So we took David in to the vet for what I thought might be a cyst. An abscess was another possibility.

It turned out to be neither.

David had a really bad case of ear mites.

Here he is, with his freshly cleaned ears. He also got a shot of antibiotics to help with the wound he’d scratched on himself.

Then, because if one cat has ear mites, all the cats have ear mites, we got enough medication to treat all of them. One box has enough ear drops for 11 cats. The other has a topical treatment for the remaining five.

Before I left, someone came in to show me how to administer the ear drops so he, at least, has been done.

Fifteen more to go.

Most of the cats don’t actually show signs of ear mites in their behaviour, but I was pretty sure Ginger, at least, had them. I’ve tried to keep his ears clean and treated with mineral oil, but he is not very cooperative about that. Can you blame him?

Once I can get organized with the girls, we’ll start working our way through the cats. I’ll have to make a check list so we can mark off which ones are done, so we don’t loose track and forget someone. The hard part is actually going to be cleaning their ears as much as possible, first.

The life cycle of ear mites is 3 weeks. These meds are a monthly dose. One treatment should be enough, if we get them all done as quickly as possible, but if we were to stagger the treatments over a longer period of time, we’d run the risk of reinfection. Several of our cats have been treated for them before, but I don’t think we’ve ever been able to treat all of them at the same time.

The vet asked about contact with outdoors, and I did mention Potato Beetle being our newest indoor addition, however we would have had the ear mite problem before he came in.

The final bill was just over $640.

Ouch.

That’s more than what I had budgeted to for a plumber.

Thankfully, my daughter will be able to help out, though she has to transfer out of her PayPal account, first, so it will take several business days. I don’t know if she’ll be able to cover the full amount. Whatever it works out to, I hope it’s enough that we can still get the plumber to come in and replace those bathroom taps for us! I guess it’s a good thing I kept forgetting to call him back – and a good thing it is no emergency to get it done!

The most important thing is that the swelling behind David’s ear was nothing major; it was just from him scratching the one spot so much.

The vet that treated David was the same vet I spoke to about Pointy Baby after we got him unstuck from the fence. She was a bit surprised to hear he had passed, but only because when we spoke to her, he had seemed to be doing all right. Given the circumstances, it was most likely due to damage to his neck bones. It wasn’t “broken” – he could still move all his limbs – but considering how long he had to have been struggling to get free, all sorts of damage could have happened. I’m just glad we were able to get him out and he died in the comfort and warmth of my arms, and not while still stuck in the fence!

The whole thing makes having this good news with David much more of a relief.

The Re-Farmer