Runny poops, I need advice please!

[Mimichi]

Bah I don't even know where to start really. My chin seems to have somewhat runny poops. It's not quite a complete liquid, but it's not a total solid either. They were perfectly normal yesterday so I'm not really sure what happened in those few hours?? She's been the on same food ever since before I got her, Tradition chinchilla food, and she's gets just regular timothy hay. Nothing has changed since I did get her and I've had her for a little over a month. I've never had any sort of problems like this before and I'm a first time chin owner so I'm a little bit at a loss. Nothing about her is any different. She's still active, running around, chewing on her toys, and just being a normal silly chin.

I did a bit of digging around and it seems she could have gotten something from the tap water which kind of has me worried. Should I wait a few days to see if her poop gets any better or should I take her to a vet as soon as possible? Like I said above, I'm a first time chin owner and I haven't had her for very long so I feel extra worried.

Also is bottled water that says it's gone through reserve osmosis alright to give her? I've read about it and it seems alright, but I just wanted to make sure.

 

[tunes]

Rather than rushing her to the vet, take in a stool sample. If it's Giardia, which is what you usually get from contaminated water, then the vet can't do anything for her there except give you antibiotics to treat her at home. Since she already has loose poops, stressing her more may make it worse. Take in a fresh stool sample and have it tested. You might want to clean out her cage or take her out and put her somewhere where you know you can collect fresh poos.

For now, take away all her pellets and give her nothing but the timothy hay. Change your water source and get her some reverse osmosis. The pre-bottled gallon jugs at Wal-Mart are 88 cents or so. Keep her off the pellets for a couple days, then reintroduce. You might get lucky and her tummy is just a bit "off" and pulling the pellets for a little while might snap her out of it. If it's Giardia, you will need to treat her and treat the area she lives in as well, but we can go into that once you find out if it even is Giardia.

 

[Mimichi]

Alright, thank you tons for the reply! I really do appreciate it.

All I have right now is bottled water, but I read the label and it says it was purified using reverse osmosis, so would using that be fine? It's 11 at night so I don't really feel like running out, but if that's not fine I don't mind going since there's a Walmart right down the street.

 

[ticklechin]

What I do for loose poo first is give the chin a couple of days treatment of pet pectillin,
.3ml twice a day, if it does not clear up chin goes to the vet-this is only if there are no other symptoms and the poo does not smell or is hollow or looks like swiss cheese.

 

[Mimichi]

Hm, well her poop smells pretty bad does that mean anything?

 

[Stackie]

Foul smelling stools is a good sign of a parasitic infection. I would get that stool sample to a vet and see what they come up with. They usually cost around $20-30 and most only take about 20 minutes.

 

[Mimichi]

Alright, thank you! I actually found a vet not too far away that works with chins so that's really great. They open at nine so I plan on heading there asap. I really do appreciate all the help.

 

[Mimichi]

So the place I was originally going to go to didn't have their chinchilla vet into today, so I found an animal hospital that supposedly works with chins. I took in some of her poop, they tested it, and it came back negative. But when I was talking to the lady at the desk she said she'd never heard of any parasite that they can get from tap water which made me highly doubt their knowledge about chins. Maybe it was just her, I'm not sure.

None the less I'm going to keep and eye on her for the rest of the day, and if she doesn't get any better I'm going to take her to the place I was originally going to go to. I'm just glad she's still drinking water and eating her hay. Plus she's still acting like her usual self.