Chinchilla broke/sprained hind foot

I got him a new wooden hay holder and i heard my chin have a little scuffle with it and then run straight under his wheel. He then closed his eyes a little as if he were in pain. Right now he is on the bottom level of the cage (very unusual at this time) and i touched each of his legs to see which was hurt and it seems to be the back left hind leg. He is limping a bit and is unable to make it to a higher level of his cage. I do not want to bring him to the emergency vet as the chin is well enough to eagerly eat. Is there anything I could do tonight to comfort him before I take him to the vet tomorrow morning? thank you

btw took that wooden hay holder out immediately after

Put him in a carrier to limit his ability to jump and possibly hurt himself further and take him to the vet for x-rays as soon as possible.

How is he? Don't put off going to the vet if he is not well.

He needs to be seen so that the pain can be addressed. A chin in pain will often stop eating. Besides, it's just mean to leave them in pain when something can be done about it.

chins hide pain so well, and although he is eating, he is most likely hurting a lot.

i'd get to the vet asap, if you haven't gone already.

update??

Thanks for your concerns everyone

I took him to the vet the following morning. He got a shot of buprenorphine so that she (the vet) could better evaluate him. He was walking around a little bit, just slower than normal while not putting weight on his affected hind leg. She couldn't find anything wrong with the leg so she thinks it may be a sprain or dislocation in the pelvis. I did not get x-rays because a pelvis can't be splinted anyway. For five days I'm giving him 0.1 ml Meloxicam twice daily.

He's restricted to the bottom level of the cage. He learned his lesson the night of the accident because he kept failing his hops up to the next floor, and doesn't try anymore. Luckily he's being himself - eating just a little less due to lack of exercise, and being affectionate. He also does this strange thing that when my dad goes up the stairs he "chases" him by running on the wheel simultaneously. He still does it in a slow trotting fashion which is both cute and sad at the same time.

another update:
today he was very hyper and went on jumping on the higher levels and running on the wheel. He's still limping so I removed the perch that allowed him to go higher, and I also removed the wheel. he is mad.

You really need to think for him and remove the wheel and any thing he could try to even climb up on.He should probably be in a small cage to help keep him from being very active even if he wants to be. Pain meds are great and definitely needed but they also come with a responsibility-the animal won't really feel pain when they run/jump/play because the pain med is blocking /dulling that sensation and since they don't really feel the pain they will do things that can actually make the initial injury not heal or even make it worse.So you have to protect them from hurting themselves.

I'm with the above post. He really needs cage rest for a couple weeks to let the leg heal. I'm a little perplexed on why you thought an X-ray was not warranted. You may not be able to splint a pelvis bu you can surely pop a hip back in if it was dislocated.

You guys are right - I should've got him that X-ray.
This morning i noticed that same leg was chewed raw in a spot. It was red like blood, but not quite bleeding. (nothing like the one shown here http://www.chins-n-hedgies.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16596 )
Anyways went to the vet and the x-ray revealed 3 broken toes. The nurses improvised a cast to cover up the bitten spot while at the same time splinting the injury. It's a pretty huge cast. They want me to come back in a week to redo the bandage/cast and to monitor any discharge or funky smell from it. I kind of feel like changing the cast once a week is too little... anyhow I'm giving him his leftover meloxicam from the initial visit (.05 ml 2x daily) to help with the pain.

Now i'm currently waiting for my mom to get home so she could help me apply his "cone of shame" so that he won't bite the bandage off. I haven't found much information about chinchilla e-collars, so any advice about them would be great.

When i got him back from the vet after the cast was applied, chin looked straight at me and honked at me. The only other time he has honked before was when he was having nightmares. Poor baby must be like "what the heck did you do to my leg "

One of mine had a broken leg a year or two ago and I had to have the cast changed a minimum of twice a week. No matter how you slice it, casting a chinchilla is high risk and incredibly draining on all parties involved.

I was advised against the cone because they can't reach around the cone to eat. If you choose to go the cone route, I strongly recommend picking up a digital gram scale to monitor any weight fluctuations. Weigh at the same time 2 days in a row. If he drops weight, he's not eating, and the cone needs to go.

About two weeks after the break, mine developed an open wound of some sort on the broken leg and started chewing furiously at the cast to get to it. She was getting Metacam from the get-go, but once they found the wound, they added antibiotics to the mix. Since yours already chewed his leg, you're dealing with the same risk of infection that I faced, so you'll want to make sure the vet keeps a close eye on that in case antibiotics are required. Personally, I'd go in twice a week for the first 2 weeks to have them check the wound. Better safe than sorry.

If you have to give antibiotics, you'll also want to give probiotics to repopulate the good bacteria in the gut that the antibiotics are killing. To further exacerbate the situation, some chins will go off their feed while on antibiotics, which results in the need to handfeed. For that, you'll need Critical Care or Essentials for Life.

The bottom line is that no matter what you do, he's probably going to find a way to chew through that cast. If he ingests any of the material, you're looking at a potential impaction or blockage. The only way I found to stay on top of it was to check on mine every 2-4 hours around the clock and clip off any frayed pieces as you see them. Casts only have so many layers, so if you see the stuffing or notice how thin the layers are, you NEED to get him into the vet immediately to get recasted. If you notice a problem off hours, you'll have to stay awake in the middle of the night to offer him food and sticks as diversions so that he doesn't chew the cast.

