Chinchilla unexpectedly passed away?

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Aceb1975

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Joined
Dec 9, 2016
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I have 3 chins. One three year old who is in a cage alone (smokey), and two four year olds in a cage together (whitey and diesel). I got smokey from a friend and I got whitey and diesel on Craigslist. The owners did not take good care of them. When I got whitey and diesel, they told me they almost died over the summer because they didn't know they had to be kept at a certain temperature and they also informed me they were only ever taken out of the cage for dust. However I took excellent care of my chinchillas, and I woke up to diesel not moving.. He passed away sometime between 5am-11am. He was fine last night, active as usual. They had food and water. The room was the right temperature. He didn't show any signs of illness, and whitey seems perfectly fine just a little distressed over the loss of his buddy. He is still active and eating and drinking. I just want to know what could have possibly happened to diesel? He is only 4. And if he is dead, why isn't whitey? If he had an illness surely whitey would have caught it as well. Please any information will help, I am devastated and want to make sure my other babies are safe. There was no plastic in the cage either. Thank you
 
I'm so sorry for what happened to Diesel.
The only thing that I can think of is maybe he had some sort of heart defect or other genetic disorder. I've heard that things like can cause sudden death without any sort of warning.
The only way you could know for sure is to take diesel to a vetranarian for an autopsy, they should be able to tell you what caused him to pass away. The only problem with that is that it might be expensive.

I hope that at least some of them helped
 
Unfortunately unless you had a necropsy done there may be no way to know for sure. Even if you did, generally it needs to be done within a couple hours of death anyway. Since his cage mate is fine you can pretty much rule out illness. However there is still lots of other possibilities, heart attack, stroke, aneurysm that burst, choked on food or something else. Without knowing your cage set up, other possibilities are, he fell, or if you have a wheel could have taken a tumble or even the wheel is the wrong kind for chins. Did you check to make sure there was no bite marks or blood on him? Cage mates do sometimes turn on each other. Even though there is no plastic, other things can still cause a blockage if swallowed, like cardboard, paper (including paper bedding), fabric (even fleece isn't safe if enough is swallowed), or even a piece of wood. Were all chew sticks given them properly processed and stored properly? If not there could have been something on one. Also is the food and hay nice and fresh smelling? no moldy smell or anything?
Another thing that is possible is, did you have two water bottles and two food bowls? I did have a pair were one actually prevented the other from eating or drinking. I came home from school one day to find one of them collapsed on the floor of the cage. I rushed him to the vet and he was severely dehydrated and underweight.

How long did you have them for? and what were they eating? not just since you got them but when the previous people had him? Improper diet can cause all kinds of health issues, malnutrition, liver and kidney failure, diabetes, kidney and bladder stones, etc. Also what were they drinking before you got them? If straight tap water, there is all kinds of things that can be in it that are at safe/acceptable levels for humans but not for chinchillas. If food or water is the cause, Whitey may have just been a bit stronger then Diesel, but could still be in danger too.
 
something kind of like that happened to me. I took my remaining chin to the vet just to get checked out and give me peace of mind. Perhaps its a good idea with whitey for you. especially if whiteys possibly never been seen by a vet. might give you a little peace of mind!
 
So sorry to hear about your chin ((hugs))
I can imagine you must have been very shocked.. :(
 
I am sorry for your loss - since the previous owners mentioned that they almost died due to the heat, I would lean towards their having had severe heat stroke. In that case their core organs could have been permanently damaged. A heart attack would be my obvious "guess". Do not blame yourself - you gave him a good life.
 
This is from somewhat a while ago, but the same thing actually happened to me last summer.
I used to have a female white mosaic chin named Luna and she was the sassiest and carefree thing I'd ever come across. One day, though, she just lost her normal attitude and refused to eat or drink. We took her to the vet and even he couldn't figure out what was wrong. That was possibly the most devastating day I'd ever experienced. She died later that night. We still don't know what happened and I still miss her a lot. I buried her in my backyard and I still go out there every once in a while just to check in on her and update her on everything that's going on, which sounds corny I know, but it really helps me deal with this hard situation.
Instead of mourning about her, I decided to take a big step in using this information as experience for my next chinchilla. Today, I have a local rescue boy on hold that I should be picking up this weekend. :)
 
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