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[corvus]

Hello. My name is Gregory and i had one of my pet chinchillas die unexpectedly yesturday. Im at a loss and cant stop wondering what happened.

Rebecca wasnt eating well since 2-3 months. We noticed weight loss and stopped it from falling under 419 grams. I think she might have been mallnourished at that point. She was taken to the vet and after a fev weeks and 2 vets she was diagnosed with a weak kidney and started taking rubenal 1/2 tab a day and lespevet 0,4mg a day. After the feeding started she was put on Her daily weight was between 435 in the morning and 470 before bed time. She used to eat dense pulp feed through syringe for the first month. after the kidney diagnosis we switched to hard pellets which she ate for about 2-3 weeks such hand feeding was time consuming and after those 3 weeks i have switched to half pulp half solid diet to keep her weight up and keep her teeth working.

Second problem was her leg, she lost feeling in it after a botched up blood sampling. The leg went limp and we were told itll be back to normal in a day or two, it never fully recovered and eventualy we noticed she has no feeling in the leg at all (despite having learned to use it and to not dragg it behind her - she looked as if the leg was healing) because she bit off her finger to the bone clearly thinking its a foreign object ( no feeling in the fingers)

After that she was put on milgama (red liquid) 0.2mg every other day and karsivan 1/3 tab a day.

We were feeding her those 4 medicine and she seemed to be stable and her leg was recovering, she lost all 3 fingers in the leg but after that she regained feeling in her leg and was healing nicely.

she started drooling a bit a week ago which was especialy visible in the morning when she slept. The vet filed her teeth abit and the drooling stopped... for two days... to avoid having her teeth be filed i added a thinly chopped hay into her handfeeding diet. She didnt like it but she soldiered through and eaten it mixed with hard pellets and thick pellet paste.

I thaught her teeth may hurt a bit but i fed her again with a tiny bit of hay andthe other stuff yesturday. She gave up eating half through the meal which never happened before. One moment she ate at normal speed sometimes spazzing with her feet ( pain?) and fev seconds later she went lethargic and started chewing very slowly eventualy stopping, keeping the food in the mouth but not chewing or chewing very slowly...

She was a bit lethargic in the afternoon ( she always was calm but this was a bit too much) so we decided to take her to vet in the morning, at the evening feeding she still was lethergic but ate a bit faster, she ate half of what she normally did and i put her back in the cage, she hanged her head off the shelf and seemed to be resting. Before bed i checked on her one more time and i noticed she was swaying and going limp in my hand, i immediately decided we had to go to the vet becuse something was terribly wrong. She didnt seem to have problems with breathing, she squeked a fev times and went silent, unfortunatley before the cab arrived she was most likely already dead. 15 minutes later at the vets the doctor after trying to ventilate her a bit and checkign her pupil dialation said she was gone. I noticed no nostrils flaring on the buss stop and started tryign to vent her a little bit but ofcourse it wasnt enough.

Im at a loss to what happened, was it my tough food put in her mouth, was it the 5mm long cut up  broken up strips of hay? was it the medicine? She seemed fine 2 days earlier running around and being active after having her leg bandage changed... was it a shock due to tooth ake when eating? Despite the sickness she was slowly improving both in eating and  with the healing of the leg. Im tormented by the question what happened?

If anyone think this looks familiar and may know what this might have been please help me out.

[GrayRodent]

I'm so sorry you lost your pet. You certainly did everything you could, more than most would. You must have really been attached.
Your best option would have been a necropsy and not at the same vet clinic. I'm horrified about the leg. That indicates to me the vet may not have been qualified to do that procedure and causes me to wonder about the diagnosis. Also a qualified vet would have prescribed a much different diet for syringe feeding. I am very skeptical about your vet.

I think the most likely cause of the anorexia is going to be dental problems and may be the root cause. Dental problems -> Anorexia -> malnourishment -> urinary tract infection -> organ failure is a possible chain but that is a big guess. Dental problems seem to be the leading cause of chinchilla deaths (as a root cause) and if the teeth were filed it's likely the problem started there. It is one reason it is advisable to get your chinchilla from a reputable breeder as bad selective breeding practices can result in dental deformities which is always terminal once they manifest.

