[Nerys]

thought i would do a little run of Holly the Skunk pics.. she's only been with me a few months really, but has bonded totally, bless

Holly came to me as part of a group of young skunks we were selling on for someone..

she is somewhere in this batch !!!

when i went through and assessed the youngsters.. i found a couple with nicks and cuts.. one with a very bad prolapse and one with some nasty bites to her back.. they had been overlooked, and had got infected and pussy, although i self treat a lot of my animals within reason.. this one i knew would need an operation, the infected skin needed to be cut away, leaving clean edges to knit back together and heal..

now, i knew she would need a fair bit of chopping about.. but even i was suprised by just how much!!!

bear in mind, in this pic, the length of her back is about 4 inches.. the cut was almost all the way from one side to the other!

it was chilly that day, so i tucked her into a shawl and had her with me in the office, down my front, in recovery..

(more to come)

 

[SSamm]

shes just adorable. poor girl with the problems, but at least shes recouvering

shown my mum quite a few of your skunk pics... i think shes starting to like them

 

[Nerys]

your mum will have to meet one sometime! people always love them when they meet them!

at the time, i did think it would take a long time to fully heal, and soon after the op i started to get problems, the stiches broke down.. the wound broke open.. it filled up again with pus all the time.. poor little "hole in the back" as she was then known.. it was not looking great really..

i took a few of the stiches out, allowing the wound to gape open again.. i guess it was about 3-4 inches long and about a cm wide.. it had to be allowed to freely drain though.. slowly slowly slowly it began to heal up..

this was a few months in..

you can see the wound has healed partly.. but the patch left kept on opening up and breaking down again and again..

despite it all, she stayed the gentlest of girls... always up for a cuddle and smooch

loved to come to work with me

and always up for going out and about too

especially when there was food on offer at other peoples houses !!!

for a while i thought it was getting a lot better.. and even had high hopes it had finally healed over... but about a month ago i noticed it had big thick crusty scabs over it again, and was again leaking pus. so back on the baytril yet again.. and this time i really atacked the wound hard.. i shaved her back again.. this was just before hand.. you can see the split in her stripes, and the discoloration from the wound around it.

this time, it seemed to be healing a lot better.. maybe where i had shaved her again so there was no fur getting stuck in the scabs, but also i split her from the others and had her with me 24-7 so i could monitor what she was up to.. at the beginning of last week, i took all the scabs off again, back down to clean skin, and then hydrogen peroxide'd it for a while.. this takes off all dead and decaying organic matter, leaving a clean surface to work on (and yes, i test it on myself to check strength first!!)

she then had a sticky bandage on her.. made from gauze and gaffa tape.. lol.. it was stuck over the top of her back to protect the fragile skin below.. she didn't take it off once, bless her!

the bleach did have the unfortunate effect of lightening her coat a bit tho! so she is now chocolate in that area .. but the wound is looking so so much better now!

the line to the left of the scab is the scar line.. it looks so much better now.. i'm chuffed to bits tbh

(more)

 

[Nerys]

i call her my cut and shunt skunk, as for a while it looked like she had been cut in half and stuck back together!!!

so.. now to finish this off for now.. some pics of holly doing what holly does best.. eating. sleeping. and charming the pants off everyone she meets!

and my word.. hasn't she grown!

before:

after:

 

[Nerys]

last one... little Miss butter-would-not-melt

N

 

[lilworm]

wow she is just a cutie :mf_dribble:

 

[bosshogg]

i think she is gorgeous when she coming to stay with me then!!

 

[feorag]

i call her my cut and shunt skunk,

Better not try and say that when you've had a few to drink!!! :lol2:

Seriously though, what a poor wee skunk - bless her. She looked a right mess and it's a perfect example of something very small that, overlooked, turned into something really big and bad. What a good job you noticed.

I take it she's staying with you? I'd love her myself, truth to tell!

BTW I loved the first photograph of them all - all their little tails stuck up in the air.

 

[xmashx]

she's gorgous its sad about her cut but its really good shes getting better and the wounds starting to heal. you've put a hell of a lot of work into stopping the infection getting worse. all i can say is well done. are you going to keep her ?
xsachax

 

[Moshpitviper]

She looks really good nerys. im looking forward to meeting her in the future. need to meet up with my lil lady 'chunk' who is now massive by the way.

