Rest in peace, sweet Rosemary

[eyespy]

The second of the two rescues I took in just died. Poor Rosemary was incredibly stressed by her throat wounds and treatment and was completely freaked out by the breathing and feeding tubes she needed.

My friend Tom, a veterinary anesthesiologist, was the vet who came by today to assess her and we both agreed her quality of life was very poor and her wounds were not healing anywhere near fast enough because of all the stress.

Even though the nasotracheal tube was thin enough that she could have eaten normally had she chosen, the whole thing freaked her out way too much and she had to be fed through a stomach tube. We couldn't see how she would gain enough strength to start proper healing since an entire week made little difference except causing even more stress.

We sent some CO2 and isoflurane gases down her breathing tube to gently send her to sleep and give her peace at last. She died 10 minutes ago. I held her and stroked her and now I'm off to have a good long cry. Even though I knew she only had a slim chance of healing well it's hard to truly prepare for this kind of stuff.

The poor sweet girl!

She was a 6 year old girl who had lived with her 5 year old female cagemate for about 4 years and they had always gotten along quite well. The family recently bought a male who was still in quarantine as a possible mate for them. We think that seeing and smelling him probably triggered ovulation in both girls and they became territorial over a possible nest site. It's just a guess but this is a fairly common scenario for sudden aggression in female cagemates. Sadly, this sort of thing happens occasionally when a new beardie is added to the household, even when they aren't caged together.