monkeychin
New member
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2014
- Messages
- 2
Hi,
I have a chinchilla who's about 3 years old, she has somewhat changed over the past 3 months and pretty much completely stopped gnawing on wood, at least in her cage (I would give her little wood blocks and she used to love them), the occasional trying to eat the wall still happens and she doesn't seem to have a problem with that.
She also seemed to keep emptying her food bowl and generally not enjoying the pellets we gave her (looks like she was picking out the big ones and the pellets were pretty small), I decided to buy some new ones that are in a funny shape and a lot bigger, since then I can see they are a lot easier for her to eat although she still persists into emptying her food bowl. She also has quality hay but doesn't like to eat (or stand) on it, when I originally got her 2.5 years back the owner did not seem to give her pellets more the standard hamster/guinea pig kind of food-mix.
We put her on pellets straight away and strangely enough she absolutely loved them at first when we changed her food, almost like we gave her a bowl of raisins, anyway over time she has gotten a lot pickier with what she eats and seems bored of the pellets but I also have a nice forest mix for her when she's out that she occasionally picks from, but again doesn't seem to love anymore.
I started to notice that her fur around her chin was wet and dirty, we would have to clean it and weren't sure what was going on but as she is extremely naughty she pees on-top of her cage sometimes or somewhere else she fancies so me and my partner originally thought that this was because the inside of her plastic tube was dirty of pee and it was a little so we cleaned it, but it kept happening, next day she would be wet and dirty again.
Since then we realised she is drooling as it is becoming noticeable and in the mornings has bubbles around her mouth and is 'slobbering' with her tongue.
She also has a little bald patch around her eye and we thought she had fungus so cleaned her cage thoroughly and moved her to another room, cleaned her sand everyday and looking at solutions on how we could battle this.
Also her teeth look okay, dark orange and not too overgrown (the bottom ones are getting a bit long but I think it is because she hasn't been gnawing as much as she used to).
With all these problems we figured it is fungus/ringworm and some sort of malocclusion, so we took her to the vet, who's already seen her a year ago (and said she was the happiest chin he ever seen, she was very calm at the vet and met a huge dog), he said the whole kind of "oh no" when he looked inside her mouth and had a book ready open to show us about molar teeth malocclusion, the back teeth seems to be going into the cheek which describes her symptoms well and explains the bald eye patch, turns out there is no fungus/ringworm.
He says he has to put her under anaesthetic to have a better look but it looks quite bad from what he can see so far, he could possibly try and trim her teeth but seemed more about the idea of getting us ready to put her down, but after reading similar stories of chin owners who seem to successfully help their chin by trimming or even removing their molar teeth I am not sure what is the better decision, any advice would be appreciated.
I have a chinchilla who's about 3 years old, she has somewhat changed over the past 3 months and pretty much completely stopped gnawing on wood, at least in her cage (I would give her little wood blocks and she used to love them), the occasional trying to eat the wall still happens and she doesn't seem to have a problem with that.
She also seemed to keep emptying her food bowl and generally not enjoying the pellets we gave her (looks like she was picking out the big ones and the pellets were pretty small), I decided to buy some new ones that are in a funny shape and a lot bigger, since then I can see they are a lot easier for her to eat although she still persists into emptying her food bowl. She also has quality hay but doesn't like to eat (or stand) on it, when I originally got her 2.5 years back the owner did not seem to give her pellets more the standard hamster/guinea pig kind of food-mix.
We put her on pellets straight away and strangely enough she absolutely loved them at first when we changed her food, almost like we gave her a bowl of raisins, anyway over time she has gotten a lot pickier with what she eats and seems bored of the pellets but I also have a nice forest mix for her when she's out that she occasionally picks from, but again doesn't seem to love anymore.
I started to notice that her fur around her chin was wet and dirty, we would have to clean it and weren't sure what was going on but as she is extremely naughty she pees on-top of her cage sometimes or somewhere else she fancies so me and my partner originally thought that this was because the inside of her plastic tube was dirty of pee and it was a little so we cleaned it, but it kept happening, next day she would be wet and dirty again.
Since then we realised she is drooling as it is becoming noticeable and in the mornings has bubbles around her mouth and is 'slobbering' with her tongue.
She also has a little bald patch around her eye and we thought she had fungus so cleaned her cage thoroughly and moved her to another room, cleaned her sand everyday and looking at solutions on how we could battle this.
Also her teeth look okay, dark orange and not too overgrown (the bottom ones are getting a bit long but I think it is because she hasn't been gnawing as much as she used to).
With all these problems we figured it is fungus/ringworm and some sort of malocclusion, so we took her to the vet, who's already seen her a year ago (and said she was the happiest chin he ever seen, she was very calm at the vet and met a huge dog), he said the whole kind of "oh no" when he looked inside her mouth and had a book ready open to show us about molar teeth malocclusion, the back teeth seems to be going into the cheek which describes her symptoms well and explains the bald eye patch, turns out there is no fungus/ringworm.
He says he has to put her under anaesthetic to have a better look but it looks quite bad from what he can see so far, he could possibly try and trim her teeth but seemed more about the idea of getting us ready to put her down, but after reading similar stories of chin owners who seem to successfully help their chin by trimming or even removing their molar teeth I am not sure what is the better decision, any advice would be appreciated.
