Ziggy, one of our female cheetah, wounded her tail. She was given antibiotics to prevent infection. The tail was healing well, until 2 weeks later when she suddenly started chewing on it. She managed to bite of about 10cm of the tail. She had to be anesthetised and X-rays were taken. Part of the tail had to be amputated.  The next morning though, she had been biting on the tail again and had again removed another 8cm. She needed to be anesthetised again, and another piece of the tail had to be amputated. She was given antibiotics, painkillers and sedation. A large Elizabethan collar as used for dogs was put around her neck to prevent her to further damage herself.

Despite the medication and the good wound healing she kept being irritated and nervous about her tail. She tired to bite and scratch herself causing deep skin wounds on her back. It seemed that she was suffering from severe bouts of amputation pains. This phenomenon, also called phantom pains, is well known in people. When severing a nerve, sometimes a neuroma develops, a bundle of nerve cells that keep generating impulses, causing pain in a place where there is actually no limb anymore.

Painkillers did not seem to be sufficient to reduce these pains so she was put on special medication which has been used before in cats to reduce obsessive behaviour.

This new medication, combined with behavioural enrichment to keep her attention away from the tail, helped to stop her from biting herself. After another 2 months the collar could be removed and the medication discontinued. The phantom pains did not recur and Ziggy is doing very fine.

One of our male griffon vultures developed a large abscess on his toe; x-rays were taken of the foot and the abscess was drained. A culture of the fluid revealed a bacterial infection. He was given antibiotics and the wound cleaned regularly.

The toe was healing well, but a few weeks later he was again brought to the surgery. This time it was because he had collapsed and was having severe difficulties breathing.

X-rays were taken again, this time of the chest and abdomen, and an endoscopy was performed. This revealed that the he had developed a severe fungal infection of the air sacs known as Aspergillosis. Aspergillosis is quite common in birds and often flares up in birds that are under stress due to another illness. In this case the infection had spread out all over the airsacs and lungs.

After treatment with anti fungal drugs and strong antibiotics the vulture’s condition stabilised. His toe healed well and the lung infection stabilised.

He is condition checked regularly using x-rays and endoscopy to make sure the aspergillosis infection has not flared up again.

One of the older male jirds developed a swelling on his abdomen. Since the swelling was becoming larger and started bleeding, the animal was brought to the surgery.  

 The subcutaneous tumour could be completely removed and was sent away for histopathology. This showed that the tumour was a benign adenoma. As jirds have a scent gland on the midline of the abdomen, the gland can become cancerous. This is a quite common finding in gerbils as they get older. As the tumor could be removed completely a good prognosis was expected. The animal recovered well and the tumor did not recur.

Gibbs, one of the 5 months old cheetah cubs, was found to be limping severely one night. His hind leg was extremely swollen and he was not putting any weight on it. We suspected that he had fractured his leg so we decided to dart the him that same night to be able to examine him more closely and take x-rays.

The x-ray showed a transverse fracture of the femur with displacement of the fragments. Surgery was needed to make healing possible. Gibbs was anesthetised and a compression plate with screws was placed. 

He was reunited with his mother and sibling the next day and started walking and putting weight on the leg almost right away and showed hardly any pain or discomfort. We were concerned that he would "forget" about his injury and start playing with his mother and brother, which could cause the plate to move or the fracture to be displaced again, so he was given a mild sedative for a few days to make sure he remained calm. 

X-rays taken two months after the surgery showed that the fracture had already healed completely.

Our last male baboon died sometime ago and we are now left a small troop of 7 female baboons.

When cycling, female baboons develop large sexual swellings to attract the male and after mating the swelling reduces again. With no male present this cycle has been disrupted; the swelling remains large and does not reduce fully anymore causing discomfort and increasing the chances of wounds and infections.

Therefore it was decided to give the animals a hormone implant as used in humans as a contraceptive.

If later a male can be acquired and we have space to breed again with the animals, the implants can be removed and the animals will start cycling again.

The animals were anesthetised and implants were placed under the skin; at the same time their general health was checked, blood samples were taken and an intradermal tuberculosis test was performed. All animals were in good health.