# 3 inches of tail degloved - advice



## Spazdoc (May 20, 2014)

I have three rats: Snowball (7 mos); Lollypop and Blackberry (8 mos, same litter). We have been very conservative with supervising our kids when they play with them (3 yrs, 5 yrs, 6 yrs), and only let the oldest play with them out of direct view (she is like Snow White / Cinderella when it comes to animals). Today my son was playing with Lollypop during free range using boxes, and it seems like Lollypop's tail got caught in an opening of one of the box openings. She did not directly see the mechanism, but the next thing that happened was that *3 inches of the 7 inch long tail was degloved.*

There was little/no bleeding, Lollypop was quiet at first, and my wife took her to the bathroom to try and bandage the tail. Lollypop started squirming and squealing, and the tail started to bleed. At that point my 6 year old daughter placed her in the carrier to go to the vet, while my wife took the other kids in the car, and they drove to the nearest vet that can handle rats. Since it was after 6 pm by the time we got to the vet, the general vet was available at the 24 hour ER (Chicago Exotic Pet is there during the day).

They gave narcotic pain medications, antibiotics, and cleaned the tail. She took fluids and food, and appears stable. The ER vet recommended amputation, but did not see a need to do it immediately. The gave us the option to perform the amputation immediately under general anesthesia, but recommended that we can support her overnight and have the exotic pet vet see her in the morning, as they perform this procedure more routinely. As she appeared fine, we opted to await evaluation by the exotic pet vet. Although price was not a primary concern, the cost of the ER visit and emergent surgery now would have run us $1400, rather than $450 for the ER visit and supportive care overnight (and then eval by the exotic pet vet in am).

Is this size of degloving pretty much a guaranteed amputation? She will still have approx 50% of her tail, so how much debilitation should I expect? It seems obvious that we would have to separate the rats in different cages, but any thoughts on easing the recovery?


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## Pandorascaisse (Mar 12, 2014)

I mean, if you don't amputate the tail it'll just dry up and be chewed off anyway (as far as I know), so I would say go ahead with the amputation. Poor rattie 

Best of luck with Lollypop - keep us posted!


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## Hey-Fay (Jul 8, 2013)

No, degloved doesn't have to be amputated. Clean the tail three times a day with saline solution; i highly recommend you getting some silver solution made by Curad. You can buy some at Wal-Mart, CVS, Walgreens etc etc. Its the best antimicrobial on the market and 100% rat safe. After each cleaning apply a thin layer of silver on the tail. Eventually the degloved part will dry up and groomed off. There is no need for amputation, that will just make your wallet lighter. After about a month and a half it will be completly healed. She should only be given pain meds for three days at most.


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## Spazdoc (May 20, 2014)

That certainly sounds reasonable. I was initially worried that the tail devolving was more critical to the rat and that bleeding was a major concern (as I had not read up on devolving extensively prior to today, and certainly did not have time while driving tot he vet). My wife will be discussing it I with the vet in the morning.


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## Hey-Fay (Jul 8, 2013)

Also don't bandage the tail, she could hurt herself worse by trying to get it off; and needs to be able to breathe in order to dry out. It should bleed fairly little and by day three shouldn't hurt enough to need pain meds. 
It shouldn't affect her balance either and once it's healed completely it'll just look like she was born without a few inches of her tail and she'll be no worse for wear.


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## Zabora (Jun 8, 2014)

We are going through this with Shakespeare. We got him degloved though. The vet told me that amputation wasn't neccessary but to keep him on clean bedding meaning change daily. He said towels or fleece. Nothing loose like wood or carefresh. He also said do a saline wash 3 times a day for a week. This part Shakespeare hates most so watch out for squirming and clawing rat. We were told to use infant motrin for the pain and swelling. Within a few days Shakespeare trimmed his dried up portion of tail off. Lollypop should be fine but watch for signs of infection.


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## Spazdoc (May 20, 2014)

Thanks for all the advice. It is encouraging to hear that this can be managed at home, even though it is almost half the tail. Although I am an anesthesiologist and ICU physician, I am worried about my rats undergoing general anesthesia.


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## Spazdoc (May 20, 2014)

Follow up to previous discussion. Lollypop did well over night, received buprenorphine for pain, ate the Oxbow provided by the vet. My wife spoke with the exotic pet vet this morning and I spoke with the technician. The vet recommended amputation for a few reasons. It will reduced the risk of infection because the wound is closed more definitively and quicker, and so a shorter course of ABx is needed, and there will be less risk for residual pain because they will also remove the terminal 1-2 vertebrae in the tail and suture the stump properly. Additionally, the care will be easier, as we only need 1-2 weeks of recovery time, rather than a month or so of cleaning and ointments.

In the end we took the recommendations here and our vet's recommendations under consideration. To have them do the anesthetic would run us an additional $150-$200 to hopefully given the best chance at recovery and minimizing infection and pain is worth it to get our beloved Lollypop back. Mind you, if we were talking about an additional $1000, it might be different (we have already spent $600 on the ER visit, consultation, and over-night care).

One of my colleagues used to do research on rats, and I am a critical care anesthesiologist, so I was considering providing a general anesthetic with local anesthesia in the tail for the amputation myself. I just do not think that my family would be comfortable with surgery being performed in the house.

Thank you for your thoughts and recommendations. If this happens again, I might just keep the girls at home if it is a smaller injury.


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