Weird colors...

[Jadebf700]

I am new to chin owning so this could be completely normal. I looked on buddy's little bed/pillowy thing he has in his cage today and there are these brownish yellowish spots on it. Almost rust colored. I don't know if this is normal urine color or maybe diarhea color and we have been giving him too many treats. I recently took his pillow cover and stuff out and washed it and it had these same color stains on it. We also found an orangey splotch of stuff on the outside corner of his cage that we are pretty sure is not from us. Any Ideas?

 

[paris26]

That sounds like chin urine. It can range from yellow to a dark orange in color. How many treats are you giving your chin and what are you giving him? Any GI upset from too rich of a diet or too many treats usually comes out in the form of diarrhea or mushy poos

 

[Jadebf700]

We got some pet store treats. He usually gets a raisin or two a day split into peices and spread out and too many pet store treats. His poo has been coming out all normal. He is still getting used to the environment so he ends up being skitish with all the noise and he poos when he gets scared. There is a lot of poo but all hard and in pellet form.

 

[ABBY W.]

Raisins should only be given a few times per week, and only one at a time. It is possible his stomach is upset, but most likely the spots are urine. I would recommend cutting back on the raisins to only two or three days a week, and if you want to give treats on the other days, give something with less sugar, like spoon sixe shredded wheat, plain cheerios, or dried rose hips.

 

[alli713]

There are also those of us who say no raisins at all, I'm one of them. There are plenty of other healthy treats out there. Raisins have sugar which is bad for a chinchilla's digestive system.

Rosehips, bite size non-shredded wheat, whole oats, rolled oats, plain cheerios, uncooked whole wheat pasta, are just a few of the good treats for your chin.

Stay away from pet store bought treats as many have honey, sugar, nuts, seeds, etc which are all bad for your chin.

But, it very well could just be a pee stain, many times when my girls pee on something and it dries it's a very dark yellow/orange color.

 

[Jadebf700]

I have been giving him a very little ammount of steal cut oats and he scarfs those up very quickly.

 

[ABBY W.]

I actually found that uncooked pasta gave my chins diahrrea. I was giving whole wheat tri-color pasta. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

[Tillygizmo]

Also, apple sticks and a few other typies of wood will make the pee so dark it almost looks like blood, so now worry if that happens and the timing is right when you gave them the wood.. I almost peed myself the first time I saw that

 

[alli713]

I actually found that uncooked pasta gave my chins diahrrea. I was giving whole wheat tri-color pasta. Has anyone else had this problem?

How much did you give? I've just used a small, maybe 2" section of a spaghetti noodle and haven't had any issues.

 

[nicky]

I would say that it's probably just pee. One of my chins urine is so dark orange that it's like a rust color. I'm sure that's probably all that it is. I was pretty shocked at the color of his urine too at first. It looked similar to blood to me, I even took him out and looked him over. But, in the end it's just dark pee. His is darker than the rest of my chins. But I alos noticed that he drinks a little less than them too. I'm sure that probably has something to do with it.