Neutering

Ricky’s Neutering Experience

By: Darra Martin    October 2004

Ricky was originally in the group of Laurie’s “Popcorn Fliers”. I met Laurie in Louisiana to pick up Ripley & Ricky had gone to another family in Louisiana.  I was already considering getting another female when Bobbie, in Lafayette called me and told me that the family who adopted Ricky was unable to keep him, their situation didn’t allow for him to have much out-of-cage time and they were willing to give the family that would take him his huge cage & accessories.  I hadn’t considered getting a little boy simply because, being new to the flyer world, I didn’t want the responsibility of babies, but I couldn’t stand the thought of sweet little Ricky being trapped in his cage ALL of the time so, after checking with my vet about neutering, I went to get him.

I knew I would have to keep Ricky and Ripley apart for a while so I decided to get him to the vet as soon as possible. I had him for a week to get used to his new home, which he adjusted to very quickly. It is amazing what a little out-of-cage time can do for a little fella.

My vet said that for $40.00 I could bring Ricky in the morning and be able to pick him up in the afternoon.  I have a small cage that I keep in the car for Ripley so I used that to take Ricky to the vet.

Our Appointment was for 9 AM.  The girls in the front of the office fell in love with Ricky and talked with him and petted him so he would be familiar with their voices and smells.  I was assured that they would watch over Ricky carefully and that they would call me as soon as he was ready to be picked up & that I was welcome to call and check on him anytime I wanted.  I did call several times during the day and was told that Ricky was doing just fine and they all wanted to take him home with them.  Finally the call came telling me that I could pick Ricky up so I rushed over and were we ever happy to see each other!  I was told that Ricky might be a little groggy and maybe a little sore but should otherwise be ok in a few hours. Ricky was moving around in his little cage so I opened the door to see if he wanted to come to me. He slowly came out & he was still a little groggy.  I took a look at his little surgical site. All I could see were a couple of stitches, all nice and neat. Ricky curled up in my hand as if to say, “Hi, how ya doin’”. I had his travel sock with me,  (thank you Bobbie) and he crawled right into that and curled up to sleep it off.  Ricky was not sent home with any antibiotics but I was told to keep an eye out for unusual redness or irritation and to call anytime if there were problems. I was also given the emergency phone number for the clinic, just in case.

When I got Ricky home I just hung his sock in his cage so he could come out when he was ready. If he and Ripley had already been sharing a cage I would have kept them apart for at least a week to make sure that Ricky’s stitches were healing without interference but that wasn’t a problem as they were still being kept in their own cages.  I checked on Ricky about every half hour, mainly to reassure myself that he was ok.  Later that evening, I opened the door on Ricky’s cage and he came out. He wasn’t running around a lot but he was moving ok. That lasted about 10 minutes and then he was off like a flash.

Ricky has been fine ever since. Overall I guess it took about 6-8 hours for the anesthesia to wear off.  I was very surprised that Ricky didn’t try to chew on his stitches but they were very small and I couldn’t even tell that very much fur had been shaved off. I did check on Ricky several times during the night and into the next morning.

I had been told that there might be a personality change when I had Ricky’s surgery done. This worried me a bit because he was such a sweet loving little guy, I didn’t want that to change. But, Ricky was a little less than six months old when he had his surgery and hadn’t “come into himself” yet so there was no change in his personality.

If you are in a situation with your fliers where you are considering having a little boy neutered, I can recommend it as long as you have a vet who has plenty of experience and is willing to answer all of your questions, no matter how dumb they might seem, without making you feel like an idiot.  Make sure they have an emergency phone number for after hour problems.  Ask your vet to give you some names of owners of other sfs that he has done the surgery on so that you can ask them questions about how their fliers handled the surgery.

I also recommend that you keep a regular check on the little guy for at least the first 24 hours to make sure there are no after effects from anesthesia or that he might be chewing on the stitches, keep a close eye out for irritation or infection.  The surgery might not be the choice for others but it was the right choice for my fliers and my peace of mind.

NFSA interviewed Nancy on her experience neutering Sigi:

Why did you decide to get it done -Sigi, once a very docile and sweet-natured boy, suddenly became incredibly aggressive...almost vicious.  I was no longer able handle him, as he would bite my hand if I as much made a sudden motion (i.e. lifting my hand to scratch my nose, reach for a book etc).  He once even attacked my face as I slept.  Although other HOFs seemed to have encountered the occasional nasty mood-swing, no one seemed to have the blood-gushing experiences that I had.  Not only was I heartbroken, but also spending a fortune on band-aids and Bactine. Once I counted three weeks without a really nasty nightly attack, I knew that I had to do *something*.  It just seemed so out of the blue, so out of character.  I had faith that my sweet Sigi was still in there...somewhere.

How long did you wait to have him neutered?  Sigi was approx 1 year, 4 months when I made the appointment

How did you pick your vet.  I asked around for recommendations for several weeks - asked local pet shops, pet owners and a neighbor who works at a local animal shelter.

Had your vet done this procedure before?  Not on a flyer, but she's an exotic specialist and has performed surgery on rats, rabbits, sugar gliders, ferrets etc.  Of note, the vet I chose was the only one that suggested a consultation first - to discuss the potential risks and benefits of the surgery.

How much did he/she charge?  Sit down for this one - (big warning...I live in Manhattan) Nearly $400.

When did you drop him off & pick him back up?  8:30 am - 6:30pm the same day

What were your post-op instructions?  Try to let him rest, keep an eye on the incisions (esp. swelling, seeping, bleeding) and to call immediately with any concerns or problems (they have someone on call 24/7)

What kind of carry case did you take him in? I used one of his nest boxes, secured with a few loops of string

How long after getting home did you put him back in his cage?  Sigi doesn't spend much time in his cage (remember this is NYC, so some of you probably have bigger cages than my apartment).  I put him in the hood of his favorite sweatshirt, hanging on my bedroom door

Did you keep him separated from any other flyers you have?  Sigi's an only flyer.

