Archive for the ‘Chinchilla care’ Category

Winnie’s Oral X-Ray

October 8th, 2008

My vet still couldn’t figure out why Winnie’s stomach is so gassy & she wanted to rule out any teeth problems. So my vet referred me to a dental vet. Even though my vet has x-rayed Winnie’s teeth when she was x-raying his stomach, my vet doesn’t have a special oral x-ray machine, so she wasn’t able to take pictures of the roots. Also, Winnie hasn’t been eating on his own & he’s not a big chewer in general (compared to Tubby). As a result, his molars were overgrown a little & my vet managed to trim Winnie’s molars.

The dental vet explained to me the worse scenario: Winnie’s upper tooth root overgrown, to the point that it can protrude to the eye (can cause vision loss) or the brain.

Good news though!! The dental vet said that Winnie’s teeth are healthy & as trim as they can get.


Can’t remember what picture this is, even though the dental vet explained it to me 0_o


View of the top incisors. Check out the large vestibular system (the 2 whitish oval shapes on the right), which is responsible for chinchilla’s great sense of balance. The dental vet said that chinchilla’s vestibular system is very large for its small body.

Winnie’s mouth from the right side. Dental vet said that this is the trimmest teeth a chin can have.

Winnie xray4

Winnie’s mouth from the left side.

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Gassy Winnie

September 27th, 2008

Another trip to the vet this morning.

Winnie is not out of the woods yet. Since he’s been taken off the Bene-Bac on Monday, it seemed as if he was getting better: his poop was oval & black (like how normal chinchilla poop is supposed to look like), but still small. A couple of days later, his poop returned to how they were before: small, bead-sized, & very hard. I also noticed that during feeding time, I could feel and hear popping noises coming from his stomach!

From 2 weeks of not chewing pellets, the vet suspected that the molars were overgrown & needed trimming (maybe another reason why he doesn’t want to eat on his own). When Winnie was under sedation, the vet could see that the molars were overgrown, but not too bad.

As for the popping noises, the vet said that the noises are gas moving around in Winnie’s digestive system. Vet doesn’t know what’s causing so much gas build-up. The reasons could range from: bacteria producing the excess gas, to air that was trapped in the food syringe. With all the gas in Winnie’s tummy, it just makes him feel bloated & full, hence another reason why he doesn’t feel like eating on his own. I’m still syringe-feeding him, because he wouldn’t touch his pellets! The strange thing is, he eats hay & grapes.

Now, he’s back on the Bene-bac, he’s still on the motility medicine, and on GasX (medicines for human infants to get rid of gas). I’m also reducing the amount of food I give him, hoping that he’ll get a little hungry to encourage him to eat on his own.

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Progress

September 14th, 2008

I counted 4 half-sized poops when I let Winnie out (compared to the bead-sized poops that hardly came out of him for the past few days) :-D


Winnie looks funny here, because he’s in the middle of chewing his food.
I think he’s getting spoiled by being syringe-fed; he shows appetite when being syringe-fed, but doesn’t want to eat pellets on his own.
Note: that hairy hand isn’t mine …

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Day Hospitalization

September 12th, 2008

Another appointment with the vet this morning, because I noticed that Winnie’s droppings are even smaller & less. His stomach feels real tight & bloated, vet said it’s most likely because the food he took in yesterday (from me force-feeding me) isn’t moving & pooped out properly.


At the animal clinic

X-ray with Iodine shows no irregular gas pattern or anything solid in his digestive tract. However, soft things like fur won’t show up on the x-ray. So, there could be a possibility that there are soft things stuck in his digestive tract. If there was something stuck in his digestive system, gas would build up in a certain area, causing him to bloat. Vet recommended that I hospitalize him for the day, so the vet could gas him & take his blood, give him some fluids, and gut motility medicine to stimulate the body to excrete on its own. I decided to go ahead with some blood works, because the weekend is coming & I want to be able to pinpoint his illness as soon as possible for my own peace of mind. The blood test will show any abnormal count of white blood cell (hints of parasitic or viral infection). Worse comes to worse, it’s some of kind of internal organ failure, like the kidney. The vet is very apprehensive about surgically figuring out what’s wrong with him. So, at this point she’s trying the best she can to use non-invasive methods.

I continually called the vet to check up on him. Even with the help of medication, Winnie still isn’t pooping normally. The vet doesn’t want Winnie to go into shock because of gut stasis.

Let’s hope for the best.

