Chin is in new home and stopped eating

[SurinaMarie]

I rescued this chinchilla when it was near death. Her body was just skin and bones. She warmed up to me really quickly and she gain all of her weight. She had all of her fur from the waist down ripped out when I got her and she still has small patches missing sometimes. I have now had her for five years and I decided it was time to get her to a permanent home as I have to travel for work.

I found a perfect home. This girl has a chinchilla that is almost the same age as her (5 years). She takes amazing care of her chinchilla (I visited the house a few times) and it is really healthy. Both chins are female, by the way.

At first my chinchilla was nervous but not terrified looking, which was understandable. After a while her new owner realized that she wasn't eating at all, except for her favorite treats, cashews. We both know they can't eat a lot of these so she only gets one or two a day. She is drinking a lot of water, more than usual. It has been five weeks and she still isn't eating hay or her pellets... her poops are about a third the size they used to be and she has lost a dangerous amount of weight. She went from being a little chubbier than the other chinchilla to being a lot smaller. I went on Skype to see for myself and as soon as my chinchilla heard my voice she literally went to her bowl and ate a pellet, then ate some hay!

I am going to pick her up tomorrow and take her home until she eats and fattens up again. But what am I supposed to do here?? I am not leaving for sure until Spring of 2015, but I did this ahead of time in case something like this happened. If someone could give me some advice, just know that we have lots of time to do it... I just don't know what to do! I am moving to Australia, so she can't come with me. Please help me!

 

[Kansas City Chinchillas]

Please stop feeding your chin cashews. They are not good for chins at all. What type of pellets do you feed? They need to be fresh and nutritionally balanced. Timothy or grass hay is great for chins to eat. It is good that you are going to bring her home to recover from losing weight. If she stops eating after returning to her new home the new owner may need to feed her by hand until she is used to her new environment. There are lots of threads here about hand feeding so do a search and read up on it. You might also want to do a search for healthy treats in order to prevent digestive and health problems.

Also: if you didn't do this the first time. It might be helpful to keep your chin on the same diet when you send her to her new home for a couple of months.

 

[chinchillin2005]

STOP feeding her nuts and treats. especially nuts which makes them digest less. Take her to the VET asap as she needs a checkup on not eating. It sounds to me she's scared to be left in a new owners home that she may be neglected in her mind. Animals can go through depression. Give her OXBOW CRITICAL CARE by a syringe and force feed her. SHE NEEDS to eat. and LOTS of good timothy hay for fiber. Try mixing healthy safe chinchilla herbs. theres sites that sell timothy hay mixed in with herbs for chins who dont feel like eating.