Recently I have noticed that Ollie's ears seem to be dry and kinda scaly which is peeling off. I took him to the vet but he said everything looked completely fine wit him and he's not sure what is going on but to keep track of it to see if it gets worse. Anyone else ever have this problem? Is it kinda normal for maybe just dryness from changing weather or is there something wrong?

I would say the air is to dry, get a humidifier. Gliders ears are very very thin, winter months are hard on their ears with heaters running it dries the air out a lot sometimes making their ears brittle and crumble off. Dry air has also been known to make their fur look "cracked" more moisture in the air helps with that as well.

Ok I will definitely look into getting one of those then. Do you usually need them during the summer months too or just pretty much winter?

Depends on the climate where you live. I'm in Florida it's humid in the summer and most of the winter. I needed a humidifier for about a month or two when we were using a heater. If you live somewhere where it's dry and low humidity you may need it year round.

Odd that your vet seemed unaware that this is a common problem and preventable. Leela do you think there is a sort of safe cream that the vet could have given to at least help from this point? I wonder if a little tad of oil, sunflower, olive, etc. might help and not cause any issues with them grooming. You know I'm talking the tiniest bit on the finger and getting it on the flesh...not in the ear.

Ya know I been thinking about that, I would have to do a little more research before suggesting that.

My concern is they are such proficient groomers they may do more damage to the ears by trying to get the oil off.

Um I will do some digging around to see

Ok so the most common ear issue I think is humidity, until you get a humidifier you can also Mist the cage lightly with a spray bottle of just plain water. Don't spray directly on the glider though.

However there are other possibilities,

quote:

---

One is a parasitic, ear mites or bacterial infection. Another is a circulatory problem that isn't allowing enough blood to get to her ears.

---

Ear mites can be treated with Ivamectin administered by the vet. They can be very hard to see by the naked eye. Ear mites live on almost all living things, when something happens like stress it can affect the immune system. When the immune system is lowered it can give the ear mites a chance to infect the host.

Without being seen by a glider experienced vet it's really difficult to say exactly what the problem is, I would think the most obvious would be the humidity issue. If addressing that doesn't improve or at least stop the damage from worsening I would see a more knowledgeable vet. Unless the glider has been under stress, then I would get to another vet immediately.

Personally I would have thought that even a non glider experienced vet would be able to recognize ear mites, since they affect all other animals the vet is probably more familiar with.

I had a horse that had an ear mite problem and for her the vet told me to swab her ear with oil to "smother" the mites. I don't think that is the right approach with gliders though as their ears are very small and delicate I would worry it would do more harm than good.

Very nice research work Leela.

(the horse method brought back memories of smothering ticks with vaseline on my rotties back in the day!)

He looked inside the ears with a scope and said that he is fine and doesn't have ear mites. Kinda weird cuz he is someone that deals wit gliders quite a bit so idk. But I will def get a humidifier and hopefully that will help

A humidifier should help.

Be sure to keep your glider's cage out of the direct blowing of the AC or Heat in the room. This can be very drying to the delicate skin of their ears and cause them to chap and crack much like our lips do when we are out in the wind - and lick them for moisture which just makes them dry out more quickly.