**UPDATE**


In the car, Winnie rides shotgun

Winnie came back home with more medications: pain medication (to ease pain from any gut stasis) & gut motility medicine (to get his digestive system moving again). Vet wasn’t able to extract any blood out of him. She tried the ear & the leg, & decided that’s enough poking around. Besides, it’s dangerous to put a chinchilla under sedation for too long. Everyone at the animal clinic seemed to be getting attached to Winnie (after only a day of hospitalization). What can I say? He is a cutie & I’m a proud owner :-D

I wasn’t able to buy the Alfalfa King brand of timothy hay (what I normally buy for the chinnies) & had to settle with Kaytee. Good news is that Winnie is nibbling on some of the timothy hay :-)

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Force-Feeding

September 11th, 2008

I called the vet this morning, because I noticed that Winnie hasn’t been eating & his droppings are getting smaller. Vet told me to come in & pick up Oxbow Critical Care, because it’s important that Winnie eats something. Oxbow Critical Care is basically the powder form of hay & pellets mix, normally given to baby & sick animals. I had to mix it with water & feed to Winnie using a syringe.

It’s real messy force-feeding Winnie with that stuff; it gets everywhere around his mouth & he just looks like a dirty chinchilla who has been eating mud.

I do hope he’ll get better soon. Another trip to the vet tomorrow.

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Trip to the Vet

September 9th, 2008

Last Friday, I let Winnie out for about 30 minutes, then I put him back into his cage. Half an hour later, he started barking non-stop. I got worried & picked him up to see if he happened to be injured from his time outside of the cage. I didn’t see anything wrong, so I put him back. I noticed that his white fur had shed a little on my black shirt. So I thought he was probably spooked by something.

When I put him back, he continued barking. He continued doing this throughout the night & I suspected something else was wrong.

I noticed from that day onwards that his poop has gotten smaller & harder. He’s been eating less & he’s more high strung than usual. I couldn’t see what’s wrong with him physically. Afraid that it might be something internal, I decided to take him to the vet.

This was my first time taking a chinnie to the vet. When vet examined Winnie physically & felt his colon, he said that it’s empty. A healthy chinchilla should have a colon full of poops (chinchillas poop non-stop hehe). On a good note, vet said that Winnie’s heart beats calm for a chinchilla :-D

The next thing the vet did was to take some stool samples to see whether there’s anything wrong with his digestive system. Result showed that there’s an abnormally high number of ‘bad’ bacteria (he explained to me in great details, but I sort of blanked out) found in his poop. Everything comes down to poop & now we know that Winnie’s problem isn’t from teeth deformity (which is very common in chinchillas). He said that the ‘bad’ bacteria has always been in his system, but was in small numbers & kept under control by healthy immune system. But for some reason, maybe due to stress (which can compromise the immune system) or just dirty food (we don’t know how pellets & timothy hay were processed etc), the ‘bad’ bacteria’s number multiplied.

Winnie’s been prescribed 2 oral medications: an antibiotic (to kill the ‘bad’ bacteria) for 1 week & some yellow gooey stuff (Bene-Bac Pet .. which is the ‘good’ bacteria to be added into his system) for 2 weeks. In the meantime, I have to keep an eye on him & make sure that he’s eating normally. If he doesn’t want to eat for the next 24-36 hours, vet said I might have to force-feed him. This was my first time taking a chin to the vet & I’m glad I got to see a vet who seems to know what he’s talking about.

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Everything Comes Down to Poo

August 12th, 2008

If any one is a Scrubs fan, they must know that everything comes down to poo.

Yes, you can tell whether a chin isn’t feeling well or is healthy just by looking (& maybe touching) at their poopie.

I notice that if Tubby hasn’t had lots of roughage, such as hay, his droppings tend to be small & hard when squeezed (I wash my hands afterwards .. don’t worry). Also, when the chins have had lots of protein intakes, you can tell by the size of the poop. Before, Tubby was on Kaytee (even though the Forti-Diet line has about 17-18% protein, it’s also got other unhealthy toppings in it), his poopies were small. Then, I ugraded to Traditions (which has 17% protein), which made his poopies bigger. Then, I recently changed to Mazuri (20% protein) & his poop size became real big!

Since chinchillas do eat leaves & fruits in the wild, I’ve recently started introducing fresh fruits to Tubby & Winnie. Since they’re not used to this diet (& there’s a lot of controversy about giving chins fresh fruits), I’ve only given them a quarter of a grape each week (besides, a quarter of a grape has less sugar content than raisins :-) ). I notice that their poopies ahve become nice, big, & squashy.

