my chins nose is scratched and bleeding

[Nadeshda]

Hi guys.

I just came home to find blood on my chins' cage. Only one of them is hurt. I think she might have fallen off one ledge and scratched her nose on the chewed edge. The "brigde" of her nose is missing fur, and has a couple of what seems to be kind of deep scratches, from which she's bleeding. We couldn't check her teeth and mouth because the poor thing is just sore in that area. What can we use to desinfect the area meanwhile? Will betadine work, or is it too strong, or not appropriate to use on the face? BTW, I'm in Europe,so some products available in North America may not be sold here.

Thank you so much in advance.

 

[Crazy]

Oh my gosh, I'm not going to be much help there. My chinchilla just got a deep scratch on her cheek. I also several years back had a chinchilla with a cut on her nose. Are you positive they did not fight? I have heard to be very careful with disinfecting their by their nose since it could get in her nose. Just be very aware of that. I believe chins bleed a lot on there nose? Mine had a tiny scratch and I had blood all over my hand.
You need to use a mild disinfectant. I don't know much about disinfectants..or anything for that matter I just signed on to post about my chinchillas condition lol.
I really hope somebody helps you soon. How is it that people get more responses in the middle of the night in the emergency board than during the day?

 

[Sugarmama]

Message username Claire D. She is in Europe also, and can give you ideas. Or, her forum is www.chinformative.com and there will be others that can help. They are in Britain or Scotland, I believe.

If you have Blu-Kote available, that will work well. You may know it as gentian violet. I'm not sure about the Betadine; someone else will have to chime in on that.

 

[tunes]

Are you certain she wasn't attacked by her cagemate? That sounds like an awful lot of damage from a fall. It sounds more like she was bitten and they held on for a bit. I would be very observant of them from here on out, to be sure this wasn't the case.

You can clean the wound with warm plain water or half warm water and half hydrogen peroxide (be SURE to cut the hydrogen peroxide with water) and then apply Blu-Kote (gentian violet) or something similar. I would avoid any kind of thick ointment like a triple antibiotic cream. They only do a good job if you can be absolutely sure you got all bacteria out from underneath before you apply them. Otherwise, you're just sealing it in.

 

[Brittney]

I agree with tunes.

I have a chin that is just a klutz and he has never been harmed like that from a fall. Sounds like a cage mate had something to do with this.

Clean it well with some Q-tips and warm water to flush it out then apply Blu-Kote as stated.

Do not use Betadine. It is not intended for the face as it is toxic and could easily be ingested.

Just keep it clean and I would split up your chins to prevent this from happening again.

 

[Nadeshda]

Thank you everyone for your help, I truly appreciate it.

I have no idea if the injury was caused by my other chin. I got them both as babies from the same breeder at the same time, four years ago. I have never seen them be aggressive with one another. The one who is injured seems to like to trim the other's whiskers, though. What leads me to believe this wasn't from a fight is that the other was perfectly calm. The one that is hurt was scaredy, and had a lot of loose fur from stress/fright, the other didn't. I just thought that if they had fought, both would be shedding, but now you're making me wonder.The good thing is that we separated them anyway, because she was seriously freaking out on the cage, she just sat on top of the wheel and didn't move. As soon as we took her out to clean her, she became much more active, so we decided to put her in a smaller cage, in which she seems to be fine, eating and drinking.

Thank you as well for the recommendations. I found out what Blu Kote is called here, I'm picking it up ASAP. However, from what I could understand, here it is sold in different "strenghts", like 20%, 50%, etc. Which one should I get?

 

[tunes]

If there's a fight, it's the one getting beat up that loses fur, not the one doing the beating. If you're finding fur around the cage, that's not stress/fright from out of the blue. That's being attacked. You're right, it's a good thing you separated them.

Blu-Kote: Sodium propionate 9.1%, gentian violet 1%, acriflavine 0.15%, in a special base of water, urea, glycerine, isopropyl alcohol 47% by volume.

 

[Carol~Anne]

My two new rescue boys have been with me for five weeks tomorrow and when I got them there wasn't a hair out of place on either one of them but the stress from the move and being in the chin room with other chins has really taken its toll on the less dominant chin Rupert. His fur is falling out in clumps while his dominant cage mate's fur is totally in tact. Just wanted to mention this b/c if there's an issue between the two chins, it doesn't always mean that both will have signs of fur being slipped. I clipped the more dominant ones whiskers last night, so we shall see if he settles himself down or not.