 Hey guys, so something was recently brought to my attention that I totally hadn't noticed before. Obviously I'm kidding and all jokes aside, I do appreciate the comments and the concern asking about Mikey and making sure he's okay. But I do get those comments quite often, so I thought it would just be easier to address this in a video. So today we're going to be talking about why my rabbit has a head tilt. Hey there, my name is Allison. Welcome to the tiny herd where we talk about everyday pet care for guinea pigs, rabbits and other small pets. Like I said, I was totally joking in the intro. I definitely know Mikey has a head tilt, but I do get a lot of comments on this topic. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. I'm going to be telling you how Mikey got his head tilt, all the details with that and if he's actually okay. So let's just go ahead and jump into that. All right, so to start the story off, let me tell you a little bit about the bunnies and how I got them. So if you are new to my channel, I do have two rabbits. Their names are Mike and Andy. Mikey is a Californian or Rex breed rabbit. I'm honestly not super up to speed on rabbit breeds, but that's kind of what I've seen his particular coloring usually called. And then Andy is a German Angora and I do actually believe he is purebred because he is very much an Angora rabbit. I originally adopted them from my local humane society. They were already bonded and they had actually been rescued. So they had been found abandoned out just in the country. I don't know if it was like a gravel road situation, but somebody had basically just found a bunch of bunnies that had been dumped essentially by the side of a road. So I don't know all the details. Like I don't know if they were in carriers. I don't know if they were just, you know, out in the grass or whatever. But basically somebody had had a bunch of rabbits and they just dumped them somewhere that they didn't want to deal with them anymore. Somebody else came along, found those rabbits, took them to the local animal shelter, the humane society, and then obviously they were rehabbed and put up for adoption. That being said, they had some health issues. So I was told by their foster mom that they had mites, ear mites, so bad when she first got them that she actually didn't think they were going to survive. And this is important because this is something that is going to have to do with the whole head tilt situation. So remember this fact later on that Mikey had ear mites, super bad, pretty much as a baby rabbit. But they were able to take care of those things. They did recover from those ear mites and it seemed everything was fine. They were adopted out and I actually adopted them. I adopted the bunnies in August of 2018. And at that point they didn't have any physical issues. You could tell that they had had previous issues and of course they told me about the ear mites and all of that. But you could tell on Andy that he had some scar tissue and his one ear is deformed. And the vet and I think this was probably from when he had ear mites. He was constantly scratching and digging at it and caused some scar tissue and his one ear is just like not, it doesn't look quite the same and as intact and perfect as a normal bunny ear. But overall they were in good condition. They didn't have any health issues. Obviously they were happy and healthy. I don't really know how old they are specifically, but they were pretty young when I got them. Mikey didn't even have his colors yet. He was all white when I got him and he since then obviously has black ears. He has a black nose and he has a couple black spots on his tail. So he didn't even have those black points yet when I had adopted him. So I think they were pretty young at that point. So that's the history on when I got the bunnies. Keep some of those details in mind because they do relate to why Mikey still has a head tilt now. But now let's talk about how he actually ended up with the tilt. So I'm going to condense pretty much two years worth of chronic ear issues into the shortest amount of time that I can because I don't think you want to sit here and listen to me explain every single thing that happened over those two years. So we'll just start in the beginning and then I'll kind of give you an overview of what happened in the middle and then bring you up to today. So Mikey's ear issues originally started in October of 2018 and the very last time that we took him to the vet related to this ear issue was in January of 2021. So it has been a very long road to get to where we are now. So let me just fill you in a little bit. So October of 2018, my boyfriend messaged me while I was on a work trip to tell me that Mikey seemed like he didn't want to eat. He seemed unsteady on his feet and seemed like he was having issues with one ear and was tilting just a little bit. So obviously he took him to the vet and we suspected that he had an ear infection. If you're not familiar with rabbit ear infection symptoms, it can cause head tilt, it can cause imbalance, pain obviously, and it can cause them not to eat and which can result in stasis. So all those things kind of go along with ear infection. So we were pretty sure he had an ear infection at that point because it seemed much more like an ear infection than some of the other illnesses that can cause a head tilt. How we think he actually got the ear infection is he is very much a mama's bun. We joke and call him a mama's bun because bunnies are really smart and they're very particular sometimes about their people and he is very much attached to me. He doesn't like my boyfriend as much. So me going on that week long work trip that was the first time that I had been away for an entire week since we had had the bunnies. He was under some stress and I think because of that his immune system was not working as hard and it allowed an ear infection to take hold. So my boyfriend took him to the vet like I said and they did confirm that he had an ear infection. So we went ahead and treated him like normal for an ear infection and it worked. He went totally back to normal. He lost his head tilt. He was totally straight and normal again for about a week and then we don't really know why at this point but then he started to tilt the other way. So tilting the other way is the tilt that you still see today. Basically at that point we were worried that he had a different illness, rabbit illness called echiniculi. I don't know if I'm saying that right but that's how it's spelled which is actually a parasite. It can be very deadly. It is a big deal and it causes a head tilt and can cause a permanent head tilt. So we were worried he had that. There's not really a test for it. You just treat for it and if it fixes it it fixes it. Well we treated for it and nothing changed at all. So he has been treated for this multiple times now by multiple vets. I am positive he does not have echiniculi and did not have it because there was no change in his other behavior besides the tilt. So it's not that. So really I think what it comes down to is he had an ear infection that he got. It moved from one ear to the other and honestly guys I really just think having those ear mites so badly as a baby just predisposed him to having some ear issues. So after treating for echiniculi basically we didn't really know what else to do. We had treated him with multiple different