Chinchilla Broken Leg?

[Pilot]

Hi,

I own 2 chinchillas, and I noticed that one of them is limping around. I figured since they are always chasing each other around the cage during the night one of them fell down from the shelf or got their leg stuck in between within the cage somewhere. But anyways, I thought it would go away and heal on it's own and it doesn't seem to be going that way.

The chinchilla is around 4-5 years old and is fairly big (fat) compared to normal chinchillas so it's not like he can run around a lot without getting tired quickly. He seems to be struggling to jump (but he can totally jump on the max level of the cage if he has to).

I know people will say get him to the vets, but just before I do that I wonder what are the risks of amputation if it happens to be a broken leg? Like I mentioned he's a pretty heavy dude and doesn't like to run a lot...I wonder if he could survive any kind of sleeping drugs (during operation) and wake up again...

 

[tunes]

Amputation is pretty much the choice of most people who have this happen. Chins recover quickly, it's much less expensive than pinning, and chins do absolutely fine with three legs.

As far as anesthesia, I've had a 1200 gm chin undergo an emergency spay and she had no problem. I doubt weight has much to do with it.

 

[Pilot]

Thanks for reply.

I'll see what happens in the next 2 days whether the situation gets worse or better...at the moment he is still able to eat fine and like I said jump using his 3 legs only but I think he might be in pain doing so since he's a heavy guy. Vets are closed for Christmas and tomorrow they couldn't do anything because they don't seem to want to rush the surgery and there would be nobody around to take care of him during Christmas.

Chinchillas are so expensive to take care off when it comes to emergencies like that...I had other issues before with other chinchilla having 'growth' next to his chin...others have knocked themselves out by running too fast...

I owned them for more than 10 years now, they're great and fun animals but they can bring plenty of tears over the years.

I'll update on situation after Christmas, thanks for future responses in advance.

 

[Dreamlite]

Are you giving a lot of treats? Most chins do not get fat on a proper diet. He is probably just a larger chinchilla. Amputation is the best choice if the leg is truely broken. A vet visit is a god place to start.

 

[Pilot]

Maybe different genetics or something, the bigger one I got from Chinchilla 'breeder' so perhaps he's designed to ya know be a father and make out with other chickas to make babies? Where as the other one is a small one, I adopted him from some family friend he also eats just as much and never gets fat and is much more active being at least 5+ years older than my larger one.

I don't know where my previous reply disappeared...

I've said I'll look into the situation for 2 more days because vets are closed till after Christmas so I can't do anything now but observe. He still eats, but IMHO he's losing strength slowly due to the fact that he's heavy and has to only use 3 legs while 4th one who knows whether it hurts or not if he doesn't use it...I hope not.

 

[Pilot]

Visited a vet today and apparently it wasn't a broken bone, it was actually due to the fact that there was some 'growth' or like puff coming out of the right feet thus hurting him when the chinchilla attempts to walk on it.

Vet gave me 2 choices.

1. Attempting to clean it up (Which does require anesthetics and minor 15-20 minute surgery).

Which will 50/50 work without any guarantees because it could easily get infected again, so I'd have to keep him separately in a clean cage with perhaps towel on the bottom as anything else would perhaps be easy to infect it like hay or other stuff.

2. Amputation (Vet recommended it)

Thus leaving him with 3 legs but the fact that chinchilla is really big for its kind, it wouldn't work for him, plus none of my family members wanted that to happen because we knew he wasn't gonna make it on 3 legs.

We went with option 1, and surgery is on Monday, so I'll give you a status update then and see what's what...