 

[Nerys]

yus lol... my shut and.. :grin1: quack quack opps skunk.. Mmm...

staying with me... yes i think this one will be somehow.. it was not really the idea to begin with but..... she was bought in for X amount.. and has cost a small fortune to just get back to the stage she is now..

by selling her, yes i would recoupe the costs i have spent on her.. but i would lose more emotionally than i could even gain financially if i sold her..

the idea was originally to keep a chocolate male.. lol.. instead i ended up with Holly.. also Pro - who was the one who came in with a prolapse that had been left to go bad.. and also Elsie (LC) who is a little chocolate female head case.. she was bitten in the eye by one of the others.. for 10 weeks i thought she would loose her eye.. the bite went from the eye socket, down into the outside upper jaw, and she also had a bite that had broken a small bone in one back leg!

i did manage to keep a chocolate male though, he is the only one of the 4 still with me, that has never needed the vet for anything, thank god!

holly was first treated on the 9th of july.. at the time, i said to rory that i thought it would take a good 6 months to heal.. its taken 4 months so far... *sigh* but i/we will get there in the end!

they all have very different characters, its suprising how much they differ from one to the next!

N

some other pics from when they first turned up for you to see! man that night was hectic! i TOLD rory they could climb.. did he believe me? no!

 

[feorag]

So is there a reason why they all had so many injuries. Had their original owners (breeders) been neglectful, or where they all just nipping and biting each other and causing all these problems? Was that an overcrowding problem or are skunks just like that???

It all sounds a bit horrific all these bites and things. Just curious!

 

[Nerys]

in all honesty i am not too sure.. we were the end stop in a chain... the guy we got them from, got them from someone else etc etc..

they primarily all ended up with rory and I, as i had the experience with Snuff, and volunteered to be the ones they stayed at inbetween times..

they do scrap a lot, well, its more they play a lot, but the play is rough.. very rough... sometimes its hard to tell the play squeals from the agressive ones.. i'm not sure how they had been kept before we eventually got them, i do know they were being fed cat food though (my pet HATE) and i did see the temp housing in one location, and it was small yes. we had them in big long runs in small groups

i did notice that even small nicks had turned bad fast.. most of the ones i had in treatment came in with the bumps and knocks, but at least one (LC) was the result of a fight that went on whilst we had them.. Pro that was.. jumped on LC and tried to kill her. he still does get nasty with the others at times, and is kept solo at present, just in case he tries anything again.

there were a few with facial or ear bites in fact.. for about 2 months i was like a skunk hospital ward.. two with broken legs from bites.. two with torn and ripped ears.. holly with her massive cut.. Pro with half his bum falling out.. LC with what i thought at the time was only one eye.. and a few with infected bites on the face..

some more of the ward:

i did have them tested for things like ringworm and so on, just in case, but the tests all came back clear of things like that.. eventually we worked out it was where they would nip each other, and then the wound go manky then after.. suffice to say i spent an awful lot of time squirting Baytril down the mouths of unwilling patients!

someone i know got their 3 yr old skunk swabbed once, both anally and orally.. funnily enough, the anal swab came back really really clean.. the oral swab was a different matter.. after 18 months they had only identified 50% of the 40 unknown bacteria they found in there!!! i think this is partly why bites do go bad fast on them.. i know personally that a few of the bites i have taken, have gone a bit manky for a few days before clearing up.

i think food aggression comes into it strongly.. as does play agression.. of all the babies i saw this year, only one was evil from the off.. she is the one with the bad ear in the first pic on this thread, and i still have the scars from her at the moment.. as well as only half a finger nail!!!!!!

so yes a combination of the wrong weaning diet.. a bit of overcrowding before they came to us, and general skunky high spirits i think..

been a great learning curve tho!

N

 

[Nerys]

the one in the pic third down, is still living near me too actually... she went to friends of ours too.. she had a bad ear.. infected bite to her nose... and an infected nail bed too.. she was with me for a far while too actually..

like i said, was an interesting learning curve in treating small exotic mammals!

N

 

[SSamm]

They are adorable! i think i have some convincing to do!

 

[feorag]

That's really interesting - I was going to suggest they must have a lot of bacteria in their mouths/teeth for bites to go septic so easily, but you've now confirmed it. They must play very rough too!

Still think they're gorgeous though!

 

[Nerys]

this is some videos - not great ones - of eating and rough and tumble... 4th one down you can see Pro and MrChoc getting stuck right in..













yeah, they are rough at times!

N

 

[feorag]

Ah, the little black & white one sitting on the right hand side on the last video is just so cute - I want him!!! Or her! They're gorgeous, but you're right they do play rough. Kittens play rough, but I've never had broken skin, let alone holes in eyes and stuff like that!

 

[Nerys]

thats Pro bless... came in with half his butt hanging out and going rotton... i took him to the vets to be put to sleep tbh, i did not think he was saveable... but my vet is very very good.. and fixed him a treat

manky pic warning...

day of operation

post op

and a few weeks back

he likes his corn does Pro

and his cuddles

but he does get a bit agro with the others at times.. as i said, it was him that nearly blinded LC.. and he's tried to drag holly off by the foot once too.. he's a sweetie really though.. well... mostly...

N

 

[bosshogg]

there all gorgeous and such a credit to you must have been hard work getting all them better i take my hat of to you!!