medications for different things. We pretty much tried everything we could think of. So I actually went ahead and took him to a second vet to get a second opinion. Not because my first vet was bad but she just literally was like I don't know what else to try because she's not super specialized in rabbits. So I actually took him to a vet that does specialize in rabbits. Very much so. I took him to my specialized vet. This is the one I take all my pets to for surgeries or specialized things because she's very specialized in small companion mammals. She's great. She writes textbooks. So I was pretty confident that if she didn't know what was going on then we just weren't going to know what was going on. And we went through so many things with her. We went through we did x-rays. We did cold laser therapy. We did acupuncture. She did mechanical massage with him. We gave him medication. We treated him for echiniculi again. We tried all the things and nothing was changing and she's two hours from us and finally we were just like this is not worth driving back and forth and it's not worth the money anymore because it stresses him out a lot to travel that far and it's not having a difference. He doesn't like going to the vet. He doesn't like all of that stuff. He doesn't like being in the car so uh and we didn't know what else to try. So we decided to stop taking him to her and just see it what we could figure out. At this point we were confident that he no longer had an active ear infection. I will say that like if he had had at any point a test come back that said he still had an ear infection and he needed antibiotics or whatever then we would have done that of course uh but at this point he did not have any active infections that were coming back positive um and he wasn't responding to any of the medication. So basically we were like he just has a permanent tilt. It's probably not going to go away. It just has something to do with the inner workings of his ear and I think that having mites as a very young rabbit in his ears to the point that they almost killed him predisposed him to having some issues with his ears. So at this point I've taken you guys pretty much through a year and a half of all of that. That was a year and a half of going through two different vets trying all the things all the medications and we finally decided just to give Mikey a break. Um he was constantly going back to the vet. He was constantly on medication. We did give him a break between the first vet and the second vet but it was only a couple of months and at this point we're like we're just gonna stop and we're just gonna let him be and let him live for a while because we knew he wasn't in pain and we knew he didn't have an active infection. So in January 2021 I did end up taking Mike and Andy back to the vet mostly because I wanted to give them a wellness checkup but I also mentioned the ear thing and wanted her to give us basically a third opinion. Um I will just say we will not be going back to that vet unless our normal vet is not available for something because we ended up treating both of the rabbits for ear infections that I don't think they had because Andy has never had an ear infection and he didn't show any signs of having an ear infection but we treated him for an ear infection and we also treated them for mites that they didn't have so I don't take what you will from that. But that was the last time we took Mikey to the vet for his ear issues. At this point we are just doing regular checkups with our original vet, the original one that tried all the things. That's the vet I normally go to because she's willing to try whatever and she listens. So I take him in for regular checkups, just normal wellness exams every year and at this point we're pretty confident that whatever ear infection he had way back in 2018 just caused permanent damage to his ear. Having those ear mites as a really young rabbit caused a lot of scar tissue internally and that could have contributed to the ear infection doing a lot more damage than an ear infection normally would. This is not really something that they can tell. You can sort of tell on x-rays that like things are not quite how they're supposed to be on both Mike and Andy because of the ear mites but there's nothing that you can really tell of like overt damage that was done. But this is really just what we came down to. The vet could tell that his one ear drum was ruptured during the ear infection and those can grow back but it kind of just depends on how much scar tissue was already in his ear. At this point we are just letting him be. So all of that brings us to where we are today. When you guys comment on my video asking why Mikey is a head tilt or recommending that I take him to the vet to get him checked out I definitely have. Don't worry about him. I promise he is happy and healthy. He does have a permanent tilt. It's going to be there his whole life but it really doesn't affect him. He runs back and forth through our house. He pinkies. He eats good. He plays with toys. He still shreds his paper. He does all the normal things that a normal bunny would do. Pretty much the only difference between Mikey and any other rabbit is he has a head tilt that you guys can clearly see and he's not as confident in his vertical abilities. So he doesn't jump up on things anymore. He will kind of he'll get up on like his Ikea bed for example. He will stand up on his hind legs. He does binky. He'll kick up and hop around and all of that but he doesn't necessarily hop up onto things. So he doesn't hop up onto the couch. He doesn't hop up on the chair in the pet room like Andy does. So that is really the only difference but he has so much space to run. Like this room I'm sitting in now it goes all the way like you guys can't see but this is a really big room. I've shown it in other videos. They have pretty much from our dining room all the way down to their room to run in a straight line. They're free range bunnies so they have our whole house to pre-range in so he's a perfectly happy and healthy bunny and he has a fantastic quality of life. I do want to say again before I end this video that I do really do appreciate when you guys leave comments. Like I a lot of people are like don't be offended. I just want to know why he has a head tilt or not hating on your pet care but have you take your bunnies so that I don't mind those comments at all. I made this video because it's easier to just explain the whole story than to copy and paste the same comment and not really give like a full answer if that makes sense. So now I can just point people to this video instead. So I do again appreciate your guys concern. That is the best way to spread information about pet care is asking questions. So whenever you see stuff like that just ask questions. Some people might get defensive but it's that's how you spread information. So I don't mind the comments at all. I just thought this would be easier. So thank you guys so much for watching today's video. I hope you enjoyed and got to know a little bit more about Mikey's situation. If you have any questions or comments please leave them down below and I will respond as soon as I can. If you are new to my channel please hit that subscribe button. I put up new pet related videos every Tuesday and Friday. But again I hope you guys enjoyed. That's all I got for you today and I will see you in the next video. Bye.