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Poor Hadley caught her foot in the cage ramp. :(

Freela

Freela

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Poor Hadley is developing cataracts and has been having trouble going up and down the ramp in and out of the cage to the hallway... she has a hard time finding it and something seems to make a jump for it sideways. Today she made an awkward leap back in and ended up with one of her back feet caught between the bars. :( I helped her get her foot loose and examined it... her nails all seem okay and she didn't squeak or anything when I felt it and it doesn't look bruised at all (she has pink feet so it's easy to see.) She seems to be walking on it okay, after initially favoring it for a few minutes right after. I will take her in tomorrow if it looks sore or she is limping at all, but I think she just scared herself. Poor girl, she is my second pig to develop cataracts and right now she seems to be in that adjustment phase where she gets disoriented. When Sundae was going blind she went through a phase like that and then I think she adjusted to low/no vision and actually functioned better than she did when she was just in the process of having her eyesight deteriorate. I am thinking it may take her some time to get her courage back up with the ramp, which is going to be stressful for both of us because she does NOT like being caught while she's in the hallway! She prefers to go in and out herself when she can find that silly ramp!
 
Poor girl. Hope she is still mobile enough today. I’ve not had a piggy with cataracts. @Wiebke and @Claire W have, I think. Is there anything you can do to modify the ramp and make the ramp easier for her? Or can you perhaps catch her in something and then pop her back in?
 
I have a two tier cage where I have modified the ramp by placing a brick underneath it to make it less steep and it also has a fleece ramp tunnel to make it safe. The lady who I brought it from sadly no longer makes them but I people who have either made them themselves or attached a plastic tunnel or something to the ramp. I think @Veggies Galore made her own although I’m not sure.

My late Emma developed cataracts at just 3 years old and coped really well. She was soon doing zoomies up and down the ramp although as she reached old age, she preferred to spend her time pottering around the bottom tier x
 
Sending little Hadley lots of love, please let us know how she is doing
 
Claire W said:
I have a two tier cage where I have modified the ramp by placing a brick underneath it to make it less steep and it also has a fleece ramp tunnel to make it safe. The lady who I brought it from sadly no longer makes them but I people who have either made them themselves or attached a plastic tunnel or something to the ramp. I think @Veggies Galore made her own although I’m not sure.

My late Emma developed cataracts at just 3 years old and coped really well. She was soon doing zoomies up and down the ramp although as she reached old age, she preferred to spend her time pottering around the bottom tier x
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I bought my ramp tunnels too Claire - I'm afraid I don't know anywhere that makes them any more :(
 
Claire W said:
It’s a shame that CandE cosies aren’t around much anymore :( I believe that’s where you brought yours from too
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yeas that's right . I think C&E Cosies have started making cage liners again - but there's nothing about ramp tunnels on their website. :(
 
VickiA said:
Poor girl. Hope she is still mobile enough today. I’ve not had a piggy with cataracts. @Wiebke and @Claire W have, I think. Is there anything you can do to modify the ramp and make the ramp easier for her? Or can you perhaps catch her in something and then pop her back in?
Click to expand...
I think I will just lay a blanket over it when she is going in and out so that there are no rungs to get her feet stuck in (unless that just confuses her more.) It's not actually a ramp in the cage itself, it's the door to the cage itself. I have the hallway around them blocked off so that they can come and go from the cage to the hall for free time in the evenings. I know when Sundae went blind we had some awkward mishaps like this for the first six months or so and then she adjusted to having impaired vision and started coping much better with things. The depth perception seems to be the first thing to go, leading to a lot of awkward leaps and minor mishaps for the first little while.
 
Freela said:
Poor Hadley is developing cataracts and has been having trouble going up and down the ramp in and out of the cage to the hallway... she has a hard time finding it and something seems to make a jump for it sideways. Today she made an awkward leap back in and ended up with one of her back feet caught between the bars. :( I helped her get her foot loose and examined it... her nails all seem okay and she didn't squeak or anything when I felt it and it doesn't look bruised at all (she has pink feet so it's easy to see.) She seems to be walking on it okay, after initially favoring it for a few minutes right after. I will take her in tomorrow if it looks sore or she is limping at all, but I think she just scared herself. Poor girl, she is my second pig to develop cataracts and right now she seems to be in that adjustment phase where she gets disoriented. When Sundae was going blind she went through a phase like that and then I think she adjusted to low/no vision and actually functioned better than she did when she was just in the process of having her eyesight deteriorate. I am thinking it may take her some time to get her courage back up with the ramp, which is going to be stressful for both of us because she does NOT like being caught while she's in the hallway! She prefers to go in and out herself when she can find that silly ramp!
Click to expand...

Please make the ramp shallower if possible, tape some carpet cut off on it (it is a great retainer of scent, which is what blind guinea pigs use for orientation and put something on the sides to create rails in order to prevent them from sliding over.

We had to experiment with how shallow a ramp needed to be for my Taffy, who was suffering from extremely advanced cataracts, but once we had, she would use it and never have a misstep.

The transition phase is the always the most difficult before the other senses kick in and compensate.
 
Poor Hadley - hope she recovers soon.
I’ve posted about my cataract piggy, Merab, elsewhere on the forum. She was completely blind for her last few years but had no trouble coping.
By the time she completely lost her sight I’d switched to a single level C&C cage so have no experience of her with s ramp
 
Thankfully she seems okay, no limping or bruising this morning and she is back to her usual self. I think it scared her more than anything. She was hesitant to go down the ramp to go out into the hall so I picked her up and put her out in the hall, but she did get back in herself. I did find a carpet remnant to put over the ramp so that she has more traction and cannot get her toes stuck between the bars.
 
She's still nervous about going up the ramp... yesterday she kept walking up to it, hesitating, then running a power lap around the hall and coming back like a plane circling before landing... I was thinking, "No Hadley, compensating for poor eyesight with speed is NOT a good idea!" She did eventually psych herself up and go in without incident, though.
 
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