Possible eye infection?

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Ronaan

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Joined
Oct 26, 2018
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A while ago I noticed that my chins right eye looked wet like she had been crying. Whenever I noticed this before I would just tidy up her cage and she'd be fine the next day. But now it's been a few days and it hasn't gotten any better. Last night she let me remove a bit of eye booger (she's still a baby and we're still working on trust) while she ate and when I came home from work today there was even more boogie than before and it looks a little pink. Her left eye is also slightly wet but for the most part it looks normal. I've read up about malocclusion and I don't think it's because of her teeth. She has plenty of apple sticks at all times and even a few wooden rabbit toys. Heck, her cage is hand made out of wood and the little bite marks are proof that she's got enough to gnaw on. She's never greasy, I make sure she gets clean dust all the time and I deep clean her cage every week. Her poops are normal and she gets plenty of food and water.
The only thing I can think of is that the light from my turtle is irritating her. I was thinking about hanging a sheet up between the two but I don't want to put holes in the walls if I don't have to. The way the two are set up makes sense because the eye that faces the tank (she always hangs out in the same spot) is the one with the problem.
Saga is my first small fuzzy pet and since she's still a baby I'm really new to this. None of my dogs have ever had problems like this or at least something I couldn't Google easily lol. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
 
It could be a eye infection, but it's hard to say without actually seeing. When you say she gets clean dust all the time do you also mean she has the dust bath in the cage all the time or just change it after every bath? If not in her cage all the time (which it should not be) how often does she get a bath? Depending on how long she had access to the bath, assuming you are changing it after each bath, does she pee in the dust at all? If so she could have gotten it in her eye. It can also happen that a bit of hay can poke them in the eye. Either way though I would get her checked out at the vet. It could be just a scratch or it could be infected.

Since she is a baby (so I'm guessing under a year?) it's unlikely to be malo. However just chewing on wood only wears down the front teeth. Chinchillas molars grow too, so they need to eat plenty of hay (roughly 70-75% of their diet) to help wear down the molars. Different types of hay are useful too since each wear down the teeth differently.

I'm not sure the light from the lamp itself would bother her, unless it's pointing right at her, but the heat from it might. If it's a heat lamp you want to make sure it's a good distance away from the chinchilla or it can over heat. A chinchilla needs the temperature to be ideally 70F or below, so if it's close enough that you think the light might bother her it might be close enough to give off heat in the cage.

Another possibility depending on the setup, is there any chance something from the turtle's tank splashed up or otherwise got on her? Turtles naturally can carry all kinds of bacteria.
 
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