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[Corrie Anne]

I believe she has Pneumonia. It started as an eye infection. It would close shut and then i would clean it out. It got better after 2 days. After being better for 2 days, i let her have a bath since i thought it was from getting something in her eye. The day after that she started getting  a runny nose. A couple of days after that she got stuffy and started breathing from her mouth. Yesterday, she start having cracking sounds from her chest when she breathed. My vet wont be back until the morning but i dont know if she will last that long. She is now lethargic kinda tipsy she wont move. wont eat and wont drink. She lost weight and i can feel her bones in her back and hips. Her fur is dull and her skin is bright pink. Her respitory breathing is 40 a minute which i read was normal. I put my ear to her chest and hear wheezing and her heart rate sounds right. Her breathing is so shallow and gaspy. Is there any hope for her? I never seen her like this she is usually so lively and barks when i try to pet her from her cage but she just lets me pick her up. She use to try and nibble at me and scare me away. They open at 8:30 cst. Is there anything i can do to make her feel better. Is there anything i can give her to help her breath? I have another chin, he is fine, i have him out of the cage and running my room i dont want him to get sick. I also just got a kitten about 7-9wks old. My husband found him on a country road and brought him home. He was trying to play with Daphne from her cage and i also thought that maybe he hit her eye and whatever was in his nails got into her eye. I keep him away from them but sometimes he wants to play.

[dianah]

is there any chance you could contact a different vet? an emergency vet? she needs antibiotics, quick. they will probably give her injections to start with, once she responds, you'll be able to continue with oral medication.

her eye thing was quite possibly a symptom of a respiratory infection so she'd probably had it then already and it moved further down.

you really need to get her seen quick!

[Corrie Anne]

Well, My baby passed this morning, the only of emergency vet was in another state. She went at 1AM. At around 12:45 i put her in one of my shirts while i go to the restroom so she could still smell me i came out and she had flipper over onto her back. She was still breathing so i picked her up and put her back onto her stomach. I left her in her cage b/c she loved her cage and did not usually liked being held and i did not want to stress her out more. I was her taking slower breathes that were further apart. And at around 1 she took her last breath i waited just watching hoping that she would take another and stay alive until i got her to the vet.  I am so lost, I only had her for a month. As i read some thing last night trying to figure out what happened i noticed somethings that she has always done while i had her. She always touched her mouth and face with her hands, constantly. I read that can be due to overgrown teeth but i made sure they have chewing toys, i didnt get any from her prev. owner she was in bad shape when i got her, not sick but her living conditions were pretty bad and she was severely matted. She also had a weird thing about her. Every time she took a bath, she would stop for a second and her head and eyes would spin after she stopped she would rub in the dust again and start spinning again. She would also do that if she was running around hyper like and then she would stop and again the head and eye spins. Is that normal? Sammy does not do anything like that. I have Sammy for almost 3 weeks now. This morning I cleaned the cage,bath,bottles,bowls, and house I threw away all the treats,toys,chewing toys. Sammy is now in the cage. I let him loose the whole time she was sick since i did not have another cage to put him in. I am so worried about him becoming sick but i know what to look for and on Monday i am going to make an apt for him to be looked at just in case. I dont know if he is getting sick, his eyes looked a little wet this morning after putting him in the cage, can he be crying? I waited years to get a Chinchilla, i loved them the moment i saw them, I was pregnant with my 8 yr old. I just cant believe she is gone

[ABC Chinchillas]

with chinchillas As SOON as you see a sign of ilness they need treatment. They are prey animals and hide illness well. If you had taken her to the vet when you first saw a problem you may have been able to save her (it is likely she could have been saved.) I am sorry for your loss

[dianah]

i am so so sorry i know how hard it is to lose a chin. at least you were there with her.

as for touching her mouth, it could be a sign of teeth problems (even with chew toys and right diet, you might get teeth spurs. i just rescued a chin yesterday - she has an incisor root growing through her chin, it is absolutely awful that someone would let it go this bad, she has a huge bump underneath her chin and an abscess.. she's not strong enough for an xray so she's on meds and we're trying to put some weight on her)
having said that, some of my chins do this thing where they roll in the bath and then get the sand off their mouth. i guess it just depends on how happy they are with sand on their faces!

sammy's eyes. i would take him to the vet. weepy eyes can be a sign of respiratory infection. they'll listen to his chest and they can treat him straight away. if he's ok, at least your mind will be at rest. but given daphne showed signs of respiratory infection, she could have passed it on.

if you notice any changes in the chin, they need to be seen straight away as they do a really good job of hiding illness. once you actually notice that something is wrong, they usually have been ill for some time so it's critical to get them seen as soon as there appears something wrong OR different.

