Holy Earmites!

I brought the Lynx Point female into my bathroom to recover, since she was cold, last night. This morning, I looked in her ears. I thought she had a tumor in one ear. I could see a huge dark brown mass. I couldn't believe this would be earmite debris. I mean, I see a lot of severely infested earmite cats, but holy moly.

I softened the mass with olive oil, still wondering what could that be. I finally put on my reading glasses and held a flashlight on my shoulder wedged under my chin for a closer look. It was a huge chunk of earmite debris. I finally flicked it out. The cat was ecstatic to have it gone. I worked her ears, after softening debris up with oil, and flicked out more and more debris. Poor cat probably couldn't hear a thing before the cleaning. I also wormed her for both types of worms and gave her advantage.

I run into this so often in Linn County--tame owned cats with extreme parasite infestations. For gosh sakes, roundworm meds are sooooo cheap. You can buy tapeworm pills at Coastal farms. Most folks, however, are not even aware of the parasites cats get outside of fleas. It's one thing I try to do, educate people about parasites and diseases and the need to take cats for vet visits. I will give these folks my "Four Common Parasites" sheet and urge them, when they have the money, to get all their cats in for routine vet care.
The black chunk in the middle is the mass I couldn't at first identify. That was in her ear. She's glad to be rid of that. I treated her ears, after a thorough lengthy cleaning, with external ivermectin.