Emergencies happen when we least expect them. Because gliders are nocturnal, it seems as though they happen mostly at night. Because they're emergencies, they seem to happen mostly on weekends or holidays!
If you have an emergency and can't get to the vet immediately, necessary precautions are in order. One of those includes preventing your glider from hurting themselves or causing more damage. A great device for this is called an ejacket, made by Denise (minkasmom). She will happily send a customized ejacket overnight to you but, as already mentioned, emergencies seem to happen when getting an ejacket the next day, just isn't possible.
While waiting for an ejacket from Denise, you can make a temporary one with a pair of scissors, butter bowl lid and a roll of 4" vet wrap. TSC has several colors and patterns to choose from, at very reasonable prices. You can also find it at Walmart and get it from your vet. Because vet wrap isn't washable like Denise's ejackets and gets dirty unbelievably fast, it has to be replaced every day. It also seems to lose it's ability to stick to itself after 24 hours. Still, until you can get an ejacket from Denise, it's great for a McGuyver fix!
It's very simple to make one. To help you, I made one and took pictures of each step.
FIRMLY press the pieces together at each step of folding!!! Because vet wrap is stretchy, if it isn't compressed at each step of folding, it will constrict the glider when you use it.
Measure around the chest of your glider. You'll need that measurement to determine how much vet wrap to use.
Unroll 4" vet wrap, to 5 times the length of the chest measurement. Unroll 3 times the length of the chest measurment, for the straps. It may end up being longer than needed. This is OK, because you can always cut off the extra if necessary.(Extra small ejacket between pieces to show size of finished product.)
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Fold the longer piece into thirds.
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Place a plastic tab cut (and edges smoothed) from butter bowl lid.
The plastic tab is about 1/3 the width of the ejacket.
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Cut the smaller piece in half and fold each half into thirds, to make the straps.
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Place the straps onto the third of the body of the ejacket that has the plastic tab in it, then fold that piece up over the straps.
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To put on the glider, place body of glider over ejacket (straps under the glider's head) pressing ends together. It doesn't take much pressure to get the vet wrap to stick to itself!
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Cross one strap over opposite shoulder, then bring other strap across, again, pressing to make them stick.
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Finished product...
Front
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Back
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Again, this is just a temporary measure until you can get a regular ejacket from Denise Rainwaters. https://www.facebook.com/denise.rainwaters She will happily overnight an ejacket to you, to fit your specific glider's size. You can reach her here: https://www.facebook.com/denise.rainwaters?fref=ts or dkrpapillon@aol.com
Information courtesy of Glider Central
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