Tiny rip on paw

[Brittneyk13]

Hi everyone!

Not sure if this is considered an "emergency" or not. My chin has a tiny tear on her front paw (the bottom). It's not bleeding yet but she keeps biting at it. I put a bunch of new twigs/sticks in her cage to hopefully distract her from it. Is there anything I should be doing? Or do I need to just wait and see? It's obviously bothering her because she is definitely favoring the other paw and not using the hurt one too much. Any advice would be great. Thank you!

 

[LYChinchillas]

I have a chin that has had two minor paw injuries before - at the first instance, since the cut on his paw was of questionable depth, I went to the vet, who prescribed a low dose of metacam for pain and told me to continue to use Blu-Kote (you can buy this online, but watch out - it stains). At the second instance, since the injury was very shallow, I made a call to the vet and monitored my boy very carefully. A scratch doesn't necessarily warrant any pain medication, but it's important to keep a good eye on her, the paw, and any improvements or lethargy. There could be something more than it looks like, but most likely it'll heal up in a few days. I'd give her 2-3 days, monitor improvement, and schedule a vet visit if the wound (and how severely she is nursing it or preferring the other paw) does not visibly improve.

 

[Brittneyk13]

Thank you so much for getting back to me! I definitely will be keeping a close eye on it the next few days. I'm hoping it just improves on its own! It seems the same today but I'm assuming it won't improve that quickly.