Hi, I found you guys while looking for information on a possible stroke in my 15 year old male chinchilla. I have had him for 14.5 years and he had eye surgery when he was about two and aside from some digestive problems has been fine. I feed him the Oxbow pellets and grass hay, he has a tri-level tower cage in the living room and interacts with us and the other animals daily. On Wednesday morning I found he had not eaten anything overnight and thought he might be having some digestive issues to I got him out and gave him a belly massage, and was going to monitor him throughout the day. He did eat a raisin (using both paws), so I was not too concerned yet. A couple hours later I got him out to give him another belly massage and I was going to put him in the bathroom to run around. When I got him out he bit me hard, this is not typical. He was clearly upset with me so I released him back in his cage. We went over to his litter pan and laid down... he has never done that before... he laid in his litter pan all day, with his head sort of tilted. I put fresh dust in the lower level and he showed no interest..not typical. I thought he would not make it through the day, I thought that his time had come and I would let him be in peace wherever he wanted to be. By evening he had perked up a little. I moved his dust to the main level and by night time he was getting in and rolling a little. I was still pretty certain he would be gone by morning... but I made him up some Oxbow Critical Care and just left it in a bowl in the cage along with every other kind of food I had. Yesterday morning he was not only still alive but he ate all the Critical Care and drank a lot of water. When I was watching him I saw his is now dragging his left front leg and he is tilted to the left. I got him out and I could not find anything wrong with the leg, but I did not want to stress him too much. He does not try to use the leg at all, the whole leg is just dragging. He is still with us tonight. He is skittish, still dragging that leg and a bit lethargic. I am wondering if he might have had a stroke, not a heat stroke, but a brain bleed stroke. It is very cool in our house.. not over 64 F and usually not even that warm. Just wondering if anyone has had an old chinchilla do this sort of thing, I have not taken him to the vet as I pretty much thought the trip would kill him and just wanted him to go quietly at home.
