Chinchilla Community Forums
Chinchillas => Q & A => Topic started by: Squirrel_Butt on May 24, 2012, 01:57:14 PM
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Hi
2 chins are showing signs of weight loss. Raisin is a year and a half and went from 796g in April to 762g today. Her son Clyde who is 9 months went from 594g in April to 592g today. I'm more concerned about Raisin's loss as a 2 gram fluctuation is normal.
Raisin's daughter Bonnie went from 590g in April to 634 g today.
Other than ramped up monitoring, should I take any other action right now?
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Are they getting a good feed? How much exercise are they getting?
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They are on Mazuri. Clyde and his sister Bonnie are not permitted to run in my room until they get a little bigger. there are areasthat they can get stuck in that I can't reach or b lock off adequately. Bonnie has gained weight though nevertheless. I will be letting the 2 adults out tomorrow night. Its been a while since I let them out but I finally have a free satyurday to do it.
Chip, the oldest one still has his weight and has not been out in a while either.
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I think if you're worried you should always get them checked by a vet.
It could be teeth or something else.
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hi there,
i'm not going to say nothing is wrong with your chins cuz i dont know that, but i do know that weights will always vary, for a few reasons.. my vet has told me that before. i weigh my guys once a month, here is some of their weights:
587 - 598-587-589-581-570-564-560-574-566-583-590-574 -- his highest weight is: 635
644-687-704-680-676-671-647-657-665-665-657-633-654-640
552-641-650-668-675-687-693-668-613-630-615-630
just for a few of my chinnies... they are all healthy [knock on wood, hope i didnt just jinx myself.. :)] theres quite a difference from some of their highest and lowest weights.. i forget exactly how much my vet had said is normal weight change, but if it isn't super drastic, i wouldnt worry... as long as everything else is normal... eating, playing..etc..
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Here is a statistical analysis of those weights. The first data point on the third chinchilla is anomalous so I have removed it. Also we are assuming a margin of error of +/-0% which may not be reasonable unless your chin stays perfectly still on the scale and that I have made no errors in computation.
The greatest observed fluctuation per month based on the average weight is 8.5 percent.
The greatest fluctuation of all three in chinchilla #3 at 55g which is 8.4% of its healthy weight.
If we bring in the questionable data point the greatest observed flux is 89g at 14% of its avg healthy weight.
Since I do not have Raisin's avg weight all I can say is that the 34g fluctuation is 4.27% of the 796g data point.
To put this in perspective:
Chinchilla #1 max flux is 3%
Chinchilla #2 max flux is 6%
Chinchilla #3 max flux is 8% and average flux is about 3.5%
Raisin's recorded flux for one data point is 4%
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So I should just keep checking them and really worry if the weight drops sharply then?
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again, it depends on how much... like if you see a 50 gram or more weight loss in a week or two, i might worry, but if its 50 over a period of a few months, like my third list, the highst weight is 668 and the lowest is 613 [50 gram difference] but that wasn't 50 in one month. ... weights will always vary.
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Ok so only worry if they lose alot within a week?