Part of tail missing..

A few days ago I noticed the end of my gliders tail was missing and it looked like it was healed. She was in a rept with another female and neu. male. This morning it is open and looks like maybe bone showing. I removed her from the rept and put her in a cage by herself. I dont know if she is doing this or the cage mates. My husband said to put some antibiotic cream on it. Since we have moved recently I do not have a vet. There is not even a vet in the town we live, a horse vet comes to town once a week. Any suggestions...

First of all you need to separate her from the other gliders. You also need to make sure that she does not continue to chew or groom her tail. If you can get a large straw, McDonalds straws work well, slip it over her tail until it's about 1/8" below the base. This will help to keep from going after it. Keep her warm, and make sure she is getting plenty of liquids.

She will need to be seen by a Vet ASAP, to have some of the tail removed to prevent it from becoming necrotic. If she is not seen, and is not put on antibiotics right away, things can get worse to where she could loose the remaining portion of her tail or worse.

Did you check our vet database? If you can let us know where you are located, we will try and help find a vet for you. We do have a list of vets who will do phone consultation with your vet if necessary.

It's good that you removed her to a cage by herself. You need to watch her very closely and make sure she doesn't try to SM. Do you have an ecollar on hand? She definitely needs to get to a vet ASAP! This injury is extremely painful! She needs pain meds and antibiotics at the very least, and possibly surgery. What town do you live in and maybe we can find a vet for you?

.yes i do have an ecollar.

I will see if I have a large straw. I really dont know what to do with her. My 8 yr old has to be in San Antonio on Mon., he is undergoing chemo. I will see if I can contact the vet in my old hometown but I cant get her there until Tues.

Put her in an ecollar and use neosporin with pain relief or oragel on the end of her tail, for pain relief. She has to be in the ecollar to use either of these because if she gets them in her mouth, it will numb it. The straw would help to keep her from the tail and to protect it too. What color is the end of her tail? If it turns black, it means it has died and will continue to die further up her tail. That will cause sepsis and death.

I wish the best of luck to you and I'm very sorry to hear about your son. I will be sending prayers for both of them.

I called the vets ofc no ans,called his home no ans. Will do what has been suggested. Thank you So much!

This freaked me out when it happened to Cessna back in 2003. She had already bitten the necrotic part off by the time I got her to a vet, because I did not know to put her in an ecollar then. They gave me silvadyne/sulfadine? cream to use on it, and it healed up. She lived five more years after that, and hopefully your baby will pull through without too much trouble, too.

Lots of prayers for you and your baby. Keep us updated.

OK vet did surgery...she ripped it out..did surgery again and put ecollor on. she is very unhappy..gave me pain meds and antibiotics..said leave coller on 10 days. does this sound right? now what do i do..she is top heavy for sure and i have her in a bonding pouch. how do i feed her and such...

Please I need help here...just gave her antibiotics and pain meds....what about night time and feeding her and giving her water...any suggestions...

anyone...

when my little Maggie had to wear an ecollar, it was so big, she couldn't do much of anything. her injury was on her 'shoulder', though, not on the tail. i did trim up the ecollar a bit, so she could move more freely, i DO NOT know if you can do this in her case. so many mommies have had to go thru this w/their babies. do a search, look up ecollar, & you will get pages upon pages of stuff. hopefully you will be able to find an answer this way. or, you could just type in necrotic tail.

Your glider should learn to carry the collar and hold her head up. She will need to wear that until it is healed so she leaves it alone this time. Make the cage safe so she cannot hurt herself, low, hammocks and such. She may want to sleep on the floor of the cage so lay a hammock on the floor for her.

She should be able to drink from a water bottle, place where she can stand on the ground and drink from it. I fed HPW in a watter bottle, otherwise you will have to feed her with a spoon and give fluids with a needless syringe or bottle. I hope her tail heals up soon!

Sorry, I was wrapped up in another post & just saw this. I've had (what? 6?) tail amputation issues & can help work you through this.

Let's address how much of the tail is left after the amputation...in proportion to what she started with, is it half gone? more? or less? (a picture would speak a thousand words too)

As far as food and water, most gliders can function with using a water bottle...eating might be another issue. You say she's "top heavy" because of the e-collar. With a tail amputation, the challenge comes in keeping the collar long enough that she can't pull the end to her mouth...but she still needs to be able to get her nose past the edge of the collar. Are you using a snap collar from TGI (satellite), or a shotglass? Regardless, you should be able to trim off a LITTLE so she's not uncomfortable...

