Wednesday, 12 August 2009

• Gerbil Declanning

  I feared this might happen, given the dominant natures of both Topaz and Honey-Jade...but the family group has split. :(

  At first I thought it was Topie being aggressive. Two days ago while cleaning their cage I noticed that Honey Jade had NUMEROUS scabs on her back. Bite wounds...and given their past scuffles it was more than clear that Topie had inflicted them. So I quarantined her in her own cage overnight.

  As I discovered, however, she wasn't the only aggressor.

  Last night while I was watching TV in the bedroom (my husband and I have different taste in TV shows) my husband called me out to the living room and told me that someone was bleeding all over the girls' tank.

  !!

  That someone was Amber. The last centimeter of her tail had been degloved (the skin and fur removed with only the bone left--it's a natural defense mechanism) and was bleeding profusely. From the blood marks in various places in the tank it was obvious that she had been chased...and from the copious amounts of blood on Honey's jaw, it was clear who was doing the chasing.

  So now it was Honey's turn to be removed. I put her with Topaz, but it was to be a VERY brief reintroduction. Topaz was clearly frightened, her ears folded back and thumping her hind foot. In the FIVE minutes I had them together Honey attacked her mother twice.

  So to make an already long story short(er), Honey is in her own cage, and Topie is in her own cage. I left Amber with Citrine, as the two seem to be doing fine together. In fact, it was Citrine that was trying to clean up Amber's wound after the attack (there was a little blood on her fur too).

  To a lot of gerbil trauma lately. Thankfully degloving injuries are not serious. They just bleed...a LOT.

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