Tail Amputation Info.

Amputation of the tail becomes necessary when there is injury (either self-inflicted or otherwise inflicted) to the tail which causes necrosis or significant damage to the tissue.

It is important to remind your vet that the amputation needs to occur several joints ABOVE the injury. This helps ensure that complete healing can take place and that further surgery is not needed.

After surgery, it is necessary that the glider remain in an ecollar until completely healed. Otherwise, the glider might injure the tail further.
Move the glider to a hospital cage and set up the cage for an e-collar by lowering pouches to the floor, providing additional hammocks and resting places. Use a bird trough style feeder so that the glider can get to the food even in the e-collar. You can stitch a hoop into the top of a pouch to make it stay open so that the glider can get in and out more readily.

Be sure to check the surgical site each day. Tails can get very messy when the glider is not able to groom them, so use a warm, wet washcloth to gently remove any food or fecal matter that may have gotten matted to the tail. The surgical site should be kept clean and dry to promote healing. Your vet may or may not have you put a topical ointment on the surgical site. Follow vet's instructions there.

Jackie Chan's tail amputation:


Some vets have been performing surgeries of this nature and the only prescribing a few days of pain meds - or none at all. Be sure that you get a MINIMUM of 5 days of pain medication for your baby after surgery.

A glider with NO tail will not be able to glide normally, as they use the tail during gliding. However, while gliders do love to glide, they can be perfectly happy for the rest of their lives without gliding. Some gliders have still learned to leap fairly long distances without the tail. Gliders with portions of the tail amputated may or may not be able to glide. Either way, do not treat your glider any differently than you do your other gliders. You will be amazed at how well they compensate when they are treated "normally!"

Some of my tail-less gliders in action:

Just wanted to share a pre-amp pic and a story of why it's important for a vet to do a thorough check and try to find the cause. Jasper presented w/a necrotic tail tip. No known injury or cause. We went to the vet for a partial amputation. Once he was anesthetized, she was able to do a more thorough exam of the tail to search for injury. None was obvious in the immediate area. She began to prep the tail (shave) and started looking higher. She found the injury...what appeared to be a hair wrapped around the tail. You can see how much higher the actual injury was. Had she not searched for the cause, Jasper would have had more problems requiring more surgery.

Hair strands have always been a big concern of mine. I know I can vacuum my house and always find my hair strands wrapped around the spinner. This just confirms my concerns. Thank you for sharing this with us. I'm so sorry for your baby and pray for a speedy recovery.

Hello
I have a question
metacam is used for pain in a case as these my question is how many time a day can it be given and at what dose.
Thanks
Paulette

Metacam can be given once a day (based on my vets recommendation). For the exact dosage, you need to ask your vet.

The dose is to be determined by your vet. If you are concerned that the dose is too large, you may PM me and I'll give you a ballpark. The dose amount depends upon the strength of the medication.

Metacam should be given only once per day. Sometimes, vets will have you give 1/2 a dose twice per day. They may not tell you that you are giving a half dose, so if the vet prescribes it twice daily, then make sure to ask. Really, if you give it once just as they are waking up, that is sufficient.

Metacam is only one pain relieving drug. It is the one I prefer as it controls pain for a long time AND decreases swelling, but there are other drugs that can be prescribed to control pain.

Thank you for the info it was a big help
Paulette

Hello,
There is a lot of great information here but one thing that I have not been able to find out is how long the recovery process takes after a tail amputation. I realize that all gliders are different, but is there a ball park for how long they will need to be watched/seperated/medicated? And do all tail amputation recoveries require the use of an e-collar? or only if SM begins?
Thank you in advance for any responses :)
GliderDad to Nana, Coco, and Kiwi

My Lan didn't use an e-collar after the amputation, because I didn't actually know it was possible since I didn't know much about gliders at that point and had only had them for 5 days. His stub of a tail healed quite well after a few weeks and within months, the fur had grown back.

I have not kept any glider in a collar after a tail amputation for more than 24 hours. Most of them, I don't put in a collar at all.

Dr. Walsh has developed an interesting technique for closing the end of the tail that I am hoping he will share with everyone at the RRRoundup. It has resulted in no complications following tail amputation here - even without a collar.

As far as healing time, if you use Quickderm on the end of the tail after the surgery, then about 6-8 days it will be all healed up. If you don't use QD, then 8-10 days.
If the tail was shaved (not all vets shave sugar gliders since gliders don't shed), then it might take several weeks for the fur to grow back fully.

Pain meds for the first 3-5 days. Antibiotics for 7-10.

Hi,
Thank you for the information! I was a bit worried about the e-collar. As it turns out, our vet gave us good news yesterday and we probably won't have to amputate her tail. After 5 days, it was still warm/supple at the end and curled around the vets finger a bit during the exam :) I know we are not completely out of the woods so I still have my fingers crossed. When all this is done I will post the original x-ray (bad dislocation) along with details of what was done/ healing process if the moderators think it would be beneficial.
Sorry if this was listed somewhere else on the site already, but when/where is the the RRRoundup? Are there any events coming up in Florida or nearby?

Found the thread on the RRRoundup so ingnore that last part of my post.