Chinchilla missing fur on nose

[chinchoo]

Hi All,

We noticed a small patch of fur missing above our chinnie’s nose this past weekend and again today. It hasn’t grown in a few days.

We have had ringworm in the past and that time his skin was extremely irritated and flaking so we are on high alert that this may also be ringworm. We have started to give him anti-fungal powder baths as a precaution.

Unlike before, however, our chinnie likes to aggressively play with and chew his cage bars at night so we are thinking he could also be rubbing his fur off. He started doing this relatively recently (1-2 weeks ago).

His skin looks normal and a pale color. No signs of irritation, but we just aren’t sure. What do you think?

Note: The third photo is right after he got his fungal powder treatment.

 

[Jawramik]

It doesn't look like ringworm to me, although his skin is barely visible, so it's hard to say for sure. It could very well just be that he's rubbing off a bit of fur on the bars. Definitely keep an eye on it, but it doesn't look like anything too concerning, at least to me eyes.

 

[chinchoo]

It doesn't look like ringworm to me, although his skin is barely visible, so it's hard to say for sure. It could very well just be that he's rubbing off a bit of fur on the bars. Definitely keep an eye on it, but it doesn't look like anything too concerning, at least to me eyes.

We think we see some hair coming back in but can’t say for sure. We are going to continue antifungal treatments and see what happens within the next few days.

He has had furslip there in the past (we witnessed it) and the fur usually comes back in about a week.

 

[chinchoo]

Took him to the vet today as we wanted to rule out ringworm and the vet told us he is “98.5% positive” it isn’t ringworm. We will continue to monitor him and see if anything changes. Hoping for more visual evidence of hair growth.

 

[Chinmin]

Welcome, chinchoo. He's a cutie, does he have a name?

 

[chinchoo]

Welcome, chinchoo. He's a cutie, does he have a name?

Thank you! His name is Baloo. We weren’t sure what to name him originally until we saw him and instantly reminded us of a little bear. He acts like a teddy bear too! Very friendly little guy.

 

[chinchoo]

Well, sometime later and still can’t tell if it has gotten worse or not. Every time we look at his spot it looks different - different angles can make it look way worse than it is or better. Skin looks completely fine but no real hair fuzz yet.

Going to be a bit stressed about this until I see signs of hair growth coming back. Also nervous the extra dustbaths for the preventative ringworm treatment may be drying his skin out.

Don’t mind me, just a worried fur mom not 100% certain on how this little chinnie lost hair there in the first place.

 

[chinchoo]

Well, we are still not sure what caused his balding but it does seem to be slowly growing. We are going to take him back to the vet and insist on a fungal culture to rule it out.

 

[Chinmin]

That's good news Baloo! How old are you?

 

[chinchoo]

That's good news Baloo! How old are you?

He is just over a year old.

 

[chinchoo]

Final update:

After witnessing him chewing on his cage bars we were able to see his hair coming off in the process.

So after talking to the vet and putting some hay matts down/across his favorite chew areas, we tried to see if it was just him having excess energy.

Unfortunately he started enjoying playtime outside of his cage less and less so we had to think of alternate areas/solutions. We bought him an exotic nutrition flying saucer wheel and tested the waters with that.

He LOVES it. No more chewing his cage apart and no more missing fur. His fur is returning quite nicely. Every time he gets hyper he runs to it and goes crazy.

We were a little nervous that he may lose too much weight for how much he runs but he seems to be balancing his weight quite well so we are happy.

Bonus: Here is a video of him happily running.