Female chinchillas can get urinary tract and uterine infections as well. When a chinchilla is malnourished they can get any kind of infection very easily. I also have a feeling that her weight was low for a while and that her normal weight was closer to 500 which is more typical for a female chinchilla. Chinchillas can hide sickness well and they're usually in pretty bad shape by the time symptoms appear. It does sound like the organs were involved which weakened your pet to the effects of anesthesia and antibiotics. NSAIDs are very hard on kidneys as well, although you didn't mention them, if you were giving pain killers, that is a possible culprit for kidney failure.

It's great you were able to see such an improvement in weight considering the recovery diet was less than optimal. I don't think it was the cause though because you were able to get the weight back up. I'm going to guess that the death was caused by a number of things including the anesthesia and stress from the dental surgery.

[corvus]

No pain killers were given, her diet was just her normal food pellets versele laga nature  with a couple of spoons of water in a 20mg syringe which she ate one to two a day depending on what else she ate. She got one or two feedings worth of the rescue food powder and maybe im wrong but i thought that her normal food just a bit soggy will be fine and so did all 3 vets we consulted. I tried to give her that cut up hay because i cant put that in syringe and previously i jsut gave her denser pellets to eat dry but no hay and she got rapidly worse, im a bit afraid i might have harmed her with the most solid type food. She peed normaly, from almost clear to typical orange. The first vet was terrible, gave her pain meds once or twice basicaly just guessing, they tried to draw that blood and after 40 minutes (of a procedure that i was told would take 20) behind closed doors ( i think they used rebeca to train an intern) i got back a chin with a bum leg...

Second vet took blood very professionaly the chin didnt seem to care, but he interpreted the results all wrong saying everything is fine... he, like the previous one didnt notice the toothshelf that was growing into the back of the inside of her mouth.

The third vet noticed that tooth spike imediately and she improved even started nibbling on food by herself a bit. they also said the blood results were terrible and after a month got her levels back in the norms...

but she progresively lost interest in food, i mainly thaught it was due to handfeeding which she didnt like much, half the times she gladly accepted treats (no raisins were given tho, nothing sugary)

THe weight i kept between 430-470 and she had no say in the matter, two feedingsa day because i was hoping shell get hungry in the breaks. On one hand you want her fed on the other you want to incentivise her to eat...

I got terribly attached because i was handfeeding that little critter for about 3 months, and i didnt want to get a new pet after my dog died over 10 years ago because i get attached too much and when they die or suffer i feel like i must save them because im their only help. So a sick chinchilla daycare that ends in a failure to cure was the worst nightmare coming true. She learnt to not be too picky just eat, and she was very calm. She was the more huggable human liking kind of chinchilla, very trusting for one and as obidient as a chin who gets forcefeed by his owner can be after a while...

I dont want to burn her, i don't want to freeze her, i don't want to cut her open, tomorrow we bury her next to my dog. I was just hoping for some explanation that makes sense, we didn't expect this... she went down in about 48 hours  when she was on the way to a cured leg and fattening her up a bit more, two days ago she was happy running around the house fast and active...

The vet that told us shes gone didnt know what it could be, she said they get heart attacks, cancer, some undiagnosed organ failing that we didnt detect and titnt treat for... i read on seizures due to stress that shut down the body and kill a chin and i worry the tooth ake might been a shock to the system she didn't recover from... which would mean i overdone it and wanting to give her some harder foods so that we dont have to file her teeth i killed her by accident.

[GrayRodent]

I'm not too concerned about the diet. Usually when a chinchilla is very sick and low weight you want to feed that powder mix regularly. When they cannot chew normal food, for example, right after a tooth filing, a softer mix is recommended. The only thing I would have done differently was fed more of the powdered recovery diet and kept a supply of hay and pellets in the cage, but, that is assuming the chinchilla has normal teeth. It sounds like you were doing that for the most part. If your pet is not eating that you have to feed that powder mix to revive it, but even that doesn't always work depending on sick the animal is.

Your biggest indicator of proper diet is fecal output. If the output is low, small, and hard, you could be dealing with a condition like gastrointestinal status, which does require soft food fed in frequent intervals in small amounts to treat. Sometimes it requires other medications, stimulants, and simethecone. If fecal output stops you know you're pet is dying and hospitalization is usually necessary from that point. The best strategy is prevention before it gets that bad because sometimes it is not reversible once the bowels shut down.

