Some of you may know this story, but, let me repeat so others will understand. A few weeks ago I had a male glider jump out of the pouch while I was peeking at his babies, Sushi. After 1 1/2 hours of trying to outsmart him, I finally caught him. But he bounced from cage to cage, would get behind the cages next to the walls, and I was moving things, leaving treats in
pouches, usuing the towel, etc. My goal was to get him in the cage and keep him from fighting with the rest of my males. I finally got him caught, no injury, and I went to bed.
2 nights later.. I heard fighting in the glider room, I'd go in, turn on the light, check gliders, and couldn't find any one in distress. This went on for a long time, could never catch anyone fighting and everyone was in their own cages. I even tried sitting in the dark, but they knew I was there and were quiet. I finally gave up looking at them, figured someone was protesting breeding and was loud adn vocal to tell the male how serious she was about not breeding. Off to bed I went.
Worked 12 hrs the next day, came home feed gliders and did a pouch check, all little smiling faces were there. Got one cage out to play, went to bed, worked another 12 hours, came home and fed, played with Fu's family, checked all sleeping gliders, all there and happy to eat works.
So, finally, the next day, I am off and cleaning cages. I find what looks like a large catipiller in the bottom of a cage. Pull it out, it's a gliders TAIL!!!! I about died. Check on this cage, they are in a peep and will not come out, but.. they stuck thier heads out, ate a snack and seemed fine. So I figured until I could get them fed, they'd be fine. I have a WT male in this cage, and a WFB female. Seeing the remains of a tail, I knew it must by my girl, Jo, because the tail I found had no white tip.
I couldn't figure out what happend. Did they fight with eachother? Then I noticed, Finn and Fawn and joey cage was ONLY 1 inch away from their cage. I must have moved it when I was trying to catch Sushi. I feel so bad. The cage was stright in line, like it always is, but too close. I coudln't believe I hadn't noticed it already.
So I checked Finn and Fawn's cage, all are well an healthy. I feed everyone early, turn off all the lights, and an hour later everyone is out and eating.
I see BO, my WT on the side of the cage, and notice he is missing 2 inches of tail???? WHAT, the tail I found had no WT. So I look at Jo, the female, she is in the wheel. She is also missing 2 inches of tail!!!!!!!!!! Both look like it happend days ago (prob, when I couldn't find anyone fighting). They both looked almost healed.
So I took them to the
vet, who said.. that they were almost healed and she didn't want to do any surgery. She cleaned them, gave antibiotics, and had me soak them nightly. Since neithor touched them, or appeared distress, no ecollar no pain meds.
A week later, all is well, skin is almost healed and fur is fluffing over their tails again. Eating well, playing well, all is good.
Then this Sunday I found this...
The one with bone ends showing is Jo, my female, the one with red raw area is Bo, my male.
I had my camera in hand when I found it because I had been taking pictures of Fu's family and joey. So I thought for future reference, a picture might help another glider.
So, all night trying to get pain meds and
vet. Putting them in different cages, cleaning would, attempting ecollar (NOT EASY). I called in sick/lied to work and missed Monday. And both gliders had surgery Monday, amputation to the next vertebrea, stitching the skin, and e-collar while sedated. They are now and several meds, including pain meds, and not happy campers.
BO is great, has a good appitite, but Jo needs coaxing. I was up almost all night with them.
Thankfully for me my friend Linda S. lives close to me and knows the
vet, so she took the first shift after surgery and kept them for me till last night so I wouldn't have to call in a second day and get fired.
SOOOO, after this long post. I wanted everyone to see what can happen if your cage is too close. And to say the HAVE to have surgery, even if you 'think' it looks good. I was told by Teresa that they needed it, but it didn't look like it to me or my
vet, and in the end, my gliders had lots of pain and lost even more tail than if we had just done the surgery to begin with.
So, wish us luck, quick healing, and rest. I won't be around much until they are better.