Advice on getting a degu to rest up!!

[aurora]

Hello there,

I'm a long time lurker on these forums (ever since I got my four babies back in October 2010) but find myself in need of some advice,

One of my degus was limping with her hind right foot on Sunday night. She was utterly fine in herself apart from this. Her limp was worse in the cage than when she was out. I could find no marks or abrasions on her foot or leg, her claws seemed fine and she wasn't too upset with me trying to feel my way around her leg. She squirmed...but no more than normal.

Monday she was the same and I decided to take her to the vet. Saw the vet today, he was lovely and he was charmed by her even though she's a wee weirdo. He said that what he thought had happened, based on his thorough examination of her, was that she had fractured or broken her tibia at some point and it had healed a little awkwardly and this was causing the trouble.

Poor wee love. She is a bit kamikaze. Although we built their massive cage to minimise possibilities for falls, she is not known for her ability to judge distance well.

Anyways. She has been prescribed some metacam and, more importantly, some rest. On the vet's instructions she has been taken out of the cage and put in a small one level cage with wood shavings and soft bedding. This cage is right next to the main cage so she can still see the others (and vice versa). However...since she has been put in there, she hasn't stopped racing around and basically trying to rip the thing apart.

I am currently weighing up the dangers of putting her back in the big cage...there are two wheels and lots of ledges to jump back and forward onto...but she would spend a lot of time snoozing with the others!

I would be grateful for the experience of others here. I wonder if people think she will settle down? She's been fairly non stop for several hours now. She is also climbing on the bars and dropping down which is not good anyways, let alone with a leg injury.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

[deguconvert]

I tend to think that you are right and putting her back in with her mates is what she needs more than the stress of being apart and in a small cage. It is certainly causing her a lot of distress! The poor wee girlie. Now . . . speaking only from what I would be thinking, not telling you this is the way you should go . . . but I would be feeling that to give her a smaller dose of metacam so to dull the pain but not completely remove it, may help her recover but not over stress her leg because she would still feel the impact of some pain. This may be stupid reasoning though, as degus have a VERY high tolerance for pain . . . so . . . not sure about that. I'd still put her back in with her mates though.

[aurora]

Thank you degu convert. Much appreciated. I popped her back in last night anyways and within a few minutes she was snoozing away.

I shall isolate her again this morning and see how she gets on. Wee bugger that she is.

Thank you for your response.

[moletteuk]

Welcome to posting
I agree, just do whatever will limit her activity the most.
Could you take one of the wheels out, or do anything about the ledges do you think?
Again, I'm not qualified to say, but since the vet doesn't think it's a fresh break, I think it's worth considering minimising the metacam dose, so that it's not masking the pain too much and making her use the leg more than is good for it.
Let us know how she gets on, you've got to carry on posting now you've started

[deguconvert]

LOL! I agree . . . now we've met you, you're going to have to stick around in the posting version of you. ;D

[aurora]

Thank you for your responses. Re the metacam...the reason she's on it is that there is inflammation on her knee - hence her limp. So the vet suggests that this week we need to be looking at resting up and taking the anti-inflammatory/painkilling medication.

I think I will move her from the cage she is in. I will put her in the old chin cage but will block off the top levels so that she only has one level but it's a big bigger. She is in an old gerbil cage just now and is just digging everywhere which cannot be good for her hind leg.

I don't think having her close to the big cage is helpful. I put her next door so that she could still interact with the other three but they have largely ignored her and she just stares through the mesh forlornly.

She goes back into the big cage at night because she just snoozes with the others.

She refused the metacam yesterday...to the point of sinking her teeth slowly yet inexorably into my partner's thumb. That is not like her. It was a definite warning but was still worrying.

Today I put it on the bottom of a yoghurt drop for her and then scraped some more yoghurt drop on top of it to mask the scent! She scoffed the lot!! Fabulous.

[luna1]

Hi there and welcome

Having had too much experience of broken legs - one of my crazy girlies had to have a pin inserted on the first break and then she went and broke the same leg again, being the hyperactive little madam she is.

We also have a huge cage and I adapted it to accomodate her and the others just had to suffer it. I removed all the wheels and put in a divide so that they were restricted to one level. I got the others out for longer playtime, giving them plenty of exercise let them burn off frustration. I didn't separate her at all from them as it would have stressed her out and research has shown that isolating Degus from their colony members actually inhibits healing and well being.

Good idea about giving minimal Metacam, they really do need to feel some pain although this never seems to restrict Luna's activities Luna has been left with Arthritis in her hip and knee as a result of the 2 breaks and her last X-Rays showed that she had had yet another break that we were unaware of as ever since the original break, she has always limped on that leg. So you will have to watch your little lady for further damage as there will now be a weakness there.

One of my boys has also suffered 2 breaks, it always seems to be the same ones! And yep....both breaks were in the same leg so they do seem to have a predisposition to breaking the same legs.

[aurora]

Thanks Luna. She is a kamikaze wee bugger. I took an idea from elsewhere on the forum, I put a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel in the cage and she was very happy to lie on that for a while.

However Houdini has discovered this and has promptly bullied Cheeks off of it! She is growing at me when I tried to move her the little monkey! Have created a monster!

[luna1]

Lol, yes they are very definite in what they want, nobody could accuse a Degu of not standing up for itself!

They loooove heat don't they, have you thought of getting a snugglesafe heat pad? I now have several of these as they are so useful, even if they are not ill and the heating breaks down as happened to me. One of my long term ill babies has to have his heat pad underneath his snug every night, this is why I bought more, thinking now that this one has been 'claimed' then one of the others will need one.

[winic1]

could you add ramps instead of just ledges for her to get from level to level on? If jumping up and down hurts, she should readily take the easy way of using a ramp, I would think.

[aurora]

Well we bought a snuggle safe and she LOVES it. She is spending most of the day blissed out on it. Thank you for this recommendation forum people.

We have rearranged the ledges in the cage so that there is never more than a very short jump between each ledge. There are two big ramps as well and she is now taking more easy.

Her limp was much less noticeable today so I hope she is on the mend.

Here she is, looking adorable.

Oh, it won't let me upload the photo. How irritating. I am using the proboards app.