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[Shylynn]

Hi everyone, As of xmas I am a new Chinchilla owner...

I "rescued" a Chin from my sisters bf, I went over their place on xmas and saw he had a chin living in a large cat carrier.  Poor thing had no water in its water bowl and his food bowl was filled with Raisin Bran :/  I was drawn to the lil guy, it was the 1st time I have seen a Chin in real life.  He like to be pet on his head and under his chin, but as of yet I have not been able to pick him up. I brought him home and he is currently living in my old rabbit's hutch (its wooden with a grate at the bottom wire front door and i "private" area to the side)  Is this okie for him to be living in or should I get a cage meant for Chinchillas?  My neighbor has a Guinea Pig and gave me alil food to get me thru the weekend until I can get to the pet store to get Chinchilla food, lil guy seems to love the variety in this food.
My questions are since he has been living on Raisin Bran is there any sort of vitamins  or anything I should get him to make sure he is now getting the right nutrients? He also has clumps of hair on his back that look like "mats" you would see on a cat or dog, they are very hard, Will a dust bath help remove these mats or would it be okie if i were to cut them off or shave them off?  I am worried about them pulling on his skin.  I plan on taking him to a vet as soon as possible to have his heatlh checked out and make sure he is 100% okie.  I've had this lil guy for not even 24hrs yet and he has snuck into my heart, he seems to be happy hopping around his cage he has even learned to grab the wire door and shake it when he wants my attention lol
Any tips you guys could give me would be helpful. Thank you so much and I look forward to having "Chilla" around for a long time

[dianah]

oh dear! poor little thing, glad you got him and it really sounds like a rescue, not like a "rescue"!

first of all, food. they have very sensitive digestive system and any change in food needs to be done very gradually by adding new food and reducing old food - over about a month or so. the food you've got from your guinea pig neighbour.. i would suggest you give him just hay rather than introducing guinea pig food. he can have some bran but i'd take the raisins away. as for vitamins & minerals, the main two things are vit c and calcium - they would normally get this from a healthy diet - i would wait for the vet visit. they will check his teeth to see if he gets enough calcium - no point in you trying if you can't put him up and there's not that much you could do until the vet visit anyway. also, he was getting bran and cereal is fortified with vitamins and minerals.
keep monitoring his poo. they are pooping machines and should constantly produce droppings. these should be smooth, with round edges. if they are small and dry - not good. if they have sharp edges - not good. if they are so soft they are easily squashed - not good. if they stick together - definitely not good. if they are liquid - panic, code red, emergency vet.
raisins can cause diarrhea and if he's been eating these a lot, taking them away could cause constipation. if you do notice his poo going hard and small after you take the raisins away, i would give him a few and wean him off them slowly.

dust bath will help his fur, it will take a while. they also shed fur quite readily so once he gets to know you better, you may be able to tug on them and they come out. my rescue gets a little clumps of fur around her mouth because i need to give her medicine and liquid food and some of it goes on her fur. they do come out although she's not too keen
i wouldn't shave or cut them but i would try to help them out if he's happy for you to do that. you could also try brushing him with a soft cat hook wire brush if he lets you.

cage, he would very much enjoy having shelves and ledges so perhaps you could look into getting him a chinchilla cage in the future but i think for now he's delighted with what he's got after living in a cat carrier.

it's very encouraging that he already lets you stroke him! well done! good luck! xxx

[ABC Chinchillas]

I would not just take the rasins away I would take the whole thing away, The easiest way to do a cold switch is to give just hay for 2 days lots and lots of loose hay then introduce food. In a case like this a fast switch is necessary. The "bran" in raisin bran is no better for him than the raisins.  Variety is not good for chinchillas get him a plain pellet like Oxbow or Mazuri, nothing with treats and crap in it. People need variety, variety can cause GI stasis and death in chinchillas.... Fresh water, plain high quality pellets and Hay as well as some wooden chew blocks is what a chinchilla needs to thrive.  No more than 1 healthy treat a day

[dianah]

i thought a sudden change could cause stasis?

[ABC Chinchillas]

sometimes you have to weigh the options and in this case the bigger risk is continuing the raisin bran. A cold switch (sudden switch) can be done in extreme cases (like hamster food/birdfood ect) if you pull the feed and give just hay for a few days followed by the better feed. I have also had to do sudden switches when I have purchased chinchillas and they got here with no feed.

