So I had a terrible mishap with my glider, Meeko. I looked everywhere online and didn't find much information. I believe this info would help with self mutilation, any surgery after care and other tail amputations. So I'm going to tell my story and what I did after the amputation in hopes that this helps someone else.

I woke up one morning to find the black tip of Meeko's tail holding on by a tendon. No blood, he didn't seem to be in pain, just a portion of his tail hanging.

We still aren't sure of what happened. It could've been his brother that chewed it off, or himself. It could've been the wheel, it's mounted to the side of the cage(he likes to hide behind it)(I have a wheel made for gliders, not a wodent wheel
). But we do have a dog who loves watching the boys play all night and they enjoy taunting him. We think he might have accidentally snagged his tail. (Please don't give me hate, I made a clear mistake and I paid the price)

We rushed him to the vet and they saw us immediately. The vet had never seen anything like it. We obviously had to get it amputated. We were not given an e-collar because he would be able to reach his tail anyway.




After the surgery, we were given dolorex for his pain and told that his stitches would disintegrate in a few days. He was heavily sedated and slept until about 1am. Then he was ready to play. Here comes the important stuff:

Night 1
We had to keep him separate from his brother in the main cage. So I put him in an old cage that I had when I got them (They were rescues, NOT the cage they're in now)
In his cage, he had tshirts for him to sleep in. (pouches encouraged chewing too much). We had LOTS of snacks and treats and a few toys. I also made him a hard boiled egg, I read somewhere that giving them some protein will help the healing process.
My girlfriend and I slept in shifts and we had to watch him CONSTANTLY to make sure he didn't rip his stitches out. We tried putting a straw on his tail. So that he couldn't get to it and that worked for a little. I let him run around my room (SUPERVISED) for a long time cause he wasn't a fan of the cage he was in. But we really got NO sleep and that was just the beginning.

The next day we had to hold him in his pouch all day and make sure he didn't chew. He slept most of the day. We still slept in shifts all day.

Night 2
A little easier, he actually slept most of this night. He slept in the shirts and we could tell when he started to move and groom. So we'd stop him and he'd go back to sleep.

This day was better, he still slept a ton and was in my hand all day long. We let him and his brother, Mowgli, see each other because they were barking at one another for two nights. Again, SUPERVISED, Mowgli went straight for his stitches.

Night 3 and 4
I finally got a good amount of sleep. He didn't play much and the chewing had slowed. Everything was much easier.

Today he is doing great! The stitches are slowly going away, he's not chewing as much and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel

I hope this helps someone! Please feel free to add tips or advice. This was one of the hardest things to deal with and not having much info online definitely didn't help!

So sorry for what you've all been through. Thank you for sharing your story. My little canary got loose awhile back and was bitten by my parrot. We had to have the canary's wing amputated and it was extremely traumatic. Thank goodness Meeko seems to be doing well! You're doing a great job taking care of him. Wishing you all the best!

Sorry for you and your glider. No one should hate you, these tragic things can happen despite our best care and judgement.

I confess I skimmed through this quickly, and I do hope to have more time to read more thoroughly, as I feel this is information we all should be aware of. Thanks for sharing.

Sorry for all that you guys have been through, that sounds like a lot! Luckily for your glider you’re taking good care of him and you seem to know what you’re doing :) I hope he continues to make a speedy recovery. A similar thing actually happened to one of my gliders once. One day we found him, and a big part of his tail was just gone! All that was left was the bone. We called the vet and they scheduled an appointment for the next day. He next morning, we woke up, and found that a part of his tail had fallen off! I wonder if both our gliders got into the same thing lol, it’s ridiculus what they can do when you aren’t checking them and making sure they’re alright, just goes to show the importance of keeping on top of things. I really think that this post will help somebody.Anyway, I hope he keeps getting better!

There are so many weird things that happen with gliders! It's kind of scary.

Thanks so much for posting this. I had a similar incident with my glider this morning bc I left cages too close together with new arrivals and they got a hold of her tail and bit through it. There was no blood but you could see the bone showing. She wasn't in obvious pain but did keep licking it. I took her to the vet who amputated about half of her tail. She's recovering now and I can't pick her up for a couple of days but your information was helpful and more importantly ...hopeful.