Cutting a little too close.
One of my real hates is clipping the rabbit’s nails. it’s not a difficult task, but I always get so nervous that I’m going to cut too short and hurt the poor thing. Unfortunately I did just that yesterday resulting in one very angry and scared rabbit, and one very shaken and blood splattered Australian bloke.
Just so you don’t all worry, Millie’s fine. Within 10 minutes of the little incident, she was busy scratching away at the floor and seemed to have forgotten the whole incident (also helped along with a guilt ridden treat of rabbit yoghurt jelly) although your truly wasn’t so settled. As much as I make sure not to cut too short, and I even showed Em that I wasn’t cutting too short, I still managed to cut the vein.
All that said, it’s not doom and gloom for either myself or Millie. Slicing the vein won’t cause any sort of permanent injury and I recall on more than a few occasion my former vet in Australia cutting my previous rabbits nail too short and some blood coming out. He said it happens and while the rabbit doesn’t enjoy it, it’s not that painful and won’t have any bad side effects.
Even still, I’m not glad I did it and will make sure I add at least 5 millimeters from where I used to cut from.
I also haven’t cut the nails on one of her back feet. I kind of stopped when I noticed some of the rabbits blood on Em’s neck (she hold her when I cut the nails) and I’m not sure when I’m going to finish the job off. Of course Millie is due back to the vets in a few months when she has a final check before she heads over to China, so we’ll make sure she gets the full medical treatment during that visit.
There are an awful amount of relieved animals with the knowledge that I’m not a vet or animal handler.
Judging by Millie tonight, sitting in front of the electric heater surrounded by food, her cushions and toys, I don’t think she’s too upset about anything.
16/11/2009 - Monday 8:01 am 1 Comment
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Subscribe
By Paul / samedi, 17/11/2009 - Tuesday @ 5:02 am
Based on that last picture it looks like Millie is none the worse for wear! I feel very fortunate now that none of my pets (fish and insects) have ever needed anything trimmed — cutting too close would be a constant worry for me.