Hey guys,
Had a questions about one of my gliders. Basically she has a long, long history of vet visits and issues with her health. A genetic disease is being assumed because no reason for her bad health could be found by the vet. The issues being that she is severely under weight and has little to no muscle mass, very different from her cage mates.
However my question doesn't revolve around her weight, her vet and I are doing all we can to solve that issue.. But the problem is that now she's added yet another issue to her health my starting to over groom her tail. It's been about a week and half since she first started and she's already pulled out about a inch of fur in a ring around the end of her tail. She's currently on pain medication and a parasitic mediatcation, (even though she showed no signs of parasites). But I took her into the vet about a week ago, the day after I first initially noticed she was pulling out fur, and she's only gotten worse.
Her vet said the next step would be amputating the tail. But she's so small and malnutritioned that they can't even draw blood to do testing for her other issue (the weight issue) would she survive an amputation ? And is there something else I could do before I got to that point to try and stop the over grooming ? I'm not made of money unfortunately, and I love her to death, but with all the vet visits and medications she's been going through the past year she is simply draining me of everything I have, and I wouldn't be able to afford an amputation for at least a couple months while I save up.
Any advice would be very helpful! I don't mean to be rude but please just answer my question about her tail and don't comment on her weight. It seems that every time I ask a question about her, everyone's reaction is rather rude and always directed about her weight, regardless if I'm asking about it. I know we get defensive about these little guys, but I'm doing all I can and whenever I get those responses it just makes me not want to ask for help from here again. But I can't leave out that info because it's needed to get accurate advice.. Please know that whatever advice I get will be discussed with her vets before I attempt anything, so don't worry about rash decisions. But I am desperate for other options. Also as a side note, is it safe to put neosporin on her tail ? I have seen it on a lot of articles about tail over grooming, but it seems like it'd be toxic for her if she were to lick it off.
Anyway, thank you for your time.

Hi!
Okay, first, I admit I began by going back through your posts so I would know more about you and your glider's situation.
To my knowledge, over grooming her tail is most likely due to stress. (Although as you've stated, she has serious health issues). So if it's stress, the question is, what's stressing her? Is the other glider you own still being a bit overly-dominant with her?
I guess I'd say try to figure out what is stressing her. My glider over groomed her tail because she was in a cage next to my quad, and that stressed her. As soon as I moved her to her own space, she stopped over grooming. (And eventually she got her own big cage and a cagemate...long story short) if you can't exactly give her her own space, maybe more pouches in the cage and more toys for the dominant glider to keep busy and more feeding stations. It's really hard to say without knowing what's stressing her.
Hope that helped! Keep us updated.
Oh, and no, I wouldn't do neosporin.
And I would try to figure out what's stressing her before I amputated (that seems so extreme). I would consider amputation only if she were breaking the skin and causing injuries that won't heal.

Contact Cora Holt (screen name Cora1 ) by the email in her profile.

She has quite a bit of experienced with gliders that are over grooming and with SM. She may have some good information on ways to manage your girl's problems with out resorting to amputation.

I'm sorry your girl has so many issues but I also know you are doing everything you can to give her a great life. Sometimes glider health issues are just out of the owner's control and we deal with them as best we can.

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Originally posted by Kferg

Hi!
Okay, first, I admit I began by going back through your posts so I would know more about you and your glider's situation.
To my knowledge, over grooming her tail is most likely due to stress. (Although as you've stated, she has serious health issues). So if it's stress, the question is, what's stressing her? Is the other glider you own still being a bit overly-dominant with her?
I guess I'd say try to figure out what is stressing her. My glider over groomed her tail because she was in a cage next to my quad, and that stressed her. As soon as I moved her to her own space, she stopped over grooming. (And eventually she got her own big cage and a cagemate...long story short) if you can't exactly give her her own space, maybe more pouches in the cage and more toys for the dominant glider to keep busy and more feeding stations. It's really hard to say without knowing what's stressing her.
Hope that helped! Keep us updated.
Oh, and no, I wouldn't do neosporin.
And I would try to figure out what's stressing her before I amputated (that seems so extreme). I would consider amputation only if she were breaking the skin and causing injuries that won't heal.

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Thank you for your reply !
Unfortunately I started posting under a different account name quite a while ago, because I had lost the password to this one. To be a little up to date, Bambi has had a slow degeneration of her fat and muscles. Her skeletal structure has not grown since I've had her, (I think I posted something on her about how much bigger my other glider was compared to her, well he was actually the normal one). And it's gotten to a point where she is now unable to do anything other than the simplest tasks, like getting out of her pouch to eat. Most nights she sits in the same spot for HOURS not doing anything.
My other glider isn't latching on to her, or dominating her like he used to. To be honest most nights he's out exploring and leaving her alone, a lot of times he chooses to sleep somewhere out of the cage and doesn't even sleep with her. That's one thing I thought may be causing her to over groom her tail. Thumper is barely ever with her.. But it's because he's able to jump around and play while she isn't even able to leave the cage. She used to follow him to his sleeping spots, but she's too weak to manage that now. So possibly loneliness? MAybe boredom.
The other possibility is simply her weakness. The fact she's so weak has made her very defensive and crabby and her vet said that feeling constantly vulnerable could be stressing her out.
Those are the two ideas I've been able to come up with. I'm not really sure how to go about solving either one..
And thank you SO much for answering the neosporin question, that's been driving me crazy!

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Originally posted by Candy

Contact Cora Holt (screen name Cora1 ) by the email in her profile.

She has quite a bit of experienced with gliders that are over grooming and with SM. She may have some good information on ways to manage your girl's problems with out resorting to amputation.

I'm sorry your girl has so many issues but I also know you are doing everything you can to give her a great life. Sometimes glider health issues are just out of the owner's control and we deal with them as best we can.

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Thank you so much! That actually means a lot !! I was so embarrassed asking people because just by looking at her it seems like obvious neglect. The first couple months I took her to the vet I would practically want to cry by the time I left ! They're very nice people, but when I started bringing Bambi in they kept pushing at it being something I was doing because they couldn't find any causes for her condition. It wasn't until she continued to get worse, despite their efforts, and seeing my other glider did they realize it wasn't being a horrible parent!
I even took her to the place I bought her and they were so angry when they saw her. So thank you for your kindness.
And I will email her today! Hopefully she'll be able to tell me something !!

BambiKuritz Cora Holt is a wise lady and Candy is right she has a ton of experience and she was very helpful in two other tail issues recently that I know of.

I think I would ask the vet if they think she would survive the amputation and have a good quality of life afterwards. I work with a legal Non Profit group on facebook called Sugar Glider Guardians. We have assisted in two tail amputations last month, one of them was a member from here who could not afford the amputation without some help.

IF your glider is a good candidate for the surgery please let me know and our group may be able to help with fee, maybe not all of it but some of it so this baby is not suffering for two months waiting... did the vet say how much the amputation is ?

and actually a lot of people use neosporin as far as I'm aware it is safe even if ingested as long as it's NOT the kind with numbing/pain relief it is safe.

And one of the other amputations we helped with had about an inch long patch of fur missing towards the tip of the tail as well. We have a few members experienced with gliders with similar issues as yours that would be willing to help and give advice or even just be supportive....

I'm an admin of the group my name is Carla Sloan if you'd like to join, we don't allow any drama or people being nasty or judgmental to each other and have a few very experienced glider owners like Bourbon Hackworth in our group who is also experienced like Cora Holt.