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1

General Chat / Good cheap excercise wheel for a polish chinchilla

« on: August 23, 2016, 02:15:01 AM »

Hi, we were looking for a sturdy cagemounted saucer or wheel/bowl dype excercise wheel for our chins but cant find anygood ones in poland or maybe cheaply imported from china? we look for a silent and sturdy wheel as the chins broke the flat wooden disc before and they realy need some excercise.

DO you have any recommendations?

2

Health / Re: Sudden dizzyness.

« on: March 09, 2016, 06:32:33 PM »

Could a chin be starving itself because it doesnt like versele laga nature food? Would seizure ocurr after getting peas after starving herself for a while? I ask because i think the chin might have been not eating well. She browses through pellets throwing 70-80% of them away. I noticed the feed didnt dissapear as fast as it normaly did altho i just gave them alot of fresh hay after a weeks absence of it so i thaught that might been it. Anyhow i have added a bit of the feed that the new chin (Dusty) was on when she was at the breeders farm about half a handfull and i noticed it was all gone this morning. Versele laga pellets remained but the breeders feed was all gone. I have seen her eat many times and she does that several times even as i write this tho she has just the versele feed now.
Also waterbottle was staying full for a long time so i lowered it and she drank from it for about 1,5 minute non stop and shortly later again for a a minute and again i think she downed like 10-20ml.

She also has a small soar on one of her hind legs like the furr was ripped out, doesnt look very fresh nor bloody, its a bit of furrless skin with shie to it and a bit of  redness. Ill make photos tommorow... I dont think thats Kajas doing tho because the chin isnt afraid of her and usualy when in playfull mood Dusty chases after Kaja

Overall i noticed she had more energy today. much less scared of us, much more playfull and relaxed (bit me to blood when she was trying to catch my fingers, didnt expect so much strength usualy they nibble much less intensely but it was the first time, maybe she didnt know how much she can allow herself to bite down on them. Anyway im a bit reasurred that she has no problems with teeth causing seizures by roots growing into her brain or something she doesnt stray from hard foods either)  so shes definitley less shy and not afraid of my hand that much). She didnt ran away from us all the time. She managed to sit arround very near or crawl arround my hands without panicking at the slightest sound. Im wondering if its the breeders food or is she just finaly acomodating to us. There was also much more chatter than usual in the cage between the chins today. And she was running fast like a maniac for a short moment when outside so she seemed revitalised...

Im keeping her outsidethe cage time in short 15-30 minutes bursts now usualy under direct supervision so i can notice any seizures. None today.

A bit anxious about blood tests on her, after what happened to Rebeca and her leg and Rebeca was twice as big and a very non-twitchy, calm animal...
Were gonna observe her for a fev more days before we go to the vet.

3

Health / Re: Sudden dizzyness.

« on: March 08, 2016, 12:44:14 PM »

Yea, saw her have thesame thing again just now . She wasnt outside the cage for long.  She was hopping arround and over me for 5 minutes and then i repeated the come to my hand command which she completed thrice, i gave her one pea. She went on nibbling on it for a while and then had a seizure, problems with mobility,  body low, legs wide, after she started to be mobile again after 1-15 seconds i noticed shivering. shivering alsted for another 10 seconds and then she was fine. Im gonna have to take her to the vet -.-

The cage was cleaned yesturday, she had fresh hay, food, watter and calcium. Im starting to fear shes so scared and reserved because shes suffering from something.
The other chin slips on her alot and they cuddle together almost all the time. I remember Kaja did that to Rebeca when Rebeca was mortally ill

4

Health / Re: Bleeding foot pad

« on: March 04, 2016, 04:56:19 AM »

One of my chins had severe bumblefoot where she had calusses formed. An fatty enzyme balm was used that ate away the calusses and the condition healed just fine.
It was recommended to take away her sand for a while, clean up the cage and leave paper instead of the usual wood granules.
The condition healed fine in that environment. the shelves were wooden and the bottom of the cage was plastic. I read that sand and/or metal mesh cage bottoms can cause and worsen the condition so make sure chin is on comfortable surfaces.

5

Health / Re: chinchilla not chewing - food or toys - but vet can't find problem - help!

« on: March 04, 2016, 04:49:25 AM »

Not eating may be due to many factors, not eating may cause a series of complications. If shes eating now thats very good. From my experience, id recoment checking up at diferent vets, a specialist in exotic small animals, rodents especialy. I went to 3 vets some multiple times and the first two said the chin was fine, blood was fine. First vet botched up her leg so she couldnt walk propertly for months and had severe leg problems because of a failed attempt to take blood sample. Second vet took a blood sample fine but couldnt read the results correctly. Third vet noticed the blood urea was 12 times out of norm instnatly, and there was a tooth spurr that was going into her cheek at the very back ( 1st vet examined her teeth twice and didnt see it, second ,once for about 15 minutes and didnt see it.

It most likely was a bad kidney, a managable state that with luck could left the animal alive and well if properly medicated (could but didnt, she was getting on the upp and upp and then she just died suddenly hence were not sure it was the tooth or the kidney), altho that kidney could have been a complication not the cause. The spurr may have caused kidney problems due to bad diet, the kidney may have caused the spurr due to not eating and grinding teeth as much as she should have. It may have been something else. Chins are so small and exotic its hard to diagnose them and hard to heal them and theres not many specialists experienced with them.

6

Health / Re: Sudden dizzyness.