[jmdebb]

i am also deeply sorry for your loss, its not easy at all, i'm sure many of us on this site have gone threw it and can empathize with you.  i know i can..

it also stinks that there are not more chin vets out there.  we really need more of them. 

[Corrie Anne]

As a first time chin owner, i am still looking up things about them and how different they are to the normal house pet. I find conflicting answers to my question when googling. I am making Sammy or better just going to take him in on Monday. The vet is closed and i did call them but they told me to call on Monday. Their is a emergency hospital that is in the state next to ours but it is far away. He looks good now. He is eating well and drinking well. He poops like crazy. After getting Sammy it was hard for me to see how much Daphne was eating and drinking since i did not know how much Sammy ate before i got him. I have Timothy Hay but they didnt  seem to eat it that much. Sammy is staying in our room which my husband likes the fan blowing at night. The fan blows directly at us at the top of the bed. Their cage is on the floor at the foot of our bed. We keep a fleece blanket over the front and back of the cage leaving the sides for ventilation. When i got Daphne she was on a Hamster diet. Eating corn,seeds, and what ever else is in the mix. I switched her after i found out that the corn and others are not good for her and i did not know i needed to keep a mixture of both the switch he out.
This morning i also noticed that Sammy is grinding his teeth, he has never done this.(anyways not for the 3 weeks i had him) Can he be stressed can he get depressed from Daphne dying? He was not around her when she went or even while she was sick that much so is there a way that he can smell something is wrong? like i noticed Daphne let out her bladder after dying and it was so thick and yellow just sticking to her coat.
He also has always been with a cage mate. I am not going to get another one until he is 100% better and maybe around Christmas but can he get more depressed not having another Chin around? Can he dye from being lonely?

[dianah]

you could get him a little stuffed toy - some people use teddy bears, just make sure there's no bits they can eat (like eyes and insides), mine have 'stuffies' that are stuffed with fleece so are quite hard and they don't chew it. just make sure he keeps eating as some chins can pine for their mates and starve themselves to death.
what you could do is clean out their cage so he can't smell daphne & change sand in their bath, let him have a good bath so some of her smell comes off his fur and change sand again. it is a major change in circumstances so i would expect him to show it but, when you take him in on monday, mention it to the vet. quite often changes in behaviour signal there is something physically wrong even if the chin is not showing any signs of illness.
if you decide to get him a mate, just remember you need to quarantine the new chin in a separate room & you'll have to do intros before you can put the monkeys together.

i'm wondering if your vet could give you an emergency supply of baytril & metacam for situations like when you knew daphne was sick but could not get to the vet? metacam lasts long as long as you don't open it, i'm not sure about baytril but they're both very cheap drugs so you could just replace them when when they expire and they could save your chin's life if you can't wait for the vet to open.

i know what you mean about conflicting information. there's plenty of info that is outright wrong and it's on the internet, in the books, everywhere. i just rescued a chin and when i was talking to the guy at the rescue (it's not a specialised chin rescue & they don't see chins very often) he asked what the best way of picking up a chinchilla was because he read in a book that you hold them at the base of their tail.

there are plenty of very experienced, nice and helpful people on this forum - just keep asking!

[Corrie Anne]

Thank you Dianah,

I have already sanitized the cage,bath,house,bottles, and bowls. I threw away the chewies and toys. I even through away the treats that were boxed next to the cage. I dont want Sammy to have the same problem. I looked up Baytril this morning to see if it could be an OTC med or of course not. I read that i can give them vitamin c so i got him some chewables that are 500mg each and just gave him a fourth of one. It says to give him a whole tablet once a week. He did not want to eat it so i crushed it and dissolved it in warm water and i put it in a medi syringe and he took it like that. I guess i will give him one every other day.
The vet is not open until Monday but i am going to ask if i can give him the medicine even if he does not seem to have anything b/c Daphne did not seem to have anything but an eye irritation. Everything that i have looked up about the eye was that she must have gotten dust in her eye and that it should clear up.
He still seems fine, I gave him a apple piece and he loved it i did not know that i could give them fresh fruit but i of course looked it up( i should just get a book if anyone has a favorite let me know) and some breeder feeds hers apple,pear,kiwi and something else.
I waited so long to get approved on this site like almost 2 weeks and i am so happy to be on the forum. I know i can learn so much from this site and the users and gain alot more and hopefully lose a lot less.

