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Post by hazel on Jan 4, 2022 19:31:35 GMT
carrie fell from a high place. actually, she jumped. it happened this morning, but my mum only told me now. apparently she seemed ok and started eating and running around, but i know as a prey animal degus are good at hiding their injuries. how can i check for broken bones?
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Post by deguconvert on Jan 4, 2022 20:02:15 GMT
Watch her movement and see if she is holding anything up, or dragging anything? Or even . . . not able to walk straight?
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Post by teemu on Jan 4, 2022 20:02:34 GMT
Degus can be pretty prone to jumping or falling off from somewhere. Most of the time, these incidents don't cause real damage, so the chances are that Carrie's fine. It's good to check, of course, but if she seems to be behaving normally and unhindered, it's likely that she's fine. The thing with broken bones is that most of them cannot easily be hidden, so it's unlikely that anything is seriously broken if she's looking normal. The main risks are, of course, head, neck, back and limbs, since those tend to absorb the impact. If she is moving her limbs just fine and does not seem to be clumsier than normal, then those are likely fine. The other possibility is that she might be suffering from a broken rib, which would be less obvious. You could try to inspect this by carefully holding her and feeling up her sides (no squeezing, just gently applying small amounts of pressure with a finger along the side) to see if she's unusually sensitive or if something causes way more discomfort than it should. It's also possible that she might have just sprained something, so do not be overly alarmed if she has a slight limp or something like that, and see if it will ease up with a couple of days of resting. Similarly, if she seems to have a sore side, try to limit her climbing or jumping activities, but you likely won't have to take more precautions than that. If she's behaving totally normally and seems to have no sore spots that you can see, keep things as they are and just keep an eye on her, and everything will likely go fine
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Post by savvy on Jan 5, 2022 9:33:08 GMT
From my limited experience with high level jumps, if it was a planned jump they tend to splat on her floor to absorb the impact somewhat, its the unplanned, badly timed jumps or falls that cause the big problems.
As the others have said, breaks are hard to hide. Just watch for any flinching if she's touched in certain areas, any dragging of limbs, quiet and fluffed up behaviour. Anything that's out of the ordinary.
The other thing to watch out for is that if she's done it once, she may try it again.
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Post by moletteuk on Jan 5, 2022 10:28:32 GMT
Watch out for lethargy which could indicate pain or internal injury.
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Post by teemu on Jan 5, 2022 10:56:25 GMT
From my limited experience with high level jumps, if it was a planned jump they tend to splat on her floor to absorb the impact somewhat, its the unplanned, badly timed jumps or falls that cause the big problems. As the others have said, breaks are hard to hide. Just watch for any flinching if she's touched in certain areas, any dragging of limbs, quiet and fluffed up behaviour. Anything that's out of the ordinary. The other thing to watch out for is that if she's done it once, she may try it again.
Oh yeah, degus are terrible about that last part. "Hey, I lived! Time to do it again!"
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