We'll talk about feeding in a minute. I'm standing by for a reply.

maybe an inch left on her tail...the e collar has snaps..i had it thinking i would never use it..it came from xfilefan.

i will try and get a pic

In that case, you can trim the e-collar back until her nose is even with the edge of the collar (does that make sense? If you were to draw a line from top of the e-collar to the bottom, the nose would be just touching this imaginary line). This will reduce the weight of the collar itself & allow your baby to move around a little better.

(more coming...)

i have a pic but how do i post it..

Do you have a Photobucket account? You can upload it, then create a link to here.

yes..i will see if i can get it posted

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r120/ksheedy/DSC02610.jpg

While you're doing that Kathy...

The most successful thing I've found to feed an e-collared glider in is one of those $1.00 cat dishes you can get at Dollar General. Two sections, rectangular, big bottom to make it stable. What to feed is their regular diet, only FINELY CHOPPED UP. (for instance, veggies get blended til they're almost pureed; fruit like grapes get peeled & finely cut up, frozen cherries get grated, applesauce can be served up normally). Surprisingly enough, the glider will figure out how to "catch" the edge of the collar so it pulls down, allowing their nose to extend beyond the edge & they use their LONG tongue to eat. Mealies will have to be hand-fed since the front feet are WORTHLESS.

(more....)

http://s142.photobucket.com/albums/r120/ksheedy/?action=view&current=DSC02609.jpg"

this one wont work but the first one of the collar does..i dunno..
Thank you so much for the help! She is resting on my chest..poor angel. What are the odds of her leaving it alone now, once it is healed?

Something's wrong....can't get it to come up.

When you preview your link, it should turn it blue & underline it like this:

http://www.angelfire.com/nb/sugargliders/bml/leadbeat.html

Try going back to it...I'll try to look into your album too.

Never mind, I got it to work. Yep, she'll have a nubby butt like Minka and Tiger Lilly....wish I could find my digital camera, I'd show you mine!

Yes, you can cut the satellite collar back to where her nose is even with the edge of the collar. The first couple of days, you WILL want to be pretty consistent with the pain meds....she probably IS hurting! And how long to leave the e-collar on will be directly dependent on how quickly she heals.

One thing I want you to do with that snap-collar: Check both ends of the circle that are closest to her neck...if there are square corners that aren't covered with moleskin, PLEASE DO SO IMMEDIATELY. I've heard of more neck wounds resulting from a glider having to be in an e-collar for 10 days & they get these injuries from the collar "twirling around" (for lack of a better word) and rubbing those sharp corners against their skin.

(more coming...)

As far as sleeping quarters go....

Unless you have some HUGE-mouthed pouches (like 12 inches wide), this will become an issue soon. I take a (CHEAP) plastic embroidery hoop and stretch the opening of my pouch over it & pop the 2nd (adjustable) hoop over the fleece/1st hoop. Then I tie the pouch to the side of the hospital cage where the "adjusting screw" is & let it hang. You could also use a mixing bowl with baby's favorite fleece in the bottom or make a SINGLE THICKNESS no-sew pouch. Each fuzzbutt has their "favorite" thing to sleep in, the fun comes with figuring out WHICH ONE works best for yours.

ok..Again..THANK YOU!

will she be able to be back in the trio or should i just keep her to herself...

She'll need to stay by herself for a couple weeks....she can visit with the rest of her group, but it has to be SUPERVISED ONLY. Don't be surprised if the other 2 treat her like she's an alien....to them, she IS with the e-collar on. But to keep her spirits up, I do recommend visitations.

Expect her to lose some weight from not eating so much...hope she has a few grams she can afford to lose...and the first day or 2 will be rough on both of you...but she'll figure out how to get around & she'll be ok.

I know. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do. If you put her back with the others, they'll try to groom her tail & that WILL NOT BE GOOD.

Reading back on what caused this in the first place....the move could be the reason why it happened: gliders will "stress out" over being relocated (that's how Madeline lost the end of HER tail); one of the other 2 could be stressed & taking it out on her; the anxiety levels that YOU'RE emitting from the move & son's chemo....who knows? But you have to keep focused on the here and now...and the future: she'll be fine, she'll adjust to life with a shorter tail, and she's STILL your baby

Hang on....it's GONNA get better. Hold on to that belief and let FAITH be your wings to carry you.

Thank you...

Stella is doing great. The tail is healing really well. I am still not ready to put her back in the trio due to fear of something happening. Thanks for all the advice.

I'm glad she is healing up and doing well for you! Be sure to watch the tail even after it is fully healed as tail injuries sometimes sneak back in to be a problem. I would say as long as you are concerned, she will be fine on her own - better safe than sorry.