Help!! Injured back leg-Alabama vet recommendation!!

[Rose0815]

Good morning....well, crazy morning. So this morning I noticed our rehab squirrel, Wilbur, seemed to be having some difficulty balancing when climbing out of his nest. So I stepped in to help him then sat him on the floor. That's when I noticed he was limping and not putting any weight on his back right leg. I've been feeding him Henry's blocks, veggies, and fruit daily but we also give him a couple of nuts in the evening. I did go ahead and give him a rolaids for the extra calcium but now I need to address the leg injury. I also gave him a few drops of infant ibuprofen for the pain. He is eating normally and is still getting around pretty well but I don't want the injury to worsen. What treatment is normally done for something like this? Does anyone know of any vets in North Alabama that would see him? Any guidance would be great!!!! Thank you all :)

[Rose0815]

Does anyone have any suggestions for my situation? I am going to call around to different vets in our area tomorrow but is there anything I can do until I get him to a vet? Please help😩

[lukaslolamaus]

What do you think may happened? All medicine is dosed by weight, please weigh and ask for dosage information. Where in AL are you located?

[Rose0815]

What do you think may happened? All medicine is dosed by weight, please weigh and ask for dosage information. Where in AL are you located?

I honestly have no idea. My biggest fear is that he hasn't been getting enough calcium and maybe that's why he injured so easily. We pretty much let him run and climb freely when we are home so the only thing I can figure is that he fell somehow and maybe broke something. I have dosage info for infant ibuprofen so I gave him that twice today. We have one local licensed squirrel rehabber and when I initially contacted her about taking Wilbur this past summer, she informed me to just "take him outside and put him on a tree, he should be fine". I had already been doing my research so I knew this was not the way to release. I'm located near the Huntsville area.

[LR]

A heating pad set on low put under the half of the cage he is seeping in may help. The infant ibuprophen can be given to squirrels every four hours. They metabolize it much faster than humans.

Have you checked his leg closely? No swelling? Hopefully he just pulled a muscle some...

[Rose0815]

A heating pad set on low put under the half of the cage she is seeping in may help. The infant ibuprophen can be given to squirrels every four hours. They metabolize it much faster than humans.

Have you checked her leg closely? No swelling? Hopefully she just pulled a muscle some...

Ok good deal! I haven't been able to look at it super closely. Mainly because I've been scared I'm going to hurt him worse. I am going to try to get some pictures and maybe a video in the morning and try to post for you all to look at! We actually converted our utility room in our house to his "cage" so he's got a good bit of space to run around in. Should I limit his activity by putting him in an actual cage? Thanks again for the help :)

[LR]

If you have a cage you can put him in limiting his movement would be best. How does he react to being in his cage versus being loose in his room?

[CritterMom]

I know absolutely NOTHING about this vet save that I was given the info on him from a TSB member long ago. He specializes in animal dentistry and does a different type of odontoma surgery than we are all familiar with which doesn't utilize the external hole that others use...which doesn't matter a bit to you. I have no idea if he will see your squirrel without a rehabber vouching for you but you could at least call and ask if it is near you: http://indianspringsanimalclinic.com/. Dr. Gaddis the the one I know of.

[Rose0815]

If you have a cage you can put him in limiting his movement would be best. How does he react to being in his cage versus being loose in his room?

We've actually never really kept him in a cage and the one time we tried he went nuts so we haven't done it since lol But he's actually improving! His energy is back up and he has started putting weight on his leg again. I am thinking he might have just strained a muscle. But we are still keeping a very close eye on him. 😊

[Rose0815]

I know absolutely NOTHING about this vet save that I was given the info on him from a TSB member long ago. He specializes in animal dentistry and does a different type of odontoma surgery than we are all familiar with which doesn't utilize the external hole that others use...which doesn't matter a bit to you. I have no idea if he will see your squirrel without a rehabber vouching for you but you could at least call and ask if it is near you: http://indianspringsanimalclinic.com/. Dr. Gaddis the the one I know of.

Awesome! Thank you so much. Never hurts to ask :) I am really really wanting to get licensed to rehab. Just a little overwhelming of where to even start.