Dry skin

Hi, I just became a new chin owner! My little fella wasn't treated properly and I've noticed dry flaky skin over his ear and back of neck. I've been applying a tiny bit of baby oil to moisturise. His ear is getting better but his back of neck isn't (probably cos of all the fur). I've changed his bedding to newspaper rather than wood shaving to lessen dust irritation. Any ideas how to help his skin dryness get better please?

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Newspaper is dangerous to use, chins eat it and it can cause a blockage. You can use fleece for bedding though, so long as the chin doesn't chew it. Baby oil is also not a good idea, either use bag balm, or vitamin E, you can get gel caps and just poke a hole in it to squeeze out the oil. A proper diet can also help over time, a good quality pellet only food, and unlimited hay.

If the dry skin on the neck is red and the fur has fallen out you maybe dealing with ringworm, which needs anti-fungal treatment to clear up.

Thanks for the info! It's not very red just a bit irritated. Wasn't going to use fleece as where I live is quite hot sometimes so I want to keep him as cool as possible now that summer is here. His previous owner left him out in the sun and that's why I decided to adopt him.. I thought the skin dryness is linked to dehydration. I'll check out the moisturising products you mentioned tho and update further!

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Oh, ok it sounds like the chin could be sunburned. If that's the case I would definitely go with the vitamin E it helps repair damaged skin. If it is just sunburn kiln dried pine or aspen shavings should be fine too. For fleece you just put a few lays of fleece down as basically like a carpet, they don't burrow into and they should have shelves in the cage to hop onto so it shouldn't be a problem. Also chins need the temp to be below 70F/20C or they can suffer issue like brain damage, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. Also humidity need to be kept below 50% or they can get mold and fungal grown in their fur and on their skin.

Yes he has shelves so maybe I'll add some fleece until I can buy some Aspen or pine ( it's a holiday weekend this week so no one is open). I'll keep this post updated hopefully his skin gets better then

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The person who I got the cage from gave me a bag of Chipsi Classic shavings however I haven't opened it yet as I'm not sure if it's suitable..... Wasn't able to find much about it or what it's made of on the internet as I've read some shavings may be toxic. Is it good?

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Looking up that Chipsi bedding it looks like it's made of spruce and fir, I wouldn't trust it. If kiln dried both are ok, but certain kinds of fir are toxic, better safe then sorry.

Yes same as I thought. Thanks!

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