breeds actually don't get fleas, like in dogs, my COs never seem to get any, might be some kind of internal immunity or funny blood What usually happens is my cats go a roaming, they come back after many romances with other cats or even get the fleas off of their kills, then the goats get it, then the rabbits, then any kind of fabric, and thus life becomes a mad house for a few days. So maybe only keep cats that don't like to roam Flea collars etc ... seem to work for a while, vaccination against fleas every six months is also possible, but doesn't seem to work very well. I would also like to hear any flea advice as washes and shampoos never seem to work for me.
@Farmin' Girl .. My pleasure ... sorry about the fleas ... I haven't figure that one out myself yet
@everyone else:: Any advice from anyone else on the subject of fleas would be really .... where is Southern ... she is usually amazing at this kind of stuff. Fleas are tbh just a major annoyance and don't tend to be life threatening like ticks can be, but still would really like to know if anyone has got a solution that works.
@everyone else:: Any advice from anyone else on the subject of fleas would be really .... where is Southern ... she is usually amazing at this kind of stuff. Fleas are tbh just a major annoyance and don't tend to be life threatening like ticks can be, but still would really like to know if anyone has got a solution that works. [/QUOTE]
Me too Pips, I like to know how to handle things BEFORE they happen. Any advice on Fleas will come in really handy.