At 02:40 PM 1/17/00 -0500, Jill wrote:
>They're starting to curl over on one paw, and she seems to have trouble
>holding some kinds of food, like peanuts.
>Jill
I have been wondering about this, as some of my gerbils seem to be, like,
digging to wear their nails down, like a cat uses a scratching post to
exercise the claw muscles and to peel off the outer layer of nail?
I use a hand-held dremmel sander to sand my dog's fingernails, because she
tolerates that better than clippers, and there is less risk of injury (it's
got a round sandpaper covered thing on the end that rotates very fast.) I
was wondering if it would be worth it to maybe rub an emery board under a
gerbil's nails a couple of times to keep the length under control? It
doesn't seem to be a problem for any of my Clan yet, but I thought it might
be worth a try. I put a piece of sandstone in one cage, because Oswald's
fingernails looked a little long, and I hoped he would scratch at it, but I
don't think he has.
just a couple of thoughts
Rebecca...
