dirty ears??

[Sara in NW MS]

I noticed Judie has what looks like dirt inside her ears. This isn't something I've ever seen in her ears before. She shares her cage with her brother and they are both exposed to the same stuff every day. His ears look perfectly clean while hers look like this. Is this a sign of an ear infection maybe? I don't notice any out of the ordinary scratching on her part and she seems healthy otherwise. I tried to get a good pic, hopefully you can see what I am talking about.

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[stepnstone]

I 'think" I see what your referring to...
Could be something, could just be "dirt" in her ear but her overall ear appearance looks good.
I'd take a q-tip, clean them and then keep an eye on it for now.
There is treatment for mites if she would have them and it wouldn't hurt to treat but it may be unnecessary.

[Sara in NW MS]

Thanks for the advice, I'll see if she will let me do that. Lol. Judie has always been the "wild child" of the two, this could get interesting. I'll keep an eye on it after I clean it out and update if I notice anything unusual with it (I could take the "dirt" to work and look at it under a microscope to see if there's more to it than dirt). Never imagined it would be safe to put a qtip in a squirrel's ear! I'll be careful and have some help holding her. Hope she doesn't panic on me. Thanks again, just wanted to make sure it wasn't a sign of something worse than just dirt :grin3

[stepnstone]

Mites "generally" present themselves pretty rapidly once they take hold. Outside the squirrel scratching, their ear rims become crusty looking and of course once they advance you'll notice area's of fur loss. Definitely keep an eye on it. If you can get close enough, try to smell the ears for any odor present. There are other things that can cause "ear dirt" such as yeast infection.