From:
sukiec@optonline.net
Date: 2003-10-12 17:09:06 UTC
Subject: RE: chewing off end of own tail?!?
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <5543414.1065978546964.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Nancy, I am so sorry that she is gone.
That was 1/2 mg of Pred twice a day? (In which case there was room to increase.) Or was it a 1/2 ml of amore concentrated version?
Injury is certainly possible. You may find part of a tail somewhere, caught between some tightly placed parts of a bit of furniture, for instance.
Also, was there any indication of necrosis of it which might start a severe bout of self-pruning?
Among those tiny roadside zoos where there is neglect and caging in tiny, boring enclosures self-mutiliation is a problem which is seen and it is not all that rare. It's among the reasons that large zoos have such marvelous programs usually to enrich lives. It is possible that she had already engaged in this type of behavior and that when she found herself in the stress of not being able to handle her illness that she repeated a pattern which she had used in the past. Certainly the deeper parts of the emotional damage she had been through can not be overcome rapidly, so it is possible that she already had this behavior.