worried about blood in urine!!

[xoxoimhis]

ok here's some history.... a while ago we noticed Pikachin peeing BRIGHT red
all of a sudden. took him to a vet when things didn't turn normal within a week.
the vet prescribed an antibiotic which he took for about 10 days and the pee
seemed to go back to normal. now it has been a little over a week and we
noticed it AGAIN. i have attached a picture. does it look like blood or does it
look like just a discoloration. we are REALLY worried right now. also before the
antibiotics, Pikachin stopped running in his wheel which he usually does 24/7
but when we stopped seeing the red pee he started running again. he still has
been running for now, but then again, this is this first time we noticed it again.

please somebody say this is normal!! what could cause this?? his diet has been
only hay, [orchard and timothy] sticks/twigs, and pellets. normally oxbow but
just recently mixed oxbow and some PRSC together to test drive PRSC to see if
they take to it well.... which they now throw out the oxbow and only eat the
PRSC. lol!! we just made this switch last night.

 

[Laurie]

A chinchilla running on a wheel 24/7 is a chinchilla with issues. It is not good for a chinchilla to constantly be running on his wheel so I hope you were just throwing that out there and it's not really the case.

Chinchilla urine can be a very dark red/orange. The best thing you can do is remove all shavings and put down white paper to clearly see the color of the urine. In the pic it does look more like blood to me than urine, but again it's hard to tell from a photo.

What can cause blood in urine? A couple of things, a UTI--urinary tract infection, and also the possiblity of kidney stones. Kidney stones can only be detected by xrays.

 

[Brittany]

If you don't have a chinchilla qualified vet, you should probably start looking for one. There are several CA members, hopefully one of them can recommend a good vet.

 

[Snickers]

Here is the vet a lot of us use:

Greek & Associates Veterinary Hospital
23687 Via Del Rio
Yorba Linda, CA 92887
714.463.1190 / 866.940.7028

He is closed on Wednesdays.

Office visits: $55.00
X-rays: $75.00

at least these are the prices I paid about 2 months ago.

 

[xoxoimhis]

thank you so much everyone for all of your responses!!
and thanks for the vet info, i am going to save it.
well we aren't really sure what to do at this point. since that photo,
his urine has been 100% back to normal. we're really confused now.
we have been keeping a close watch on him though, checking everytime
he even gets up to go pee. when he does go pee it's just regular....
and we made sure to see him going so we didn't confuse his urine with
Raichin. we are going to continue to do this though, because i feel like
if it happened once, it is bound to happen again.... we're just very worried
though. i will keep everyone updated as well!!

 

[Claire D]

Had the chin been chewing any apple sticks before you took that photo?

 

[xoxoimhis]

Had the chin been chewing any apple sticks before you took that photo?

he might have. Nan gave us some sticks. i will ask her right now if they were apple.

 

[Snickers]

I gave her some apple and dog wood to try out this past Wednesday.

 

[xoxoimhis]

we're really hoping it was just discoloration and not blood.
we will continue to keep an eye on him. we're kind of worry
warts when it comes to taking care of our chins. lol

 

[Claire D]

Some woods can darken urine to a brown/red colour - give a couple of twigs/sticks again & see what happens. Apple wood is notorious for it.

 

[xoxoimhis]

Some woods can darken urine to a brown/red colour - give a couple of twigs/sticks again & see what happens. Apple wood is notorious for it.

oh wow. i really hope that is the problem then.
we will go ahead and try that again. but is it
kind of different for all chins?? because Raichin's
urine has changed at all and they both had the
same sticks.

 

[Brittany]

How's he doing? Other then the episode of red pee has he shown any other signs of pain, or gone off his feed?

 

[xoxoimhis]

How's he doing? Other then the episode of red pee has he shown any other signs of pain, or gone off his feed?

so far no. and even when we let him out he runs all over
like normal doing flips in the air and wall-runs. i'm hoping it
was just a fluke of urine discoloration. i just think from now
on we're going to constantly check his pee every day. it
scares me so much. kinda a worry wart.

i will continue to keep you all updated!! good or bad.
thank you everyone for your help and support.

 

[xoxoimhis]

just an update. still perfect urine. i have not been giving apple sticks
yet because i just really want to make sure there is absolutely no red.
so that way if it is blood i won't just think "well its the apple sticks."
hope that makes sense.

 

[Snickers]

The 1st time you took him to the vet for blood in the urine did you give him apple sticks?

 

[xoxoimhis]

The 1st time you took him to the vet for blood in the urine did you give him apple sticks?

i don't remember giving him apple sticks exactly around then. i know i have
before. i just don't remember if it was during that time period. but i could
have sworn he was really sick because although he was just as hyper, he
stopped running in his wheel. which he always did. then after his cycle of
medicine, he started running again.

oh and to clarify [i don't think i did yet] to the person in here saying it was
unhealthy for him to run in his wheel 24/7.... i was obviously using a figure of
speech lol!! because that would be insane if i meant it literally!!