Considering its long history of problems I think it just came time for this one. Sadly, dental issues, primarily congenital malocclusion, typically progresses slowly and it is an incurable disease. Filings get the part they can see, but the root system can do a lot of damage inside the skull that cannot be accessed and cause massive infections that can damage organs as well. This can be usually assessed with xrays. Anesthesia likely played a prominent role in your pet's death. Two days after surgery I've seen problems reportedly show up with other pets that often include seizures. Sometimes they make it through but the weaker ones usually do not. Your story is sadly typical of typical of chinchillas with dental problems. Unfortunately it is also a very sad commentary on the state of veterinary care in general for exotic pets. Good training is very hard to come by but even with good training and the best facilities there are no guarantees. I'm very sorry for your loss. It sounds to me like you've done everything reasonable plus some. Don't beat yourself up over it.

[corvus]

I dont think she was anestesised for the filing, she jsut had her mouth open i held her ( altho not the last time i wasnt the one taking her to the vet) and the vet just took a file scraped3 or 4 times and was done. She didnt show problems with maloclusion beyond the first time the back tooth spike or "shelf" as the vet said was removed. THat was also done awake, she teared up then once but was just perfectly fine a minute after... there was sugestion that there might be a root thats a bit big but it was in line with all other roots, meaning not overgrown, and there were no bumps under her jaw that signify overgrown roots inflamation. The vet shop we stuck with had two doctors specialists with exotic rodents, the owner was one, realy driven guy who served as city zoo vet. THere was only one more recomended vet in my city for exotic rodents.

She pooped ok, it wasnt shiny but it was alot of slightly smaller pellets black and not loose, she went through~50 mg of food every day so there was no g-e stasis i think

http://i.imgur.com/fGAnDwn.jpg
this was her xray before any tooth adjustments

and this is the blood she had when treatment started:
Szynszyl, Rebeca Identyfikator:
age: 3
Badanie Wynik Jedn. Norma
morphology
WBC 9.3 10^3/µl
RBC 6.61 mln/µl
HGB 10.3 g/dl
HCT 33.3 %
MCV 50.4 fl
MCH 15.6 pg
MCHC 30.9 g/dl
PLT 564 10^3/µl
acidophilic 29 %
granulocyte segmented 57 %
limfocyte 12 %
monocyte 1 %
Opis
granulocyte basophilic   1
minor discoloration of eritrocytes
quite visible anizocytoze of erytrocytes
minor anizocytoze of thrombocytes
ASPAT 317,2 U/l
ALAT 32,3 U/l
AP 114,7 U/l
urea 111,5 mg/dl
creatinine 1,39 mg/dl
protein total 5,93 g/dl
glukose 239,8 m

This propably too technical to tell much to a laiman but maybe You are passionate about chins to the level that that would ring a bell.

Anny way, it gives me a bit of solace that its not most likely fault of me feeding her that damn cut mashed straw.. she didnt get more than just a loose teaspoon per feeding. ThankYou.

[BLS Chins]

Sounds like your chin had several problems

I will start by saying any vet who doesnt use anesthesia to file teeth can not do it properly and is incompetent. There is no safe way to restrain a chinchilla to do a dental. They are painful and time consuming to do properly. A spur means the teeth werent wearing properly which can be caused by the teeth not lining up correctly or the chin chewing more on one side of the mouth. Were xrays done to check the roots? If not, its possible they were over grown and could have caused the neurological symptoms you saw. All it takes is one over grown root up into the brain... looking for lumps on the jaw doesnt rule out root problems Any time there is a tooth problem xrays need to be done to gauge how severe they are.

The kidney failure is a whole separate problem which is not relate to the teeth and drooling in any way. Kidney failure can be genetic if the chin is young or a normal aging thing based on how old your chin is. There is no treatment for kidney failure. All you can do is support the function which is what the medication you were given helped with. Sub q fluids also help which should have been discussed by your vet.

