Maggie's Ears!!

[Amber]

I was petting Maggie and I look into her ears and they are DIRTY! Can I clean them out? Or is that her job? and How do you clean them out? its a bit gross!

[Lallypop11]

Yes you sure can clean them, you can buy ear wipes at the pet store or you can put some warm water (some use alcohol) on a cloth and gently wipe it out, don't go too deep though or you may damage something. It comes off very easily. My vet cleaned Bubby's ears with a Q-tip over the weekend, to each his own! I usually don't have to clean their ears since they groom each other so well, hehe.

[slick]

I just use the small cotton balls and warm water to clean Max's ears. He doesn't mind it that much but afterwards he wearing airplane ears for a while.

[Amber]

lol Slick! Thanks!

[bluekat]

LOL, *trying to imagine how a cat can clean its own ears*

Blueberry's ears are kind of dirty too, but he hates it when I touch his ears. I think I'll have to try to clean them someday.

[CatDad]

When I first got Joey, the vet cleaned out her ears for me. They wanted to do that in because she could have had mites. Bob's ears have always clean.

I am not sure how they keep there ears clean at this point. They are probabaly helping each other now.

[Vio&Juni]

Juni always had clean ears. When we got Pichu, his ears were dirty, no earmites, just dirty. I still clean them with Q-tips from time to time, but they are much cleaner now.

[BastetsMum]

Bastet get chronic ear iinfections in one of her ears so here is how you clean them.

BTW: Cats ear canals are L shaped so you won't hurt their ear drum with a Q-tip. My vet showed me this proceedure and I am writing the instructions down as he wrote them out for me. This has kept Bastet's ears very clean and her trips to the vet for ear drops to a minimum.

Boil some filtered water and let it cool down until it is luke warm (boiling removes any bacteria).

Wash hands with some antibacterial soap and use a clean towel.

Get some cotton balls and gently soak in the water and squeeze out thouroughly.

Pull back ear flap gently and clean out muck from ear that you can see coming out of it. Use as many cotton balls as you like until they come out clean. This will get rid of the itchy outside gunk.

With a Q tip gently insert into ear canal. Turn the Q tip to pick up any gunk. Remove the Q tip. It will look disgusting. If it smells it means there is infection in there and may require a visit to the Vet. Do this until the Q tip comes out cleaner than the first. ( It may look yellowy but htat is the colour of the wax).

Repeat with other ear.

Make sure though after each individual ear that you wash your hands and use separate everything so you don't infect one ear with what the other ear has. Be sterile! (something my vet is conscious about).

Your kitty may hate you for a couple of hours but they will hear better. Remeber my vet showed me this as well (how to clean inside the ears - and outside as well) so be mindful of that. I would hate to hurt a kitty in any way.

[HayleyRosie]

No chance of my two having dirty ears. Hayley cleans Mandy's and Mandy cleans Hayley's!

[Amber]

Thanks BastetsMum! That was very helpful