[Amelia]

I had a major freakout this morning when I woke up to find a wheel coated in blood and bloody ramps in my wee one's cage. i took him out and examined him and couldnt find any lesions or cuts that could have produced the bleeding. he was pretty active and wanted to explore my bed as usual. he wasnt acting peculiar or like he was in pain while i was examining him. since i couldnt find anything and his feet were coated in a combination of poo, urine and blood i got him washed up and gave him another look over. I still havent been able to find the source of all the blood. since his stools were pretty normal i can rule out intestinal bleeding.

I suspect that since most of the blood was in his wheel that he got a little over exuberant in his wheel running. Everytime I woke up last night he was in that wheel. in fact he was still in it at 10 am. I think maybe he just got a little carried away and in the process pulled back one of his nails to the nail bed. He does have two on his hind feet that are longer than the others. they have been that way since i got them so i thought they would be okay.

Can you guys think of anything else that could have caused it? and if it was due to his marathon run last night, how long should I leave the wheel out of his cage to prevent reinjury?

 

[Amelia]

i got him one of those comfort wheels because at the time it was all that petsmart had. today i went and got him a flying saucer wheel because i have heard from a lot of people that they are much better than the cheap crappy comfort wheels. Im not going to put it in though right away in case it was his nail i dont want him to get reinjured.

I'll definitely give him a nail trim before i put a wheel back in his cage.

 

[Amelia]

hahahah that would be cute!!!!

maybe i could knit damien a pair... i wonder what he would think!

 

[Amelia]

Btw Nancy gets the prize! she was right. The day it happened it was hard to tell because his feet are so pink anyways. But today i gave his feetsies another look over before i left him with another hogmomma to make sure they were okay and now that they have had a chance to scab over I can see where he ran his lil pads raw. I bought him a flying saucer wheel but its not smooth so I am going to make some fleece liners to put on it to spare his little tootsies.

 

[Amelia]

ah okies well I will just give him his new flying saucer wheel and hope his wee tootsies toughen up some. that night was insane. everytime i woke up he was running. after dawn he was still running. by 1pm he was STILL running. only god knows why it was pretty insane how long he ran for.....

P.S. my mom got a camera that does stills and video. and I am getting a similar one in january. awesome photos and vids of damien to come ^.^