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[mojito]

So I haven't posted I quite a while and some things have changed since, so I may be a bit long and add details that aren't nesecary (sorry in advance! Better safe than sorry)

So I have moved (with my 2 boys) to my boyfriends house. We currently do not have the portable ac I have always had with them since we haven't needed to use it yet. We have, however, leave the window open when we are home to cool the room down. Another change for them is now their playtime is on hardwood floors, rather than on the carpet.

Before we moved them, both of them would sometimes chew (no fur loss though) or scratch themselves a lot more than usual, so we cut back on how often they got a dust bath from every other day to every 3-5 days. However, Dexter seems to be chewing on his foot quite often, more than before we moved them. The other night we checked out his feet and they were really dry and it seemed like some of the skin had peeled (there was no blood though). So we have been putting vitamin E on his feet 2 times a day and then giving him a dust bath right afterwards (we read to do that on chincare.com). Now we are about to switch to Aveeno because the vitamin E is so thick, I worry it doesn't help enough before we give him a dust bath. I'm also worried that giving him this many baths will make the rest of him itchy too. Any ideas on what to do? I don't think it's really stress related, since there are no other symptoms I've seen. Thanks so much!

[GrayRodent]

That is interesting that the feet are effected but the ears are fine. Typically the ears are effected when it is dry skin and I suspect dust bathing twice a day will result in changes there soon. I have to wonder if there is something else going on. In other cases I've come across sometimes the problem comes and goes without explanation. Sometimes it's because the chinchilla is exposed to some kind of irritant on the cage floor usually urine and a good scrubbing can help. Sometimes it's because the cage floor is wire or something mechanically irritating where the animal spends a lot of time. In those situations using extra pine chips for bedding can help. In other cases it can be caused by fungus. It's rare for a fungal infection to not result in hair loss in other areas it's not unheard of.
If it continues to worsen and there are no alternative causes you might want to talk to a vet about the possibility of fungus or nutritional deficiency but these causes are unusual. It is possible that there is some kind of surface treatment or cleaner on the wood floor that may be worsening a pre-existing problem.

[GrayRodent]

The other thing I should have mentioned is that carefresh bedding can sometimes dry skin out by absorbing lanolin from the fur. It's kind of unusual but I've seen it happen a couple of times on this board. It seems the ears are usually effected as well.

[mojito]

Yea his ears are fine, they aren't flaky and he doesn't scratch them any more than usual. When I tried to find something about dry feet, I almost always saw that the affected chin had dry ears too. I am worried that giving dust baths twice a day is going to dry out the rest of his skin, but other owners/breeders advise to do so when you put lotion/vitamin e on them because otherwise they will stress out (makes sense, because you're basically greasing them up).
We use paper bedding (Eco-bedding to be exact) but have put pine in there as well as of this morning. He is never on wires, even when I take out the tray to clean it I put fleece down so he doesn't chew on the rug that's under the cage. I'm not sure what cleaner is used for the floor, but it has not been cleaned since they've been here so that could be a possibility.
We have also considered fungus, and have gotten some spray powder to spray on the wood (not sure if its okay to spray on his feet). If he has had hair loss, its been very little and it's hard to tell when they don't have as much fur on their feet.
I will watch and keep updating on here, hopefully it won't come to that. I don't want to stress them out by having to take them to GA or NC within a month of stressing them out by moving them

[GrayRodent]

I advise that you stop using paper bedding and go to all pine chips for a while and also discontinue the use of lotions after a couple of days to see if there is improvement. Paper bedding is a well known cause of skin dryness in chinchillas. It is possible that you've caught it early enough that the ears aren't involved yet since they get much less exposure to it than the feet.