« on: March 04, 2016, 04:33:59 AM »

It might have been stress, shes very untrusting still so if she is expected to come out for a treat you often see her go back and forth back and forth on short distance or half way and then back if i ever as much as brethe too loudly if i sit across the room. Im thinking about switching the rewards to oats. The cage is usualy jsut open and they come out and in as they please altho yesturday i opened it later than usual.

Im constantly watching the new one for interest in cables, fortunatley where she sits theres only an internet cable which isnt under current. The older chin, Kaja some years ago (i wasnt living here so its not my fault) has managed to grab a cable from a lamp that was on and pull it inside the cage. Then bitten through it causing entire houses electrical system to short. She wasnt fried so it propably wasnt that bad of a shock but something must have happened because since that she never touched a cable, and the new one seems to understand that those "cable" things which i always shoo her away from and the bigger chin never bites are not to be eaten.

Compared to a dog chins seem to learn faster because a dog will try to swindle you out of the treat without doing the work, he will get distracted easily, loose focus, try to play more than learn. I have been observing chins react to changes in the room, and they seem to map it very fast. Once acces to a spot gets blocked and they sucesfully spent some time in there before (30min-1h is enough) without being bothered they will try for months to get back in there. They learn paths, so if they want to run away they instantly go to the nearest escape route. The chin seems a bit of a simpler machine that has less unexpectability to it and learns simple commands with positive reinforcement bloody fast. The negative side seems to be that they are way less trusting because theyre bottom feeders, its harder to build a bond in them. Cause the owners? we bond very fast to anything with big eyes and ears

I was watching chin seizures on youtube it looked simmilar enough altho they didnt seem to turn to one side, lean on one side, with Dusty i expected it may have been something with the inner ear, looked so. The seizure hasnt repeat itself, she didnt get as much pea as the day it happened since... she has been less focused on and left  outside for shorter periods. And i packed alot of hay tightly so they didnt ripp it up in one night.

Is there a better way to keep them from tearing the hay up completley first day they get it? Maybe theres a trick, or a better container i am unaware of. I just have an open top wall mounted wire "pocket" for hay type thing...

7

Health / Re: Sudden dizzyness.

« on: March 03, 2016, 05:15:22 AM »

Didnt look at the ears at the time, its a  violet chinchilla with her gay ears it wouldnt stand out. My chins are playing outside for several hours, they are not active at all times. 80% of that time they sit behind a short cupboard (where i can easily acces cause the cupboard is on wheels but they think its an impenetrable fortress where no human can enter... because i dont have to do that often) they just sit there conspiring as to where to rip upp my old wallpaper next...

It might have been stress and activity, i train her in sessions for about 10 minutes each and she isnt trusting us fully yet so you can see its very anxious to her to come to the spot i point to as she usualy evacuates to her cupboard after shes given the reward. (Altho im making rapid progress, she seems easier to train than a dog and  before yesturdays incident she stood put and ate near me) Im going to observe her. She has been given versele laga nature and a bunch of dried twigs at all times, she also has acces to calcium.  She didnt have hay except for whats in versele laga (thaught twigs are enough, they usualy ripp it up and ignore the one thats on the floor so it never lasts longer than a day) I have multivitamin for pets i can add a drop or two to their water.

8

Health / Sudden dizzyness.

« on: March 02, 2016, 05:55:16 PM »

Hi, we bought a new chinchilla to replace the one that died couple months ago because the remaining one, Kaja, was starting to desperately call for a chinchilla contact.

So we got this new kit now for a month and everything seems perfectly fine except today when i was feeding her a dried pea she had something like a short inability to keep balance, it lasted about 15-20 seconds she started to move slowly and turn strongly to the left clumsily i picked her up and she leaned left, i felt a little shivering and then it passed, she was perfectly fine. Im paranoid knowing how delicate these animals are. Was it just a muscle cramp or dizzyness?
Im teaching her to come where i tap 3 times and i use the halves of dried pea and whole dried pea as an incentive. I didn't see her fall or knock her head, infact she  avoids heights bigger than 30-40centimeters yet and shes less coordinated than the adult chin but she likes to bounce on the floor and almost does backflips especialy when she can backflip on the older chin cause she wants to play. After the event nothing seemed damaged, teeth seem even, all fingers at their normal angles, stomath normal to touch, she grinded her teeth a bit but its sporadic. She poops alot so she eats and her poop from a looser consistency changed to a normal harder consistency since week 1 in new environment where she got the new feed. Its week 3 shes with us she grown by about 1/3 in that time. So she seems to be healthy and developing fine

She approached my hand with the treat normaly, then again in a diferent spot, then again and she got the treat and she started turning left. Can dizzyness or a muscle cramp be normal in young growing chins?

9

Health / Re: unexpected death

« on: November 13, 2015, 04:52:25 AM »

oh, well theres a translation barrier here and i called it albino not sure how the breeder called it. I called it albino because its almost pure white and has red eyes so thats albino in my head... sorry for the misnomer. I think its propertly named pink white as you said, light ears white fur almost purely white.

10

Health / Re: unexpected death

« on: November 11, 2015, 05:03:09 PM »

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.

11

Health / Re: unexpected death

« on: November 11, 2015, 09:41:52 AM »

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?)

12

Health / Re: unexpected death

« on: November 11, 2015, 02:15:33 AM »

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...

13

Health / Re: unexpected death

« on: November 10, 2015, 02:16:07 PM »

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.

14

Health / Re: unexpected death

« on: November 10, 2015, 10:08:40 AM »

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.

15

Health / unexpected death

« on: November 10, 2015, 07:38:17 AM »

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.