Common injuries and unique trauma cases for exotic pets

What types of trauma injuries do veterinarians specializing in exotic species commonly see in practice? And what are some unique ways that these patients been injured? S. Emi Knafo, DVM, DACZM, zoological medicine specialist and assistant clinical professor of zoological medicine at the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville, discussed trauma situations frequently seen with exotic patients as well as memorable cases with companion rabbits, reptiles and birds, in a dvm360 interview.

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The following is a transcript of the video:

dvm360: What types of injuries do clinicians commonly see in exotic pets?

S. Emi Knafo, DVM, DACZM: As we get into spring, we're going to see hit-by-car turtles on a daily basis, because we do receive wildlife as well. But as far as the owned pets, we've actually had a run of tortoises attacked by dogs, like chewed on by dogs, and dogs can do a lot of damage to the shell. It's living bone, and so when they come in with these carapacial or plastron fractures or punctures that's exposed bone—super painful—[there is a] risk of osteomyelitis. So we consider those emergent, we need to get treatment initiated promptly. There are a couple kind of classic hazards for birds in homes. Ceiling Fan is the classic one. But also, being shut in the door. Sometimes they'll perch on top of an open door, and someone may not realize and close the door. We've had not as trauma, but a bird being around something like Teflon or some other like aerosolized toxin, could be an emergency presentation. And then for the small mammals, we see a lot of handling mishaps, like small children who aren't really well versed in handling. These small mammals, who can be a little bit flighty. We can see broken legs, broken backs. They get dropped, or they leap out of arms.

dvm360: What are some unique injury cases presented in exotic pets?

Knafo: I did see one where someone dropped a vacuum, or a vacuum cleaner kind of fell over, onto a rabbit and broke its jaw. That was a pretty memorable trauma injury that we saw. I had a frog that had a broken leg because the owner was taking pictures of the frog and dropped the iPhone on the frog.

Traumatic injuries can be strange. I had a ferret with head trauma because it was asleep in the bed, and the owner didn't know and changed the sheets and gathered up all the sheets and threw them off the bed and threw the ferret. I couldn't have thought that one up.