26 october 2009 tragedy part 1 :(

After 6 years of breeding and owning gliders, I guess it’s finally my turn to go through this. Last night, to my horror I found 2 of my very precious gliders with severe wounds. I’d been out of town for the past 10 days so I wasn’t able to catch them when they first happened. Kair has wounds across most of the top of her head. They were all scabbed over, no infection, she looked good considering. KaiRina was a different story. From her wrist down the side of her patagium was all ripped open. Thank god I had an e collar on hand. I immediately got her in the e-collar, wound cleaned and hospital cage set up. They both went to the vet first opening this morning. Dr. Sue took them straight to surgery. She sedating KaiRina, cleaned the wound, and stitched her up. She removed a few scabs from Kair’s head to make sure there was no infection. We tried and tried to get a normal e collar on her but it just wasn’t working out, I was able to get a snap e collar from Chris(glidrz5) for her. Thank you Chris! This is just another lesson, I had e collars, lots of them, and all different sizes but I only had one snap e collar, I know now to keep more than one on hand. Kair is being a good girl and is sleeping in my bra, hasn’t touched her head yet but that doesn’t mean she won’t so she will be in the e collar later. KaiRina is in the e collar, resting, I’m sure she’s one sore girl. The vet let me watch the whole procedure and I have some good pics. Wish I could have gotten more but I really didn’t want to be a burden so I only took a few.

How this happened? I’m not positive but I’m guessing it was a fight over food. Kair and KaiRina have been housed with Cheiko and Neiko for a year or more now. Both of the boys are neutered and they have all always gotten along great except for an occasional spat over food. They would fuss but never anything serious. Both of the boys are unharmed.

So they are both on antibiotics and pain meds. KaiRina spent the night in a daytripper because I want to limit her movement. I have a small hospital cage I’m going to move her to tonight and Kair will get a 38 gal rept since she is free to move as much as she wants. KaiRina was able to eat on her own from a small bowl last night, thankfully.

~lynsie

just got shaved

trimming the dead skin

clean open wound

all stitched up