As everyone else stated, mobility needs to be severely limited to prevent further injury. No shelves. No wheel. No dust for a bit. Only food, water, hay and sticks to chew on. I gave mine dust showers by sprinkling it on her head in a separate cage after about a week. The issue is that if dust gets under the cast, it can further irritate the open wound and lead to an infection, so check with your vet on whether dusting in moderation is okay or not.

He's going to be completely dependent on you for everything since you'll be taking away his entertainment, so make sure you give him plenty of extra attention and as many sticks and toys as he wants.

I hope that helps a bit and I sincerely hope he heals quickly for you. It's a difficult position to be in.

Best of luck to you both!

Thank you very much Airyn - our cases sound so similar that it comforts me . I hope that chin is doing fine now. How is she?

He tried chewing on the bandage but it was too impenetrable for him so I did not give him the cone.

I took him to the vet today because he seemed a little sad last night. Apparently the bandage/cast gave him pressure sores - one between his toes and one where he was chewing his leg last sunday. He is currently at the vet still because the other vet I went to ( my primary vet is closed on Sundays) is taking forever to send my vet the x-rays. The doc does not want to bandage him until she sees them. He will be on antibiotics and pain meds. He is losing weight as well because he went from 505 grams to 470 in two weeks. I was also taught to force feed him Critical Care today though it may not be necessary because he seems to like the taste.

Since you're going to use antibiotics, I'd definitely skim through some of the probiotic threads. I use Lifeline, but I've seen other suggestions on here as well.

35g in two weeks is a huge loss, especially since he's so small to begin with. If he's not eating pellets or hay, he should be eating 60ml of Critical Care per day. You'll need to stay on top of that around the clock. Continue to free-feed food and hay, and keep a really close eye on what he eats on his own. Weigh him daily and track every feeding so that you can adjust accordingly. You can start to space out the feedings a bit when you see him eating on his own again. Some chins are okay after a few days, while others won't touch their food until the meds are done.

Keep in mind that their nature is to be mobile at all times, so there is no such thing as too much attention in situations like this. Your entire world will need to revolve around him until he's okay again. If you can't keep your eyes open and don't know what day it is, you're doing it right. )

Had it been any of my other three chins that broke a bone, I would've spared them the gruelling immobility process and urged my vet to amputate the leg immediately. It's just too hard on them to stay still and in good spirits for that long. I made the decision I did because Nixi is very much my baby. I handfed her from day one because she couldn't latch on, and we have a strong enough bond that I knew I could get her through it. It certainly wasn't without many, many sleepless nights, though. Today, she's better than ever and you honestly wouldn't know she ever had a break.

Please keep us posted on your little guy. I hope all goes smoothly for you!

It's been a month since he broke 3 toes and we got another X-ray. It's healing, but very slowly and the vet and radiologist are suspecting that he has a bone infection. He's currently on Baytril. He lost 10 grams since the last visit two weeks ago, but it is much smaller than the loss of 30g during the week following his accident. He is not underweight, I just do not want him to fall underweight so I am supplying him with 10ml critical care daily along with his normal food. He is probably eating less because his leg bandage is making him miserable. He had some pressure sores again from his bandage, but were not nearly as bad as the first ones he had from the bandages that the cheap vet put on. It's going to be a slow and expensive process to heal his toes. I've spent at least $700 on vet bills in the past month.

If he's still losing weight (albeit slowly), I would be supplementing him with more Critical Care than just 10 grams a day. As he's currently on Baytril -- I would assume oral? -- that may make him not want to eat because of the taste, so I would be forcefeeding him to (ideally) start working on gaining that weight back, or at least maintaining that weight. Even slowly losing weight can lead to a large loss over time, so I would work to maintain, at the very least.

Best of luck.

Slow progress is still better than no progress. I don't have nearly as much experience as some of the other members who have commented on this thread, but for what it's worth I agree with Greychins. As long as he's still losing weight, you should be supplementing. If I'm understanding you correctly, that's a 45gram loss total, correct? No matter how you slice it, that's a problem that needs more attention.

Sorry to be repetitive, but did you get the probiotics? I only ask because I've witnessed the appetite loss caused by Baytril on a few occasions. Probiotics have proven to be the solution every time.

I would have had the toes amputated, casts and splints don't work well with chinchillas and can lead to some nasty infections.

I have increased the force feed to 20ml of Critical Care a day with added acidophilus in order to counteract the Baytril's effect on the gut. He probably lost weight because I stopped force-feeding for a week.

I totally see how you feel, ticklechin. His splint caused him a couple pressure sores (from the crappy vet though) and is making him pretty miserable. I just really want him to heal and be a normal chinny. I was glad to hear that his bones healed a little bit. I really wish I could hear more success stories on broken chinny bones healing rather than amputating them all the time. And more information on the survival rate regarding bone infections

I'm going to chime in and say I'd ask for the toes to be amputated because (and I'll be very honest here) I've yet to see a chin recover fully from osteomyelitis - the long term outlook is never good because the drugs needed to properly treat bone infection are pretty nasty on the body in the concentrations needed to shift the infection. If the infection is not cleared then it may well cause problems further down the line - amputation stops that and chins do very well on 3 legs. Taking a few toes off will probably not even be noticeable by the chin.

What is the cost of amputation? Vet isn't even sure if he has osteomyelitis or not. It was just "possible"