Oh no, Zeus broke a nail...

[Dragonrain]

I was just clipping my boys nails, and Zeus seemed to hate it worse then usual. I was trying to clip the nails on his front right paw and he kept pulling it away.

Then I got to one of his middle toes and saw why. Poor thing, he must have gotten his nail caught on something I don't know. I didn't notice that anything was wrong with him, he's not limping or anything like that. I probably wouldn't have even noticed this if I didn't decide to clip their nails today.

But some of the nail is still there. It looks weird, like skinnier than normal and has dried blood on it. There's no blood in the cage or anything, and the floor of the cage isn't wire (its a NIC cage with a rug underneith and a dog bed and fleece blankets inside), so I'm thinking he must have hurt it sometime while he was out playing.

Is there anything else that it could be other than him breaking it? Like there's no kind of diseases or something that they can get on their nails, is there?

What should I do? The exotics vet I take him to can't see him until friday. I want to try to clean it some because I'm afraid it'll get infected. What can I clean it with? Just water, or is it safe to use peroxide or something? Darn I guess I should have asked that when I called the vet...

Should I put anything on it or just wash it and let it be? Ahh I don't know, I think I'm going to go wash it in warm water then call the vet again and ask what else I should do. But any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Dragonrain]

Oops - sorry for the double post... can someone please deleate the other one?? Thanks.

 

[Dragonrain]

Okay well I called my vet, I didn't talk to the actual rabbit vet but the receptionist told me I can try to wash it with a peroxide/water mixture.

However, when I tried to look at it again he kept pulling his paw away. I know how painful it is when humans break their nails off too short, so I can only imagion how his feels.

Has anyone ever had this happen before? Do you know about how long it should take the nail to grow back, at least to a length where it won't hurt him anymore??

 

[BSAR]

This happened to one of my rabbits. I took her out of her travelling cage a little to fast and her whole nail came off. She bled for awhile, you can stop it with flour. And then she was fine. Just a little scared. The nail started growing back around a week later i think. It really isn't that bad when it happens.

 

[aurora369]

You can use some flour or cornstarch to stop the bleeding. And once the bleeding has stopped, there's not much you can do for them. It will grow back.

Sometimes they get snagged on carpet or snap when they get long.

--Dawn

 

[Dragonrain]

Thanks. It wasn't actually bleeding when I found it. I haven't found any blood anywhere so I have no idea where or how he hurt it.

His nails wern't overly long, but I think he might have caught it in the rug somewhere when he was running around chasing my parent's dog... I dunno.

I went crazy cleaning the cage and cleaned his toe again. It seemed less tender today then it was yesterday. Hopefully it will start growing back and feel better soon.