Few broken whiskers and some hair loss around her nose? Fungal infection?

[jess32247]

I was reading through another thread about someone's chin losing/breaking whiskers and someone mentioned that along with hair loss around the nose could be a start of a fungal infection. Is that true? It might just be coincidence, but in the past few weeks I've found a few whiskers in my chin's fleece tube and about two weeks ago some small hair loss around her nose. The hair loss on her nose is on either side, it's not much, but enough to see down to her skin. At first I thought she was pushing her nose through the bars to much and lost a bit of fur, but now I'm wondering if its something more. She also spends a lot of time in her fleece tube and usually brings twigs/sticks in with her to munch on, so maybe she accidently chewed one of her whiskers off? What do you think?

I'm not very familiar with fungal infections in chinchillas, but from a older thread I found, the causes could be from something changing that stressed her out? Everything has been the same from what I can tell, unless chins can sense stress and tension in a household, but overall everything is the same. She's in the basement with me, so it's usually very calm.

I might just be freaking out a little bit, but I thought I'd just ask anyway and get some opinions from people who know more about this then I do. I hope it isn't the start of anything serious

 

[jess32247]

I looked at her better under a light and she looks fine, my mom thought so too. However there is what looks like a little more hair loss, this time in the middle of her nose. The area is bigger then the missing spots on the side of her nose, but I'm not sure how she would of lost the fur in that area if she was pushing her nose through the bars? I don't see anything in the cage that she could be nicking herself with, so I'm not sure how she lost any fur in the first place.

Anyway, she's acting like her normal self, so I'm not very worried anymore. Guess I was overacting a little lol

 

[Riven]

Chins will act normal if they have fungus, can you post some pictures?

Fungus is caused when the fungus itself if present, stress can affect them getting it because it lowers the immune system.

Treating fungus is easy and if you think it is fungus at all then I would treat it before it spreads.

 

[jess32247]

I managed to take a couple pictures, I hope you can see what I mean even with the terrible lighting-

The bald spot definitely looks like it's getting bigger, it was smaller about a week ago. How would I treat for fungus? Should I do a full cleaning of her cage?

Actually, should I just follow this thread?
http://www.chins-n-hedgies.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36683&highlight=fungus
Sounds like the same thing

 

[Riven]

That is a great thread full of good info!

It doesn't look like typical fungus, but adding a bit of powder to the dust bath can help you be sure. What kind of cage do you have? Could the nose be rubbing on the bottom of a horizontal bar?

 

[jess32247]

Hmm so it doesn't look like fungus? That's pretty good, I think lol!

Looks like we don't have any Tinactin powder, but I'll probably be able to pick some up within the next couple days. My mom mentioned using cornstarch though, would that work? What would the ratio be to the dust?

I have a Marshall Mansion ferret cage, had it about two years without a problem. She does push her nose through the bars to beg sometimes, but other then that I don't notice her rubbing her nose on the bars or anything. Nothing is sticking out that she could be getting her fur stuck on, so I'm not sure what it's from???

Maybe she bumped into something during playtime when I wasn't paying attention, swear these fuzz butts get into everything!