Chinchilla acting weird after failed introduction/fight

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Mackiot

Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2018
Messages
5
I recently got a new chinchilla I was hoping to introduce to my older 2 1/2 year old. I have had him over a month and they have had very little one on one contact with eachother. I will swap their cages and they can see eachother through the bars. Today I thought I should introduce the two. I put them in an open room and let them roam. It went really well at first. But they both managed to squeeze behind a desk and got in a fight. The new chinchilla is just fine, but my older one is not. He is either dragging his belly as he walks, or walking with his rear end held up and is front on the ground. and is not moving much at all. This is not like him at all. He is very wobbly when he does walk. Ive been looking and I cant find a broken bone and I cant get him to eat or drink. He will take a rasin from but but he drops it after a bit. He is responsive of me and seems to know what's going on. The thing is. I thi k it's some sort of head injury, but I cant afford a vet.my mom keeps telling me he is going to be fine but I'm really scared and don't know what to do. Right after it happened he tried to get in his dustbath and run around but he kept falling into things. Right now he is in his cage. He keeps laying down then moving to another spot, like he's trying to get comfortable but he cant. I really don't k ow what to do.ive never felt with a sick or j hired chinchilla before so I don't know what's going on.
 
It sounds as though it may be a spinal injury/head injury. He needs to see a vet. That type of behavior is in no way normal for a chinchilla and he needs to see a vet.
 
Ok, after several hours he has started to act normal again. He's eating and drinking and getting around just fine. I really don't know what happened, but I'm still a bit shaken about what happened. He's acting like nothing had happened. I have fully rubbed him down and felt no breaks or injuries, and neither has anyone else. Hes walking and jumping normally now, with no wobbling, his balance is back to normal. I'm still going to keep an eye on him, but as of now he's acting normally. Could have it been some sort of shock? The younger chin did manage to pull out a bit of fur, could a sudden unexpected attack send an animal into shock? Like I said, hes acting like nothing happened now, though I'm still a bit nervious.
 
He needs a vet ASAP. Your mom is not right, he will not be fine or get better from that. I don't mean to scare you but such an immediate change is extremely abnormal.
 
I don't know if my other post is going to go through or not, but it's been way over 24 hours and hes acting like nothing happened at all. He went back to normal after about two hours. Hes eating drinking and jumping around his cage with no trouble at all. Hes acting like himself. I still have been keeping a close eye on him, and I'm still checking to see if i can find any breaks. My sister actually suggested he may have pulled a muscle, could that have been a possibility? She is not a vet, though she had some training and has worked with lots of animals, and for a short time worked at a zoo caring for animals. Another idea I had was some sort of shock or stress from the fight, though the pulled muscle idea makes more sense to me.

I'm glad hes acting better, but I'm still a bit upset about the whole thing, if it had happened a month or two ago he would have gone to the vet in seconds, but I just cant afford it right now.
 
Sorry, your second post hadn't come up by the time I posted mine. Pretty odd for him to go from moving so abnormally to back to normal, but definitely good. If those symptoms had persisted it would have definitely been an issue, but if he went back to normal so quickly he likely did just have a minor injury or stress. I would say keep an extra close eye on him for a week or two, and if you see anything abnormal take him to a vet.
 
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