[GrayRodent]

Judging by those x-rays I think those teeth have been bad for a while. One side is very curved and on the other side the roots appear to me be be much longer than normal. This kind of malocclusion is either congenital or caused by severe calcium deficiency at a young age, both can be caused by poor breeding practices. This lends to the idea that congenital kidney failure could have occurred, also a result of poor breeding practices and failure to removed affected animals from the line. The asymmetry is very telling. Also your vet got a nice xray of her fingers in there. I'm guessing from that they didn't use anesthesia to take the images. I'm not knowledgeable enough to interpret the blood work although some day I hope to learn more about it. Kidney failure is usually not diagnosed in pet chinchillas because of the expense of the testing. Thank you for posting that though. It may be helpful for others who are more knowledgeable in that area. I'm still a little skeptical of the treatment. Normally when teeth are filed anesthesia is used so they don't have to rush through it. As far as exactly how bad the x-rays are you'd have to get a second opinion from someone who sees these regularly. My opinion is they are clearly laterally asymmetric and the upper molars are especially deformed. They don't appear to be extreme but keep in mind infection is always a possibility with this kind of problem.

[corvus]

i think they might have avoided anesthesia because of the bloodwork. We were told that anesthetic even a gas can kill a rodent like that because htey have weak hearts. So i wouldnt want them to use it and risk it altho the zwierzetarnia vets said that their gas anesthesia ( because we were concidering removing the bum leg at that point if it worsened) is so light that they wake up as soon as you remove the mask and that theres no such threat. On first visit there the vet just snipped the teeth with the pliers then filed and it was done. He seemed to know what he was doing, hes known and recomended all arround. We stumbled on a vet technician on the buss one day and she told us they send all small and exotic rodents away to zwierzetarnia vets because they are the best and they can sample blood from one drop which is big statement from a competitor vet to send away clients to their comeptition.

BLS chins
http://i.imgur.com/fGAnDwn.jpg
this was her xray before any tooth adjustments

THe vets that @#!ed up the bloodwork said there might be root problem, the second vet didnt realy know they went on what they heard from us from the first vet and in zwierzetarnia they said the roots are a bit bigger than usual but they form a uniform line meaning none is growing more than the other so they may jsut be like that especialy that there wasnt inflamation. He just removed the spurr that went in her cheek and gave her a little soothing cream that day after the procedure. she was fine for 3 months. We checked teeth every other visit and all times but one, they always said they are even and dont need filing, if she werent drooling a bit they propably wouldnt have filed them the last time they did.

The sugar was terribly high, so she was getting two injections of fluid under skin to  wash away the excess sugar clean her up and hydrate her because it was a heatwave that time...

The first two vets were incompetent for sure, not noticing the spurr despite looking in the mouth on two ocasions and one being further family of ours was checkign it for over 10 minutes and didnt notice the spurr... the first one @#!ed up the leg and failed to draw a blood sample and the second one sampled the blood very well but didnt have the knowledge to interpret the results... Only at zwierzetarnia they started treating her and diagnosed some problems. previous vets were at a loss and basicaly seemed to be guessing...

[GrayRodent]

Like I've said before dental problems of this type is a terminal disease. You can't really save an animal that has it. You can only prolong its life and delay the inevitable until the complications from infection, pain, and treatments snowball out of control. Typically for a pet in this condition I would recommend euthanasia. In fact I put my first chinchilla down for malocclusion alone but some people are willing to keep going as long as they can.

As far as gas, even light doses of isofluorane, which is typically what they use for these procedures including x-rays, tooth filing, and drawing blood, is not without risks, especially in an animal in renal failure. If they told you there is no risk they are not being accurate. It is still considered to be anesthesia although the risk is considerably lower than IV anesthesia such as propofol.
The stress from the procedures in addition to all of that can also be lethal to chinchillas.

You also mentioned there was a heat wave in the area causing dehydration. What temperature was your pet being kept at? Temperatures above 24 degrees C can be very harmful to them. Above 27C can produce significant liver and kidney damage.

[BLS Chins]

Any anesthesia is a risk but you can't do a proper dental without it. They could have done more damage by not using it than if they actually had. Ive had many anesthesia procedures before and chins do well if you have an experienced vet. Their heart handles just fine unless they have a murmur, in which case they make certain adjustments ands in most cases can still do certain procedures. Sounds like your vet wasn't confident enough to do the dental correctly but didn't want to lose the sale.... The xrays do show over grown roots, it's not severe but they are not normal for sure.

[corvus]

Heatwave was 3 months before death, so i dont think it had much to do with it, we ventilated the cage and when she went outside to teh vet she always had a water soaked towel covering the top of the basket and a bottle of ice on top of it  to keep things cooling.

