qtpie61282
Well-known member
I sold a kit to this woman years ago, he was born may of 08. he just recently passed away and I don't really have an answer for her as to why....
I will post her email and if any of you could give me ideas as to what happened it would be great!
"Hi Jen, not sure if you remember me or not, this is Anne Marie, I bought my chinchilla "Vinny" from you a few years ago. This is a very sad day for us as Vinny has passed away at such a young age. I wanted to email you to see if you could give me any insight as to what may have led to Vinny's illness. We have a double level ferret nation cage that Vinny was in, two weekends ago i had the idea to remove the second level platform so he would have a big open cage with the two smaller shelves and many wooden perches to leap around on. By last weekend I noticed he hadn't been eating all of his food or hay, and he seemed to be stressed, so I figured he didn't like this new setup. We put the cage back to normal on sunday. I was home from work monday, and noticed in the morning that his food still looked pretty much untouched, and more alarming to me I noticed there were no feces in the cage. We got him right into the vet that day, at this point he still looked well, his activity level was decreased a bit while in the cage but outside of the cage and at the vet he was quite active. The vet game us some pain meds to give him, oxbow critical care to feed him and a probiotic.His diagnosis was ileus. We fed him three times on monday, he was very cooperative with the feedings he actually liked the oxbow a lot. We fed him three more times on tuesday, and i found about eight stool pellets in his cage that afternoon so we thought things were going well. We fed him once wednesday morning but when we got home from work in the afternoon he felt a little bloated to me and there weren't any more stool in the cage. The vet told us not to force anymore food in him, so we just let him be and brought him back to get xrayed on thursday afternoon. The xray didnt show any blockage or stones, his stomach was empty but the bowels were full, and there was just a small amount of gas distention in his belly. My vet offered to bring Vinny home with her for the night so she could monitor him. At this point you could tell he was in pain, that morning before his pain meds he was grinding his teeth. His activity level was very low and it looked like it was hard for him to move around. She gave him subcutaneous fluids and motility drugs to get the bowels moving through the night, we were hoping for some good news this morning but unfortunatley she called us around seven am and told us he did not make it. She said she checked him around 2:30 and he was alright, but then at 6 when she woke up he had passed in his sleep. She says she feels so bad that she really doesn't have an answer for me on what could have caused this and why we lost him. She says she has seen chins in much worse shape than he was. Even on thursday he was still hydrated. She thinks maybe the stress of the illness could have put a strain on his heart. She doesn't think just changing his cage was the cause of all this though, she thinks there may have been some bacterial presence that led to it. I just wish i knew what caused him to get ill, if you have any thoughts that may help us figure it out it would be appreciated. Have you ever heard of something like this happening with chins before? Nothing else has changed, he was still getting the same food: mazuri pellets, timothy hay,and a raisin treat once a day. I did recently buy some alfalfa cubes which i hadn't given to him in a while. Also we moved to a new house but that was back in november. The only other thing we noticed was a couple months back he was starting to get some matted fur on his back hips, i think he was chewing at it. This had stared to go away though and he was looking good again. Sorry if I went on and on, we are just very shocked and saddened by this and i wanted to get your input/advice. Thank you for your time, hope to hear from you soon"
I will post her email and if any of you could give me ideas as to what happened it would be great!
"Hi Jen, not sure if you remember me or not, this is Anne Marie, I bought my chinchilla "Vinny" from you a few years ago. This is a very sad day for us as Vinny has passed away at such a young age. I wanted to email you to see if you could give me any insight as to what may have led to Vinny's illness. We have a double level ferret nation cage that Vinny was in, two weekends ago i had the idea to remove the second level platform so he would have a big open cage with the two smaller shelves and many wooden perches to leap around on. By last weekend I noticed he hadn't been eating all of his food or hay, and he seemed to be stressed, so I figured he didn't like this new setup. We put the cage back to normal on sunday. I was home from work monday, and noticed in the morning that his food still looked pretty much untouched, and more alarming to me I noticed there were no feces in the cage. We got him right into the vet that day, at this point he still looked well, his activity level was decreased a bit while in the cage but outside of the cage and at the vet he was quite active. The vet game us some pain meds to give him, oxbow critical care to feed him and a probiotic.His diagnosis was ileus. We fed him three times on monday, he was very cooperative with the feedings he actually liked the oxbow a lot. We fed him three more times on tuesday, and i found about eight stool pellets in his cage that afternoon so we thought things were going well. We fed him once wednesday morning but when we got home from work in the afternoon he felt a little bloated to me and there weren't any more stool in the cage. The vet told us not to force anymore food in him, so we just let him be and brought him back to get xrayed on thursday afternoon. The xray didnt show any blockage or stones, his stomach was empty but the bowels were full, and there was just a small amount of gas distention in his belly. My vet offered to bring Vinny home with her for the night so she could monitor him. At this point you could tell he was in pain, that morning before his pain meds he was grinding his teeth. His activity level was very low and it looked like it was hard for him to move around. She gave him subcutaneous fluids and motility drugs to get the bowels moving through the night, we were hoping for some good news this morning but unfortunatley she called us around seven am and told us he did not make it. She said she checked him around 2:30 and he was alright, but then at 6 when she woke up he had passed in his sleep. She says she feels so bad that she really doesn't have an answer for me on what could have caused this and why we lost him. She says she has seen chins in much worse shape than he was. Even on thursday he was still hydrated. She thinks maybe the stress of the illness could have put a strain on his heart. She doesn't think just changing his cage was the cause of all this though, she thinks there may have been some bacterial presence that led to it. I just wish i knew what caused him to get ill, if you have any thoughts that may help us figure it out it would be appreciated. Have you ever heard of something like this happening with chins before? Nothing else has changed, he was still getting the same food: mazuri pellets, timothy hay,and a raisin treat once a day. I did recently buy some alfalfa cubes which i hadn't given to him in a while. Also we moved to a new house but that was back in november. The only other thing we noticed was a couple months back he was starting to get some matted fur on his back hips, i think he was chewing at it. This had stared to go away though and he was looking good again. Sorry if I went on and on, we are just very shocked and saddened by this and i wanted to get your input/advice. Thank you for your time, hope to hear from you soon"
