Okay, I just got home this evening from a week off. I left my chinchilla in the care of a good friend/sort of adopted little brother, who reported to me very dutifully, pictures and all. My most recent picture had been from Thursday and my chinchilla looked totally fine. The only off thing my friend reported was that my chinchilla (Chillermo, like Guillermo del Toro) seemed a bit nippy, but he was also checking in on him in the early afternoon, so it's possible he interrupted Chillermo's sleep (he gets very grumpy).
Some basic info: he's 1 year and 3 months on this coming Thursday, he's a mosaic, I've had him since February of 2013, I've never had any issues with him other than the usual puberty business, he's a fairly outgoing guy, very active, very adventurous, a wee cuddly. He's housed in a two-story Ferret Nation with all sorts of wonderful things (coconut shell holder for hay, a wood house, a bendy bridge for a house, a cuddle buddy, a hammock, two other strips of fleece since he likes to go under fleece sometimes, a variety of sticks and toys, though mostly poplar since he's picky).
I got home and I thought his eye was MISSING. I did not take any pictures of it at this immediate state because I started freaking out. Naturally, I called my mom to calm me down as I cleaned EVERYTHING. I swept his entire cage, changed his blankets (which are now in the wash with Dreft [baby detergent] just to be safe), took out any of his more interesting toys and left him with only simple poplar sticks at the moment (and his houses), restocked all of his food and water, blasted his water bottle with very, very hot water, etc.
His eye started to look better very quickly as I did this. He was behaving completely normally, if a bit grumpy at me for being gone (he took one small nip at me after I tried to look at his eye and bumped his behind). He's running around, standing on his hind legs, eating and drinking, etc. But his eye looked crusty initially, it was mostly closed, the rims around it were pink. However, now, after about an hour, you can hardly tell the difference. The pictures I took show nothing and looking at him from my desk here (which is about five feet away), I can hardly tell.
When I take a closer look, the rim around his eye is kind of red, the fur looks a little wet? maybe? but when I touch it, it seems dry. He let me look at it and touch it a little bit, but then he catches on to my motherly ways and tries to get away. I thought I felt a bump, but he got away. Looking even closer, there may be a bit of fur or something hanging over the rim but not into the eye, if that makes sense. It was not actively bothering him, but looked like from his rubbing could have caused fur to make the irritation worse? I'm going to continue to examine him as he let's me and update as necessary.
I'm mostly out of my panic, but I'm imagining he did something reckless out of his anxiety for me to get home and got something in his eye. I can't imagine this is an infection, but I am incredibly concerned regardless. Mondays are my least busy days and I will take him to a vet if anyone thinks that it's necessary (I wanted to take him immediately when I got home but there's no 24/7 exotics out here of course!), but as I see him progressing and behaving normally, I'm wondering if I should just keep a very close watch on him? Or if there's something I can do from home? If it was any other animal, I would probably get a hot compress to his eye, but I'm not sure how to go about that with a chinchilla.
He's staring at me now with the eye that looked poor, and again, I can't tell from here that anything's wrong with it now.
Some basic info: he's 1 year and 3 months on this coming Thursday, he's a mosaic, I've had him since February of 2013, I've never had any issues with him other than the usual puberty business, he's a fairly outgoing guy, very active, very adventurous, a wee cuddly. He's housed in a two-story Ferret Nation with all sorts of wonderful things (coconut shell holder for hay, a wood house, a bendy bridge for a house, a cuddle buddy, a hammock, two other strips of fleece since he likes to go under fleece sometimes, a variety of sticks and toys, though mostly poplar since he's picky).
I got home and I thought his eye was MISSING. I did not take any pictures of it at this immediate state because I started freaking out. Naturally, I called my mom to calm me down as I cleaned EVERYTHING. I swept his entire cage, changed his blankets (which are now in the wash with Dreft [baby detergent] just to be safe), took out any of his more interesting toys and left him with only simple poplar sticks at the moment (and his houses), restocked all of his food and water, blasted his water bottle with very, very hot water, etc.
His eye started to look better very quickly as I did this. He was behaving completely normally, if a bit grumpy at me for being gone (he took one small nip at me after I tried to look at his eye and bumped his behind). He's running around, standing on his hind legs, eating and drinking, etc. But his eye looked crusty initially, it was mostly closed, the rims around it were pink. However, now, after about an hour, you can hardly tell the difference. The pictures I took show nothing and looking at him from my desk here (which is about five feet away), I can hardly tell.
When I take a closer look, the rim around his eye is kind of red, the fur looks a little wet? maybe? but when I touch it, it seems dry. He let me look at it and touch it a little bit, but then he catches on to my motherly ways and tries to get away. I thought I felt a bump, but he got away. Looking even closer, there may be a bit of fur or something hanging over the rim but not into the eye, if that makes sense. It was not actively bothering him, but looked like from his rubbing could have caused fur to make the irritation worse? I'm going to continue to examine him as he let's me and update as necessary.
I'm mostly out of my panic, but I'm imagining he did something reckless out of his anxiety for me to get home and got something in his eye. I can't imagine this is an infection, but I am incredibly concerned regardless. Mondays are my least busy days and I will take him to a vet if anyone thinks that it's necessary (I wanted to take him immediately when I got home but there's no 24/7 exotics out here of course!), but as I see him progressing and behaving normally, I'm wondering if I should just keep a very close watch on him? Or if there's something I can do from home? If it was any other animal, I would probably get a hot compress to his eye, but I'm not sure how to go about that with a chinchilla.
He's staring at me now with the eye that looked poor, and again, I can't tell from here that anything's wrong with it now.
