Rescued a Chin that looks terrible.

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Nat_n_Tofu

Nat_n_Tofu

Chin Slave
Joined
Jan 10, 2013
Messages
31
Location
Los Angeles
Tofu and I welcomed a new member to our little family today, a rescued Chinchilla.

She's in terrible shape, she's missing fur on her thighs, is very skinny and has crusty stuff on top of her ears. She's very sweet though. She is some type of beige.

I need help. What can I do to fatten her up and get her fur growing. Is there a special diet? I'll post pictures later. But seeing her in comparison to my Tofu makes me sad. At least I'll help her here.
 
Nat_n_Tofu said:
Tofu and I welcomed a new member to our little family today, a rescued Chinchilla.

She's in terrible shape, she's missing fur on her thighs, is very skinny and has crusty stuff on top of her ears. She's very sweet though. She is some type of beige.

I need help. What can I do to fatten her up and get her fur growing. Is there a special diet? I'll post pictures later. But seeing her in comparison to my Tofu makes me sad. At least I'll help her here.
Click to expand...

Get her on critical care to fatten her up. Make sure she has plenty of hay and good Oxbow pellets. And filtered water. Make sure she's eating. Monitor her. Take her to the vet for a check up. No sugary treats, just good pellets, herbs. Order her special hay with herbs from fuzziekingdom or chinchilla herbs from http://www.foreverfeistychinchilla.org/store-dietary.htm. Keep one teaspoon a day to improve eating. Herbs do wonders to help chinchillas from lack of nutrition. Fuzziekingdom and Rondaschins sell a variety of good herbs. Give your chin lots of safe organic wood too for her teeth.
 
Unless she is not eating I would not use critical care. Pellets, hay and lots of TLC will do the trick. I would get her to a vet to make sure there are no issues as to why she is in that shape. I don't give supplements other than Lifeline when needed.

Also, is she fur chewed where you say she is missing fur? Or is it fungus?

Good luck! It's amazing how they can turn around with proper care.
 
Thank you both for the information!!

I'll definitely order some good quality hay and pellets. I ordered critical care just in case, so I'll have it on hand. She is eating and extremely thirsty. I don't think she had much water at her old home. She drank non stop for 5 mins. She appears to be too weak to jump, and has a humpback. She is a cutie. My husband and I stayed up all night fixing the terrible cage she came in. It was completely wired, within 10 mins of her being here she got her foot stuck at least 10 times. Poor baby. I double checked she is a girl.
So we tricked out her cage: removed all that wire (except the cage itself) made wooden shelves, each level low enough for her to get to the next. We added our extra chin spin and tons of toys. She grinds her teeth a lot, but doesn't drool. She isn't shy or aggressive, she comes right up to us for pets.

Is there a way to tell for sure if it's furchewing or fungus?

Again thank you both, we're thinking of a name for her. According to Cuddlebug who I sent a pic because it.wouldn't upload, she is tan not beige. I have hope she'll be as beautiful as her personality with time and like you said lots of TLC.
 
I would take her to the vet for a check up. I have some of fuzziekingdom supplement if you need some.
 
Critical care does not promote weight gain in a chin who can eat, its not high fat or protein. You can add a little alfalfa hay to the hay diet, increasing it over time and that will help with slow gradual weight gain, the healthy way for a chin to gain weight. IMO a vet visit is a waste of time unless the chin has eating/drinking/poo issues, wellness checks, especially in a rescue in a new home, are stressful for chins and this chin needs a chill environment.
 
She probably just needs a good, consistent schedule of being fed and kept clean. Weight gain is best if it is slow and gradual because that will help the chin put on good muscle weight and not so much fat weight.

I agree with Dawn about the vet. For now, I'd hold off on going unless you see something new happen with her. Keep her eating!

But, one thing about thin chins...they can have serious problems with their livers and kidneys. Sometimes they come right through it with no lasting damage, sometimes it is very severe. If this little chinnie doesn't show significant improvement over the next month, you may want to go to the vet with her. For now, like Dawn said, you don't want to stress her out...let her calm down and be herself for awhile. :)
 
I think it depends on the situation whether or not to go to a vet. I have had a chin come in in really bad shape and she went to the vet asap. Her teeth had trapped her tongue and she was in really bad shape.