[dianah]

my main thing about the cleaning out stuff was really to remove the smell so he's not reminded of her when she's not actually there anymore. but you're right, it's great you've killed the germs! (why didn't i think of that!)

i used to give fluffy vit c when she was pregnant but generally, if they're getting a healthy diet, you shouldn't have to give them a supplement. chinchilla nuggets have vitamin c added to them, although it does deplete a couple of months after opening. then again, you've not had him long and if he didn't have a good diet before he got to you, you may want to give him a little boost.

Yes, the baytril & metacam are prescription only but perhaps they can give them to you for emergencies if you explain what's happened. I mean, if you have a problem on Friday night, Monday morning may be too late. Eye discharge can be a symptom of respiratory infection. I have guinea pigs as well and I'm treating one for a respiratory infection at the moment. I noticed he had a little bit of eye discharge but they do produce this white fluid they use to clean their face with so I thought perhaps it was that. But it was there the next day and I booked a vet appointment and when I got home to take him, he had a bit of a runny nose too but that disappeared altogether by the time we got to the vet (so you may miss symptoms that are not present 24/7). They listened to his chest and he did have respiratory infection - he's just finishing his course of baytril and he also has some eye ointment. There were no other symptoms, he was eating as normal.
So I cannot stress that enough, ANY changes, have it checked out.

I would not recommend giving him a fresh apple slice. You could give him a 'raisin sized' dried apple piece as a very occasional treat. They do love sweet stuff but sugar is very dangerous for them because it can cause diarrhoea and this is a very bad thing as it can kill them very quickly. You need to monitor the shape & size of his poo (sorry ) - it should have nice round ends, if the ends are sharp/pointy, this is a sign the poo is getting soft (stop all treats), if the poo is actually sticking together, it's not good and he'd need to see a vet & if it's actually pooling then it's red alert.
You will find that people feed them all sorts of stuff - a chin i got from a rescue yesterday was fed on chinchilla mix and banana chips. she has a really bad dental problem which my vet believes has been made a lot worse due to the diet.

[ABC Chinchillas]

I would suggest taking Sammy in to the vet on Monday URI can hit hard and fast and are sometimes contagious.

[Corrie Anne]

They open at 7:30 i will be waiting at the door when that lock turns


So no fresh fruit. The lady before me gave him Banana Chips all the time. I try to give him some maybe 2 times a week but he does not really take them from me, i get she did not give him raisins because he loves those. He is a big boy so i give him 2 a day(well, i just tossed the treats so i have to go get new ones) My husband buried Daphne and my kids had a wake for her.
I guess i am still in shock. I know she is gone and i am trying to keep Sammy healthy and then i start thinking about Daphne and i realize she is not here.

[dianah]

it is hard and it's not been long. my chin died on 10th of june and i still cry most days.

two raisins a day is probably a little bit excessive. there are people who won't feed raisins at all, but i think it's ok to give them a couple a week (although i guess mine are lucky if they see one every couple of weeks). it is a good idea to give them healthy treats such as apple branches or oats (a teaspoon twice a week, they love them!), as they will enjoy them a lot (and for longer! they scoff down a raisin a lot quicker than an apple branch!) and they will not create a havoc in their tummy.

do you weigh sammy? if not, it may be a good idea. if you have a scale that weighs in grams and weigh him, say, every week or every fortnight. quite often you can spot invisible illness through weight loss and this is of course hard to see by eye with all the fur etc.

[Corrie Anne]

I do not have a scale i only noticed i needed one when i became a member on here. What kind of oats? Like old fashioned rolled oats? 
I am going to get him some treats and a scale tomorrow. Where can i get apple branches?

[dianah]

yes, just plain old fashioned rolled oats! i get organic oats for my lot, they love it so just make sure you introduce it slowly.

as for apple branches, well, i use an online chin shop but i do live on the isle of man so it's a uk one - they do ship internationally but i think you'll be able to find one closer to you.
this is the shop i use http://www.chinchillas2shop.co.uk/chews_toys.htm - this is their wood chews selection which does change i guess depending on what's available at the time. mine really love the little kit balls because they can hold them in their little hands and nibble away. i can't see apple branches on there at the moment but if you find some in a shop near you, they come in different sizes - my chins much prefer very thin ones to the thick ones, with the thick ones they just take the bark off and leave the stick.
i also find that my chins are not keen on the wooden toys blocks for some reason, so if you get something and sammy is not keen, just keep trying different things. sometimes they go absolutely mental for certain chews so i order plenty more and then they go 'actually, it's alright, we don't like these anymore!'