going crazy with a bad leg

[RDZCRanch]

I completely understand the frustration of a "supposed" chinchilla vet that costs boat loads of cash. The first vet I went to with my chinchillas had awards all over his walls, news clippings with articles about him and pictures of any and all exotic animals splattered around his vet office. My chinchilla was having diarrhea and had always been a huge water drinker. He said she was hydrophilic and needed baytril. Luckily, she recovered from the diarrhea, but I don't think it was due to the antibiotics, I'm pretty sure she was just having an irregular stool as happens with chinchillas at times. A couple months later, one of my first babies had a prolapse and when we called to tell them we were on our way, the receptionist told us not to bother. She was convinced we weren't seeing intestine but really, we were freaking out about his penis (she even consulted the vet). I found another vet that had to put him down.

On the other hand, not every breeder with healthy looking chinchillas is a good breeder. The first breeder I found, I thought she was an awesome breeder. She had 10yr+ under her belt and seemed to have the answer to any ailment my chinchillas developed. It's only when I found the internet and CnQ that I realized she was completely bonkers and a BYB. Because of your area, I'm sure those of us that have been around for a while know who your breeder is and they've proven themselves unethical, unreliable, and quite frankly, just another back yard breeder.

 

[ticklechin]

Chin incisors should not ever need trimming if the chins teeth are healthy and they are well taken care. If your breeder has that much experience self-trimming ( which is irresponsible) then she is breeding chins with dental issues or she is not taking care of them properly. There is no in between.

 

[selfprodigy]

Just wanted to give you guys an update. I talked with the vet she said it is okay to continue with the antibiotics for a few more days. She said usually around day 3 chins will start to itch from wounds healing. Not only that she said if there was a bit of nerve / ligament damage it could feel like pins and needles and he doesn't know whats happening so he chews it.

She double checked the xrays to make sure it shows all the way down his foot and said there is no fractures or breaks. ( I had her check because i never saw the xray and as a another member suggested maybe they didnt xray his foot)

The advice she gave me was to keep wrapping it and applying the oinment she gave us. It's a silver paste called Silver Sulfadrazine. We just finished changing his dressing it appears to be healing. She told me to smell his leg. If tissue was dying it would have a noticeably bad odor. He leg has zero smell what so ever.


There was two thing i noticed today that i didnt get a chance to talk to the vet about though. His head smells bad. I think it's because we drip some critical care on his chin while feeding and he goes crazy sticking his face into bedding he's already peed on. Any suggestions on how i should handle that?

The other thing i noticed was that his knee looked just a little bit puffy. Like he was retaining water. Now i know there is ligament damage there so it's possible it's just a bit swelling. None of his open wounds are near his knee and he's on antibotics so I don't think it's infected.

Anyways thanks for everyone's input I really do appreciate it.

 

[RDZCRanch]

Personally, I don't like silverdine for wound management. It works well for burns, but I'd use an antibiotic ointment or manuka honey. I know there are a lot of people out there that profess the wonderful things that silver can do, but we have other options that are more effective in helping an animal heal. IMO, even neosporin works better.

Did she just X-ray the foot or did she X-ray his whole leg? A chin being on antibiotics is not going to prevent all infections, it just helps fight infections. It's entirely possible that it's an abscess growing, but it could also be milk swelling. Mild swelling, the knee should just look a bit larger and not puffy. Puffy makes me worry about some kind of fluid in the knee.

You can rub dust onto his head. You don't want dust in the wound, but after you've dressed the wound it would be fine to rub in some dust just on his head. Other than that, you can use unscented baby wipes to clean him up a bit.

 

[selfprodigy]

I checked the whole leg was xrayed and from 2 different angles. His leg was caught a lot further up than his foot. But he was chewing on his foot thats why i called to check if his foot was on the xray.

After removing the dressings the puffiness went down pretty quick. Maybe it was wrapped a little too tight. But yeah so far so good. I have manuka honey as well it just sticks to the bandages like crazy and i hate pulling it off when i change em.

 

[selfprodigy]

:bump1:

Here is a picture of the leg. His foot is actually healing. It was down to the tendon before. My only concern is that we have a bandage just above his knee and one at his foot and as you can see his knee is kinda of swelling up a bit.

What do you guys think