For ones that are just rough from poor diet I let them be and they fatten up in no time.

It really depends on just how bad she is.
 
Oh yeah, if you have a chin that can't eat, that chin needs to go to the vet right away!

I had the same thing happen...the person that surrendered that chin claimed that she just got water all over herself and she was eating. uggg.. The vet said that there was no way she was chewing anything. After her tooth surgery she flicked her tongue like it was the most amazing thing ever. :)
 
Good morning everyone,

Again thank you all for the advice. I did place an order with you Susan, like I told you in the email I ordered the critical care to have on hand incase things go south. She is eating and drinking, so I can rule out dental problems. I haven't been able to check her teeth color, she feels so fragile when I pick her up. I'm starting to think she is deaf,, maybe I'm wrong, but she doesn't look when we make sounds to get her attention. Then she'll random turn and see us and come up for pets. She seems to enjoy humans around so I am trying to spend time with her. Another thing I mentioned was her legs seem very weak, do you think it's from malnutrition or because she was getting stuck in the wire shelving of her old cage? I'm worried they are broken, but then she wouldn't be about to walk so I'm hoping they'll get stronger. I added the chinspin, she loves it in short bursts.

For now I'm going to avoid the vet since I think it's mainly malnutrition. I'll keep track of her weight and if she isn't improving then we'll schedule a visit.

So does Alfalfa help more than Timothy hay? I can't remember which one I ordered except that it was hayvubes. Was I supposed to get loose hay?

@ Snickers thank you for the offer of the supplements. Are they calcium or mix. I'll Google it. But yes it's very generous of you to offer, I'll let you know if I think she needs them. For now I'm going to try just the food and hay, unless you think the supplements will help her recovery faster?

Again thank you all!
 
Alfalfa has more protein and calcium than timothy hay, chins usually dig it. Just go slow with the introduction of it since some chins will eat it until its all gone and get loose poo. So add a little loose alfalfa to her timothy ration.
 
Thank you! I just checked my order and apparently I got alfalfa-oat cubes... I made the order at 4am. Do you think that is ok or should I buy the loose type? Thank you Dawn!
 
If she is needing too gain weight I would take the chin spin out. She needs to be gaining calories, not running then off.
 
Working with "hobbled" rescues in the past-those that had no muscle tone and could not even jump up on a ledge, the wheel is not a bad idea to help build muscles. If this was a chin who just came off a health condition and lost alot of weight but was still in decent muscle tone I would say yeah, wheel gone but in this case IMO if the chin likes the wheel, eats well and it gives the chin pleasure to have it, I would leave it, for physical and mental health.
 
So my boyfriend and I named our little girl "Sushi," after watching a documentary on Netflix which was the same way we came up with Tofu's name.

I am definitely keeping the chin spin in because she doesn't use it enough to lose weight, she literally does like two to three spins and then stops. She must enjoy it, she had nothing in her cage before. So I'm about 99% certain she is deaf. She doesn't seem to respond to sound. Do you think she was born like that or did it occurred because of malnutrition? Her poops are a little wetter than normal, they smush when she steps.on them. She only stays on the first level, she tried to go to the second and tripped (even though it's only 4" high, now she seems afraid to try again. I don't really like that she is resting in the poop corner.

Thanks Susan for shipping my order so quick!
 
Rescues can have soft poo without it being a medical/nutritional issue, it has a lot to do with stress. As far as the hearing, it could be congenital, or it could have been from a ear infection that was left un treated. I would try to make sure she can see you before you approach her, so she wont startle.
 
Another Problem has come up with her. She has what looks like a double chin or lump under her chin. It's huge. I can't tell if it's just the fur, I tried touching it and it's not hard like a jaw breaker but also not just fluff. She didn't have this yesterday... it's huge about the size of two grapes. I tried googling and the only results I got said it's an abscess.
 
That sounds like the lymph nodes are swollen-bilateral lumps under the chin. Chin now needs a vet visit asap and this development could be serious, since IMO there has to be something bad going on to cause the lymph nodes to swell like that.
 
Thank you for all the help, I'll look up a vet here that knows about chinchillas and take her asap. I'll update you all about the situation. Hopefully she'll be ok =(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top