So, make a note to yourself: when you notice or suspect that something’s wrong with your chin (especially when it comes to digestive or tooth problems), look at their poopies .. as they might have the answer to what’s going on with your chinnie ;-)

Some useful references:

  1. Chinchilla refusing to eat
  2. Weight loss
  3. Bowel problems
  4. Ear infection
  5. Broken teeth 1
  6. Broken teeth 2
  7. Fruits & vegetables

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Sexing a Chin

July 12th, 2008

Many pet stores or not so knowledgeable rescues (usually rescues that don’t specialize in chins) tend to mis-sex chins. Worse case scenario is that 2 brothers or 2 sisters, are placed in a cage together, and woops! They turn out to be a brother & a pregnant sister. Uh oh! Inbreeding! Sometimes the pregnant chin is so young that she faces calcium deficiency after giving birth. Kits of young chin mothers tend to be smaller too.

This post isn’t only for potential chin parents, but also for current chin parents (I only learned of Tubby’s real sex about 3 months after he first got home), who are planning to bring home another chin companion if you don’t want any unplanned pregnancy. You don’t want to be bringing home a pair of what seemed to be same-sexed siblings, or bringing home an already pregnant chin.

Tubby was mis-sexed by the pet store where I got him from. I feel like blaming the chain pet store for not knowing any better. Good thing Tubby didn’t have a companion. It wasn’t until I had to go away, leaving Tubby with a friend, that my friend suspected Tubby was a boy. I didn’t believe her until Tubby started mounting me!

I just don’t want chin parents to have to learn through somebody else’s mistake. I was referred to this site, which I should warn is very graphic, but very insightful in guiding you on how to properly sex a chin.

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Chin Massage

July 12th, 2008

Scratches are like massages for chins. They looovvveee scratches during the day. But if you’re trying to scratch them at night when they’re active .. forget it! They’ll just push your hand away.

Tubby likes to be scratched by the neck. And he’ll definitely let you know exactly where! He’s so bossy .. he’d turn to the right or left to let me know which side of the neck he wants to be scratched.

Initially, I thought that Winnie doesn’t like to be scratched, because every time I tried to scratch his neck, he would try to wiggle away. Until I found out that he likes to be scratched below the neck, on his chest!

Nothing beats seeing a smiling chinnie satisfied from your scratching :-)

Winnie scratches

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Run-About Balls

June 28th, 2008

Hello! I live in a rodent kingdom: 2 chinchillas & 5 hamsters reside in my small study room. They all (except for the robo girlies) have their daily out-of-the-cage run. But now that I have the Run-About Balls, the girlies can also enjoy the outside!

Last week, I bought one of those run-about balls for the hamsters from Drs. Foster & Smith. That way, I could let them out, without being worried that they would squeeze into every nook and cranny in the apartment.

A few days ago, the shipment came & it took awhile for Daddy Hamster & Baby Hamster to learn how to use it. I only bought 1, so they had to take turns. I bought the 7″ in clear, so that they can still see while in the ball. I think it’s a good size for Syrian hamsters in general. Finally, they got the hang of it, except that they kept running into things .. the walls, the desk. Maybe because it’s clear, they don’t see the ball as a barrier. But I think they like it, except with the ball, they can’t climb to certain places (which is exactly what I don’t want them to do).

The packaging of the Run-Around Ball says “a hamster runs up to 5 miles each night.” I don’t think I can even run 5 miles a day. The instruction also says to let a hamster run in the ball for 15-30 minutes each time. I think 30 minutes is pushing it .. especially now that it’s summer, the hamster can overheat in that enclosed ball. So, I only let them run around for 15 minutes max in the ball.

I also tried the ball with the robo girlies. At first, I put one of them in the ball. Didn’t work. I think the ball was too heavy for one of them (I have carpet flooring, which makes it even harder for the ball to roll on the floor). Then, I put all of the 3 girlies in the ball. I couldn’t stopped cracking up because now that they had enough power to roll the ball, they were all running in 3 different directions!

That didn’t work. So, yesterday I went to buy the 5″ Run-Around Ball in clear, just for the girlies. I put one of the girlies in the ball & she instantly knew how to use it! She had so much fun with it, running around the living room! They had to take turns, because there’s no way I’d put more than 1 Robo’s in the ball .. they wouldn’t get anywhere because they’d try to run in different directions. These girlies have never been outside of their cage, except when I clean their cage, because they’re so tiny & fast!

Note: I noticed that there are some people who use the 13″ ball for their chins. NO! NO! NO! Chins tend to overheat & placing them in these balls is just a hazard. Besides, these balls are plastic & chins will chew & swallow plastic, which can block their digestive systems causing fatal injuries. Please please please don’t place your chins in these plastic balls!

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