This is a female slow loris (700g) from IAR wildlife rescue center in Ciapus, Indonesia.
For almost two months the loris has a deep laceration on the plantar side of the hand with 2 fingers been amputated due to a fight with another peer. The laceration affected the finger tendons, and from the 3 renaming fingers, only the big thumb is functional. It was been given systemically NSAIDs (carpofen) and antibiotics (clindomicyn) for most of this period, without any improvement. It seems that laceration in lorises tend to have a very low healing rate. It was considered the amputation of the hand, but due to the climbing behavior of the lorises and the fact that the remaining fingers were still vascularised, it was considered to try saving the hand. So, for the last three weeks the animal had the hand properly cleaned up and daily a soft bandage was changed. The animal had to be put under Isoflurane anesthesia, due to the pain caused by the intervention and lorises particular strength and difficulty of hand restrain.
Until no pus was present, the first week the wound was flushed with saline mixed wit penicillin. For the bandage, a placenta extract gel with neomicyn (Bioplacenton) was putted on the wound witch was covered by a antibacterial gauze dressing (Sofra-tulle) and then normal sterile cotton gauze and Lucoplast band. For the anesthesia , it was considered to use only the mask with Isoflorane , without any other injectible drug.
Tips for anesthesia : Start with 2 L/min Oxigen and set the Iso to 2, then decrease O2 to 1-1,5 L and set the Iso to 1,5 (use less than this , the animal will wake up). This only Iso protocol works like a charm!!! : in 2 minutes the loris is asleep and the intervention can start. You can turn down the Iso when you start to cover the bandage with the Leucoplast (don’t use that stupid vet-trap auto-adhesive bandage, is squeezing to much), and by the time you finish, the loris is awake! This only-Iso protocol works really nice for small mammals and birds for minor interventions.
After the second week of changing the bandage, the wound started to look better, more vascularised and per secondam tissue was seen, but it seemed that the Isoflurane was irritating the airways and the loris started to caught wile awaking from the anesthesia. By the looks of the bandage it was consider to change it every other day and give time to recovery from Iso.
If the wound continues to look better, we would consider to remove completely the bandage in one week
Ovidiu Rosu
