Not a pointless, daft question I'm afraid. Lofty has managed to deglove the last half inch of her tail, right back to her butt. Can she deal with this herself or will it need a vet visit to trim it back? She has always managed herself before so as long as she can reach it hopefully she'll be fine with it. I really don't know how she manages it, I really don't.
It depends on the degu, without a tail (particularly the first inch) for balance while bending round I'd be surprised if she could reach her butt. However, I've been surprised in the past. Maybe keep an eye on her for the day and see how she's coping with dealing with it by herself?
Degus 221b Baker Street - Sherlock & Watson (Gotcha 26/02/2017)
Gone but never forgotten: The odd assortment (Gotcha 13/06/2012) - Gandalf, Pippin, Venk and Smeg - sleep soundly together my dears.
Chinchillas The Fat and the Furriest - Gizmo & Benji (Gotcha 22/04/2018) Derek (Fostered 05/05/2019, officially adopted 09/12/2019)
I've seen mine reach right round with difficulty, but I'm not sure if they could reach well enough to do precision chomping. Might as well wait until tomorrow to decide what to do since it's Sunday today.
I think I would have a vet do it, because you really don't want an infection to take hold and travel up her spine. I know I might be being overly cautious here, but I can't help remembering stories from when I first became a part of the forum and there were a couple of different degus that died as a result of an infection in the tail after a degloving incident. This is not hugely common, but it is known to happen. Since she has no more tail to remove any dead tissues from, it seems to me to be a more tenuous situation than others.
Last Edit: Nov 21, 2016 4:20:56 GMT by deguconvert
1 Bichon/Shi-t-zu Ollie (b'gollie), 1 Standard poodle, Indie
Well, took the girls to the vet this morning. Was expecting an all day stay for surgery and a couple of hundred pounds. Not a chance, I think this vet has done this before, lol. She disappeared and came back with two sterile packets. She put Lofty to sleep right there on the table, used sterile scissors to nip off her tail at the last joint and just popped a dissolvable stitch in the hole in her butt. Took a few minutes max and she was up and about in no time. The stitch will sort itself out, and it's not a huge issue if it gets chewed, she's not aloud a bath for a week or so until it heals up and we've got baytrill and metacam if she looks like she needs either, but she should be fine. Vet said just to keep an eye on her bounding about as it will probably affect her ballance for a while til she gets used to it. So pleased, for me and her, that it's not been made into a huge issue and she can carry on as normal with such little stress.
Degu plastic surgery! Don't like your tail? Is it getting in the way? Too much weight to drag it around? Go tailless!!
Being dragged through life on Bernard the Bike, with Squidgygoo (RIP), Spidergoo (RIP), Scaredygoo (RIP), Sillygoo (RIP), Sausagegoo, Smashygoo (aka Spud) (RIP), Snoozygoo, Sneakygoo, Snatchagoo, Sootygoo, Pootle (RIP), Perkin (RIP), Fidget (RIP) and Twitch (RIP) the pillions.........
She put her to sleep with gas and literally a couple of minutes and it was done. Lofty seems OK with it, she has over ballance a couple of times since but I think she's getting the hang of it, lol. She does look weird though. She looked odd with just her stump, she looks even odder now, lol.