[dianah]

ah, i was thinking that's probably the case. my friend became a incidental chinchilla mum when she caught a chinchilla in the rain (!!!) and no one claimed him. he obviously came with no food. he's doing great!

so i guess it happens a lot with rescues. i did leave the chinchilla mix in mae's diet for a while but pulled the banana chips. she hardly ate anything though so i thought by leaving some of her food in, she would at least eat something. she's on pellets and hay now though and she likes both, it's pretty cool to see her eat hay

[Shylynn]

Thanks for all the advice guys   I went out and got him some Chinchilla food, Wood chews for chinchillas, Alfalfa hay and the lady at the pets store who takes care of the chins there recommended bird millet since they give it as a treat to the chins there.  I have a vet date set for this friday (trying to find a vet familiar with chins was a task in its own).  He already devoured the 1st wood chew and I have mixed some of the Chin food with some raisin bran (took out the raisins) so that i can ween him off of it.  He isnt that fond of they but loves the millet.  He also got his 1st dust bath today and I gotta say I was laughing at the lil guy rolling around. How often should he get a dust bath?  I left him there till he hopped out of the lil house i got to put the dust in which was 15 mins or so.
 I am also looking into finding some space so that I can get him this huge cage with 4 levels. 
The thing that still concerns me are the hair mats on his back, I tried tugging at them but I didnt want to hurt him and they didnt budge, so I will let the vet look at them. 

I have to say even tho he hasnt let me pick him up yet i find myself standing at his cage all the time just to pet him, when i scratch under his chin he will lean to one side and lift his one foot up.  Im hoping the vet can tell me how old he is, I hoping to have him around for along time

[dianah]

aww that is very sweet he likes you it's great he's so bright and demolishing his chews!

dust bath, 15 minutes a day is about right. it is dead funny, isn't it? i'm pretty sure everybody laughed a lot when they saw their first dust bath when i had kits, mum was desperately trying to show them how to do it and they were not sure at first. then they started digging and when they started rolling over, we'd be like 'they're doing it they're doing it!' so cute

i didn't know about millet as i don't feed it and the advice i found was to give 1-2 inch piece once a week as it's high in fat and protein. i wouldn't go too mad on treats at the moment. if you can get him to eat his hay and nuggets to start with, then you can add healthy treats later. he pretty much lived on treats and this is not great only for his tummy but also for his teeth. high calorie foods mean they don't eat much hay (which they need to eat a lot of to get the same amount of energy) and their teeth don't wear down properly - this causes all sort of problems.

there really isn't any way of telling age i don't think. though, maybe it would be a good idea to get the vet to sex him, quite often chinchillas are not sexed correctly as their bits look pretty similar. then you'll know that if he's definitely a boy, you'll need to check for hair rings or if you want to get him a friend in the future, you will not end up with a mixed pair.

his fur will take time. definitely get the vet to look at it but if it's just mats, it's the result of how he was kept and as long as the rest of his fur is ok and keeps him warm, there are no bald patches, he should be ok until they clear.

huge cage - great! if it's really tall, you'll have to put a platform in (my cages are tall and they have untreated pine platforms in - they double up as chews!) so he can't fall far. i think an 18in fall can kill a chinchilla.

finding a chinchilla vet is hard! i live on the isle of man, it's a small place so we don't have that many vets (compared to elsewhere) but thankfully there's a vet at my practice who's good with chinchillas and another lady just started at the same practice who has actually performed a c-section so now we have two vets that we can see which is great.

[ABC Chinchillas]

no millet seeds and nuts cause fatty liver

[dianah]

ah, there we go! no millet.

it is really quite hard when it comes to treats, not least because the availability of stuff sold as suitable for chinchillas. there is no legislation in place for pet toys/treats so they can pretty much sell anything as suitable. that means it's up to you to do your research and make sure whatever you're getting is safe.
also, chins will eat yummy stuff even if it's not good for them - i guess it's just like me and chocolate!

my lot usually get different types of chews as treats - they have some 'long(er) lasting' ones in the cage and they also chew the pine shelves but i give them different twigs and balls and all sorts of differently shaped stuff and they enjoy them so very very much and for much longer than if they just gulped down a raisin. much healthier too.
other than that, they get rolled oats every so often, alfalfa hay, yesterday i gave them timothy hay cubes and they went mental for them (i bought them a while ago and no one was interested!) - this is all healthy stuff that creates variety.

[jmdebb]

dust baths should be only about 2-3 times a week.. if its a humid summer you can do a bit more.

but yah, chins love treats they don't care what they are.. i kind of like to use the example with kids, give a kid mcdonalds every day or a good nutritious home cooked meal, and he's gonna go for mcdonalds, and down the line, the kid is gonna have health issues.

i'm not saying this person you spoke with doesn't know chin info, but just be careful when going to pet stores, because alot of them give incorrect information.