Regarding the no risk comment, well maybe it was a figure of speech meaning theres no big threat, no real threat to use of such anesthesia. The death seemed sudden and unexpected. I asked if we will have to put her down but they told me that theres absolutley no need and she will live for an extended period of time. I was just about to buy a year supply of her daily liver drugs and when i told them that they said to absolutely go ahead and do that. Yes i was told the roots are bigger than usual but they were even so he suggested that might just be how they are... she was saving her left hand side of her teeth because the front chompers were lightly slanted.

Shes been buried now and we planted a hazelnut tree on top of her, if it takes root it will be a nice gesture maybe we can get some twigs or nuts for the other. I was hoping to keep Rebecca alive for as long as possible i didnt expect such abrupt end. By the way let me say that its angers me to no end that you cant legaly burry your own pet on your own land in poland, but you can buy a whole chicken and dump it in a field unburried and thats not a biohazard...

We are thinking about getting a new chin so the other one wont be lonely, just a bit afraid of something like that repeating or, since the remaining one was always a bit of a wild independent one, of her atacking the new one.

Anyway we will give it a month or two, maybe remaining ones time alone will make her much more forward to interacting with humans in a better way than just treating them as mobile treat dispencers ( am i foolish to hope for that? id like her to start to like petting) is a change in character like that possible in a 3 year old chin when shes lonely? Is it risky buying a new chin for her since shes a bit more independent type? (wont she kill it?)

[BLS Chins]

A change in personality is normal after a change like that. Was the other chin caged with this one? If so thats to be expected. If you choose to get another chin, i would strongly encourage you to go to a reputable breeder. Liver failure and teeth issues at 3 yrs old is most likely due to a genetic issue. Make sure to quarantine your new chin for a month before trying to introduce to your other chin. Be aware that its possible that your chin may not ever want another cage mate and that 2 cages may be a permanent thing.

[corvus]

ITs a big cage maybe theyl fit together, the chins were diferent breeds (Rebecca was standard and Kaja is an albino) from the same breeder and the remaining one never had any issues. I was told he was chosen because he was reputable and didnt breed them for fur.

Hopefully shell get more domesticated as You say altho shes being her usual slef now. tearing off wallpaper under the bed... what an ass ( its an old wall paper tho and it doesnt stick to the wall as neatly which i guess provokes her nibbling) I wrote to the vet that healed Rebecca asking if she has a clue and would she be interested to what happened maybe She will respond i dont think those vets were trying to milk it or were dishonest they realy seemed to care alot. Atleast compared to the leg wizzard... "passionate and masterful surgeon" that cant draw blood and maims the pet, how hard is it to hold a chin still, you just grab it firmly but without pressure. I was doing it with one hand ( chin between forearm and my corpus and the leg in my hand) when i was putting cream on her heels which reminds me, she had a condition on the bottom of her feet called pododermatitis, hardened skin, we cured one leg pretty fast completley with an enzyme cream the other was almost perfect needed a small touch up. Maybe that foot ailment corelated with something...

Thank You for Your input. I hope my questions are not too silly, ultimately id rather ask than overlook something.

[BLS Chins]

Breeding for fur or not is not what makes a reputable breeder. A reputable breeder will keep pedigrees, show, give health guarantees, be knowledgeable about chins, have good vet references.... I know several breeders who pelt that are reputable.

FYI chins dont come in breeds. They come in colors. Chinchillas genetically can not come in albino (and if thats what your breeder called it then they are not reputable). Albino chins die in utero before they develop. A white chin with red eyes is a pink white, meaning it carries a white and a beige gene. Some will get spots and others do not.

[GrayRodent]

Yes, fur producers tend to have a good reputation because of the need for health and high quality in their herds, although there are some caveats if you wish to obtain pets from them. I also concur that if your breeder cannot properly use standard terminology he does not have a good grasp of basic breeding practices. It is to find that information on this and it really looks bad. A reputable breeder will also be very interested in the problems you are having in order to trace the lineage and remove those chinchillas from breeding that carry the faulty genes. Both of my pet chinchillas have pedigrees. My first chinchilla did not and I euthanized him after he got sick and was diagnosed with malocclusion.