Horse with Ear Wax or Mites?

[Mista C]

I have recently bought a new horse and he is very funny with his ears being touched. Sometimes I can touch them gently and other times he goes mad. I can't touch the hair on the inside of them. Tonight he snapped his clip rope in a panic because I accidentally touched one ear.

His last owners just said that he doesn't like them being touched and never has, they said that they bought him with this problem.

I want to help him, occasionally when I touch them he leans into me like he wants me to help him. But I don't know what the problem is.

He had a couple of bits of ear wax on the hair coming out of his ear and I managed, after a long struggle, to trim the lumps off. As he is still irritated by me touching them he must have something further in his ears.

Any ideas?

 

[Sam22]

By far the most common reason for horses not liking their ears touched is because they have been ear twitched in the past. If you are patient and gentle he may learn to accept you touching then but I would leave trimming any wax off until he is super confident because it may be pushing him to far and causing you set backs. The wax wont do him any harm. There is a common medical condition called aural plaques that some horses get which can be seen as white crusty bits inside there ears. If present they shouldnt in themselves cause a problem and should be left well alone. Some horses become ear shy beacuse someone has attempter (Unecessarily) to scrape these out. Other medical conditions with there ears are rare. Mites are very itchy and he would be rubbing them on the stable wall.
Ultimately his problem was probably man made and it may be so ingrained he never 100% trusts you to touch them and you have to learn to live with it. I had a horse that had his ears scraped before I got him and I just had to put the bridle on woth the cheek piece undone every time.