3 chins with eye issues

hi there. i have 3 chinchillas - 2 standard grey and my ebony. one standard grey has his own cage (Sully). we have noticed lately that Smoke (standard grey) has had runny eyes. i believe this has been going on for a while with him; it kind of comes and goes. has never seemed to really bother him though.

tonight, while i was attempting yet again to get all 3 to live happily together, i noticed that Scrat (ebony violet carrier) and Sully had what appeared to be a dried "goober" one their eyes. i was able to pick them off, with no residue or anything being seen, but am just wondering if anyone might know what it could be?

there aren't any chinchilla-aware vets in the area, so i'm kind of on my own with this. should i be quite worried about their eyes? they don't seem to be rubbing them or irritated by it, but i'm just concerned.

thanks in advance to any responses.

What kind of dust are you using? What kind of bedding?

Did you dust soon before you noticed the eye goober? Some discharge is natural, it's how the eye keeps itself clean and washes out unwanted foreign objects ( like particles from dust that might get in there during dusting ). If your bedding is very fine that could be a problem as well, it could be stirring up small particles that are getting into their eyes. If it is not a constant issue, and they are not rubbing them, and they are not red or swollen in the eye lids, then it's probably an environmental irritant.

Buddy gets the gunky eyes after his dust bath too but it doesn't seem to bother him and it is gone by the end of the day.

I never have goobers after dusting, but I only use blue cloud dust. Out of 80 - 100 chins at any given time that's pretty good odds... The dust makes a huge difference!

It depends on the chin as well, I think. We use Blue Cloud as well - Kokomo almost never gets goobers, but Kenai nearly always gets them (but only after dusting). Guess some chins are just more sensitive than others.

thanks for the replies.

the shavings that we use wouldn't be a problem because of how the cage is built - they can't touch them. i use living world dust (because that's all we have in town) and it has never seemed to be a problem before.

Smoke does have eye goobers before dusting, after dusting, or any other time of the week. they don't seem to bother him. i just had him out to clean them off, and i looked at his eyes, and they don't seem swollen or irritated in any way. there does seem to be a little bit of hair loss around them, but i think he's always been like that. he has short patches all over him.

i looked at the other two tonight as well, and their eyes look fine. no sign of anything. i would presume theirs was because of the dust.

i will keep my eye on Smoke and see if there are any factors that seem to make the goobers worse, or better...

thanks again for the replies