Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[feedersneaters]

I am a small pet shop owner from Southern Michigan, recently I had a customer contact me because her chinchilla was pregnant when she bought it and the mother lost the baby and now she is not eating and has become anti-social.

Is there anything I can tell the owner to help the mother through this process?

The baby was born about 3-5 days ago and died 1-3 days ago.
The mother was not producing milk, they contacted a vet and were told to try to feed the baby syrup because it was going into hypoglycemic shock.  They took the baby and tried but were unable to keep it alive.  They took care of the dead baby and performed a funeral, but I suspect the mother chin thinks her baby is still alive because they took it before it died and didn't show it to her after the fact.

After losing the baby the owners contacted a veterinarian and were told to clean and sanitize everything to get rid of the smell and to keep the mother away from the place where the baby was born.

Today they contacted me and told me that; the mother is now losing hair, has become snippy and bitten the owners daughter (which she never did before), is not eating, is tearing up her cage and making a mess of it and has been trying to get out of the cage to get back to the place where the baby was born.

Any information that you could pass along would be wonderful.  Will the mother recover from this or could they end up losing the mother too?

[ABC Chinchillas]

no offense but their vet sounds like and idiot. Feeding the syrup is likely what killed the kits. They can be hand raised on goats milk.

I would put her back in the cage she knows. too many changes are not good for a chinchilla. make her a fleece cuddle buddy so she has something to groom. I have lost many kits over the years and never lost mom on account of it unless there was something medically wrong

[feedersneaters]

Thank you for the information, I will pass that along to the owner.  I might get the chin back, she (the owner) is not sure what she is gonna do yet.  The chin has been tearing at her cage and trying to get out all night and keeping the owner and her kids up.

When you say "cuddle buddy" I'm picturing something about the same size as the kit made out of fleece, is this right?

[jmdebb]

something made of fleece, but can be bigger than a kit.. they like to cuddle up with them, so you might want to go a bit bigger.

[Debbie.nl.ca]

I have never seen a female get that upset over the loss of a kit.
Maybe there is something left inside that is making the Mom sick.
If she is not eating there could be something else going on. I'd have a vet take a look. A good vet familiar with treating chins.

[Courtney]

Something is wrong with the mother. I would take it to another vet for a second opinion, that vet sounds clueless. The mom is unsettled because something is wrong. Did he check her belly for another kit? That could be the case, moms get unsettled when they can’t deliver another baby and the vet will have to take it out.

She could also be looking for her baby. She knows she gave birth so she may be distressed. Anyway the vet needs to check her stomach for another kit ASAP.

I have no clue why he would feed it syrup. That does not make any sense. They need formula.

[chinclub]

I agree.  That isn't depression.  My bet is there is still a baby inside of her and she is probably going septic.  She needs x-rays done to look for other fetuses and most likely antibiotics as well.

[Courtney]

Any updates? Hopefully good.

[feedersneaters]

Update:
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond, getting to the computer has been all but impossible with my schedule over the last few days.
I was able to call the owner on Monday and thankfully the chin is eating and they were able to let her out of her cage and give her run-around time and she has stopped trying to destroy things all night long.
I'm not all that familiar with chinchillas and I know next to nothing about breeding them but if I had to wager a guess, I'm thinking that the momma chin was convinced that her baby was still alive and was trying to get out to it.