Sliced

Animals can be so frustrating sometimes.

So, when we have sick or injured animals, we take them off the floor and isolate them so that we can treat and monitor the animals until they return to health and are able to be brought back onto the floor.

And today was the day where I clean the cages in the back, which usually means I check and see if we have any open cages on the floor, and then check the iso room to see if any animals can be brought out. 

And one of the animals I brought out was a guinea pig,
That had been in the back for a while as we treated it for some hairloss on it's face.
As he'd finally gotten to the point where the fur had grown back enough that I felt he would be fine returning to the floor.
So I put him along with a couple other guinea pigs out onto the floor with some others that were already in the cage.
As usually that's okay to do. Guinea pigs are social creatures and like having buddies.

It's only a slight issue if the guinea pigs have been isolated too long by themselves.
Or a guinea pig already on the floor decides he wants to be king of the food bowl and a jerk to everyone else. 

But after watching for a few minutes it looked like everyone was going to be playing nice, and so I left and returned to cleaning the cages in the back.

Only like an hour or two later....
I walked by the guinea pig cage on the floor and glanced in just to double check to make sure everyone was still doing well.

And that's when I noticed it. 
An odd movement to the guinea pig's ear.
A closer look...
Revealed that the ear had been sliced in half. 
Like, it literally looked like someone had take a knife and sliced the ear in half horizontally from edge to head. 
O.O 
So instead of one solid ear, the ear was now moving as two individual sides. :S 
And it was fresh. There was still blood.

And I'm like HOW?!?! HOW! 
I mean I've seen small tears and nicks in ears before. But sliced in half?!!? Never. 
I don't know if another guinea pig or two got a hold of that one's ear and pulled, tearing it. 
Or if something in the cage had somehow caught and injured the guinea pig. 
More than likely it was the other guinea pigs that caused the injury.

And since it was bleeding and you know...split in half....
I couldn't just leave him on the floor.
So even though I'd just barely taken him out of the room an hour or so before.
He was now returning back there until the ear heals. 
>.< 
Ugh. 
Why?!?!
You couldn't have just played nice now could you? 
*shakes head* 
I don't even know if the ear will heal together, or if it will just...be separated from here on out. I don't know.
In any case....back into iso he went. 
Hopefully he heals quickly. But note to self, keep a closer eye on him next time I bring him out. 

-Sarnic Dirchi