Chin visited vet, suddenly fur is in a state?

[Awyth]

Hi everyone,

Long story short as I'm quite concerned about my Chinchilla Charlie, coming up to his 2nd birthday.

I had to call the vet on Monday as he stopped eating and wasn't passing any droppings, so I took him to my nearest vet clinic which has supposed chinchilla specialists. They reccomended I leave him with them for 24 hours so they could give him some food in liquid form, that 24 hours turned into 72 further hours.

I went to get him earlier on and came back with some of the liquid food they had been feeding him and he ate it quite happily. But his fur is in a horrid state. His stomach fur has been chewed completely and his stomach is exposed and red like it's aggitated, when I questioned this, the vet said they applied some Vaseline to his stomach? and just below his neck was very tangled and under his chin is dry.

Is it possible for me to restore his fur to how it was? He seems to be chewing a lot and it's quite upsetting to watch him have to do that.

I should point out before he went in his fur was in what looked to be ideal condition, fluffy and plentiful.

 

[obcsed]

Hand feeding can be a messy business. He probably has some of the liquid food stuck in his fur and that makes it look matted. He is probably chewing his fur to try to get that and the Vaseline out of it. It might take awhile but some good dust bathes will help a lot. When my dental chin gets really bad, I use a damp wash cloth to try to help get some of the mess off him. If the chin is easy to handle, you can also work some of it out with your fingers. The fur will get straightened out eventually, just give it time. Right now, the important thing is getting him eating on his own again.

 

[CrystalH]

chinchilla fur gets matted underneath the chin when they syringe feed and if the medicine didn't quite make it into mouth (if he was tossing and turning). when that happened to my buddy, i used a slightly wet rag to carefully clean up the mess and then a dry rag to towel up the wetness as much as i could. it seems like the vets/rn's were not conscientious about keeping his mouth clean.

but that's not the bigger issue...why would they need to apply vaseline to his fur at all? i would take him to an exotics vet because that is some shady business. i hope his stasis clears too!