Did he seem groggy or perfectly normal - if so, how many hours?  If not 100% up to speed - how long before he was?   Sigi was groggy for the first evening, and slept an unusual amount during the evening hours for at least a few days.  Within a week he was zooming around as usual.

Would you do it again?  That's a tough one.  Had I known about what Laurie's Timmy went through, I'm not sure I would have taken the risk.  However, the change in Sigi post-op was nothing short of miraculous.

Would you recommend it to others to have done?  Only as the last of all last resorts.  Weigh the risks - it's not a decision to take lightly.

Did his personality change?  If so, how?   Yes, yes and YES !!  No exaggerations:  Sigi is the goofy gentle fun-loving flyer that he was before but now I can scoop him up, kiss him on the head, play pokey-butt (our once favorite pastime), wrestle with the knitty ball...I've had a few nips here and there, but no broken skin.

How long did it take for the personality changes to come into effect?  Once he recovered from the surgery, I was horrified to discover that he reverted right back to his aggressive behavior (a couple of bites on my hand, one just above my lip - leftover testosterone?).  However, within two days the aggression stopped as abruptly as it had started.  Out of nowhere, he was licking my nose again and nuzzling in my shirt.

My Experience Neutering One Of My Babies

By: Laurie Pray    October 2004

The topic of neutering flyers had repeatedly come up since I became a rehabber.  I knew sooner or later I would be faced with an inbreeding situation if I couldn’t find homes for all of the babies I had.  Last years “crop” left me with three babies, two females and a male, Timmy.  I made sure none of the three were siblings but as time went on I just couldn’t imagine having babies on purpose.  Every fall the phone starts ringing with orphans, sometimes more babies than I can imagine taking care of at one time.  Finding enough adoptive homes is the only worrisome part; it’s just not that easy to find homes.  My first career was seven years in veterinary practice as an assistant / tech.  Neutering males, compared to other procedures is simple and fast.  I spent a few months convincing my husband to have Timmy neutered as his disposition was changing the closer he got to his first birthday.  He became more aggressive towards people and the females.  He wouldn’t leave the girls alone, he would jump them over and over all night long and they would literally drag themselves with him in tow around the cage.  When my husband and I would try and hold him he would verbally fuss at us and occasionally place his teeth on our fingers.  It was just enough to make me nervous about handling him and I didn’t think the situation would get better.  Timmy was just doing what came natural.  He was coming into his own and becoming king of his castle.  I finally called a local vet that Joan, Leah & I had become comfortable with.  Both vets, a husband and wife team, seemed very confident of attending to our flyers and said they had neutered various rodents in the past.  After getting permission to photograph and video record the procedure for future NFSA conferences, I made the appointment.  The charge was $65.00 and the entire procedure took about 30 minutes.  Timmy woke up well and Leah & I came back to the house to watch him while we fed all of our other orphans.  Once Timmy woke up, he was very agitated to be in the carrier and was doing his best to get out of it.  I know that resting was in his best interest so after I noted that he was fully awake, I put him back into his “house” and he got a drink of water and curled up in his nest box to rest.  I checked on him every 30 to 60 minutes for the rest of the day.  At 9:30pm, 12 hours after his procedure, I found him hanging on the side of the cage and barely responsive.  I carefully picked him up and saw he was covered in fresh blood from the waist down.  He had an eraser-sized portion of his intestine sticking out of his testicle sack and he was getting cold.  The next few minutes were a blur of frantic phone calls.  The vet had an answering machine stating if there was an emergency to go an all night facility with no option of having him paged.  I then tried calling every person in the phone book with the same last name, but no luck.  Timmy died a few minutes later in my husband’s hands.  It was a terrible way to die and it was just so pointless.  I just kept saying over and over that in 7 years of assisting neutering animals, nothing like this had ever happened.  It made absolutely no sense to me how this could have happened.  The next day Joan, Leah and I brought Timmy back to the vet to make some sense of what had happened.  He said it looked like Timmy had chewed out an internal suture, a portion of his intestines came through the opening and he bled out.

Now that some time has passed and my thoughts are more organized, here is what I would advise to anyone needing to neuter their flyer:

Make sure the vet has done this before on small rodents such as pet rats, hamsters & gerbils. Get a few references; don’t just take his/her word that they’ve done it before.  Make sure the doctor takes their own after hour calls for their post-op patients.  Don’t assume that by paying extra to leave your flyer overnight at the animal hospital, they will be watched any better than you could do, I’ve only worked for one vet that ever took animals home with him overnight and they were animals on deaths door, all of the other veterinarians left the animals unattended overnight at the animal hospital.  Make sure you will be able to monitor your flier closely for 24 hours for any signs of chewing and be prepared to hold him in your lap if he does start chewing.

Would I do it again?  If I was Just an HOF then the answer is: No, never.  I would only own females from now on.  This was just too much.  But each year I am faced over and over with the possibility of not finding homes for all of the orphans that come into my home.  Because of the situation that I am in, I would do it again but with the advice I’ve listed above.  I would find a new veterinarian even though the one I used might not have done anything wrong.  I will never know 100% what really went wrong so I would change many things.  Plus, the NFSA needs to know that neutering is a safe option.  I’m sure there are many families that would take in males and females together IF the male was neutered.  If we, the rehabbers, have the ability to neuter the males safely, we may have more people stepping up to adopt more than one flyer.  Everyone here at NFSA that owns more than one can tell you how much more fun it is.  I know a few others in the NFSA have successfully neutered their males and their experiences are here so we can all read both sides of this topic.