Dirty Belly?

[Kattiara17]

I'm a relatively new chinchilla owner, and I noticed a few days ago that my little one's belly is dirty. Specifically, it looks like when she urinates, she might have sat in it? The fur in maybe half inch to an inch radius around her privates is yellow and a bit matted.

She's acting just fine - very active, eating and drinking, pooping, etc. Is this normal or something that I should be trying to clean? Any advice much appreciated.

 

[SunshineChins]

I have a white violet tripod chin that tends to get yellow(its worse since he is missing a back leg). Really the only thing is to just let her have a good dust bath with a good dust such as blue cloud. I doesn't really hurt anything if she is yellow, unless of course she is sopping wet or the fur is extremely matted.

 

[tunes]

What kind of bedding do you use? Most likely she's laying in her urinated on bedding. As stated above, it doesn't hurt anything, it just looks ugly. Some chins are just hoglets and it's a bear to keep them clean.

 

[Anne-Lise]

I also have one that seems to have a hard time keeping herself clean. However, it's more on the bum area than on the belly. She's got a litter pan in the corner and always sleeps in her fleece tunnel, so she's not sitting in soiled bedding. She's got longer fur than the rest of my chins though, that might be it.

 

[starleomach]

I have a white female that sleeps in her urine...nothing but making a mess. Does'nt hurt her any her 3 cagemates are all clean. Sometimes they are slobs like Peggy said

 

[Sesame]

We had a similar problem when we first got Sesame from the pet store. She was in a much smaller cage with no shelves, not much at all. Once we got her a QC townhouse (much, much bigger than that dinky cage she was in prior), she became much, much cleaner. I guess she wasn't constantly sitting on her soiled bedding because she had more room to designate a potty area (she only pees on the ground floor where there is bedding, not on the shelves). Might also be, that she was more comfortable and a bit older and the dust she was bathing is was much better quality, that she is much cleaner; no more yellow spot!

 

[Kattiara17]

Thanks all -- I'm relieved to hear it's not something terribly out of the ordinary.