A Rough 24 Hours

Early this week we let Virga and Cirrus have some free time in the office since they had been doing so well.  Virga was particularly happy to be out, and she kept climbing up on us and the tree to jump. We were trying not to let her jump, but she did manage to sneak in one or two longer jumps. When we were gathering them up to go back in their cage, M noticed that Virga had some blood at the bottom of her incision and found that her incision had separated a bit near the bottom. This was probably from her activity, and we now regretted letting them out. M also saw Cirrus able to get her head around to try and groom her incision, and it appeared their e-collars might be too small to prevent them from doing so. They also seemed more interested in grooming each other. That night we ended up keeping them in two separate cages so they wouldn't bother each other.  M spent time that night making two larger e-collars. The gliders were not happy with them, as it was more difficult for them to move around and get comfortable. Cirrus in particular hated her collar. She is smaller than Virga and these collars were bigger and twice the weight of the previous ones. That night Cirrus did not each much. Most of her waking time was spent struggling against the collar. When she did sleep, she was unable to sleep in the curled up position that they enjoy. Cirrus seemed generally lethargic, and I think she was also affected by that fact she was not with her sister. Virga did not like her collar either, but she seemed more resigned to dealing with it.

Cirrus sleeping in her e-collar. Gliders often like to wrap their tail
across their eyes while sleeping. Somehow Cirrus managed
to get her tail under the collar and across her eyes.

Last night we decided to put the smaller e-collar on Cirrus and to let them spend the night in one cage together. You could see the change in Cirrus' demeanor. She and Virga nuzzled each other, and Cirrus was interested in eating again, and enthusiastically ate two pieces of avocado. Both gliders were doing much better today, and there were no more problems with Virga's incision. We put her back in the smaller e-collar late this afternoon, and now both of them seem to be feeling pretty good.