Fighting happens and sometimes for no real reason...
the most common culprit I've ever been able to track
is changing the smell of one animal and not the other.
If you handled one animal, and not the other, you
could have transferred an odor from your hands
(sometimes just your innate smell) to the one
you handled. Not handling the other one, or having
a strong smell (like you just chopped onions and
didn't get it all off) that rubbed off on one more than
the other...is enough to cause fighting.
>What do I do now?
Make a split screen divider, and put them back together with
the separator so they can't get to each other. Every few days,
switch sides (and don't clean the cage) of the animals so one
is now where the other was...and do this for about two weeks.
On a day when you can be home ALL DAY, remove the
divider and keep them within reach the whole day. With gloves
and a container to separate one out, and the divider handy so
you can put it back.
They may get along for a few hours, then turn suddenly...that is
why you'll have to be around for about 12 hours.
>I would really appreciate some advice. I get this list in digest form so
>apologies if you respond and there is a delayed reaction, but I need to
know
>what to do when I get home this evening. Milly looked so upset being by
>herself in the critter tank. She was all fluffed up and curled in a ball.
>I would hate to have to keep them seperated. Until now they have been
>totally devoted to each other.
It probably was an altered smell to the animal that was attacked.
>(My husband has just called to say that Milly won't open her one eye. It
>sounds like she must have taken a swipe back. How serious is this? Does
>this mean its a vet job?)
The best would be to have a vet make sure that there are no infections
from the bites...as some of those can go quite deep and the pocket of
infection may not be apparent at the surface.
For tonight, get some hardware cloth, some metal windowscreen, and
some piano wire...a pair of nipper side cutters, and a pair of needlenose
pliers, plus a pair of gloves. Hardware cloth is a stiff metal mesh about
1/4" (.6 cm) grid. Piano wire is a thin stiff steel wire.
Cut the mesh to go from one corner of the cage to the opposite corner
(so that it will cut it into two triangular areas) and from bottom to top
snugly. Cut the ends long, and wrap the little individual wirelets around
a piece of the piano wire laid along the edge. This will reinforce the
edge and help tuck all the sharp bits out of the way. Use a small fine
hand file to take of anything else that's still sharp. Attach the window
screen to one side, as if a gerbil can get a foot or toes through the
mesh, the other one may chew them off....
Good luck.
It is possible that it was the strange smell that caused the fight, and
after a few weeks of looking at and smelling each other with a split
cage division, they'll pick up where they left off as friends.
Deb
Rebel's Rodent Ranch
