Essentia
Jax Chinchilla Rescue
Ok, so Fritz (our newest rescue) has a vet appt. on Friday morning to check him over completely. As most of you know he is being railroaded from NY to me, here in FL. I haven't seen him as of yet, other than pictures. He's due to be here tomorrow evening. The last update I have gotten worried me, so I wanted to ask for opinions.
To me, the discharge from his penis screams infection. Should I go ahead and start him on an antibiotic tomorrow? Also, which would you choose SMZ, or Baytril (I have both here)? If his infection is that bad I am afraid the SMZ won't be strong enough, but at the same time, I am worried about over stressing him with the hand feeding high probability with Baytril. Or should I just leave it along until I can get him to the vet on Friday? What would you do?
I got a picture of his penis for you, Crysta, I wanted you to know asap about any problems he had. Like Ash said, the head of his penis is swollen and sticking out at an odd angle, and I saw some discharge. His penis was too swollen to retract into the sheath, although most of it was in the sheath. The head itself and the hole (ureter? I don't remember what it's called) were red and looked irritated. The discharge was yellow and crusty. Kinda like what the boys I babysit call "eye boogers" ...(that stuff in your eye when you wake up, lol) There wasn't much, but it was there. I didn't touch it because my hands weren't just cleaned, and I was taking enough of a risk checking for hair ring without freshly washed hands-(I was sure to only touch the sheath, not his penis)-but I knew Ash only has girls, so I wanted to do it quickly. Didn't find a hair ring.
His teeth are definitely overgrown, because I can see his bottoms--something I can't see in my 4 chins when I check their teeth--obviously I can feel the bottom set when they nibble me, though. Anyway, his top teeth are a decent yellow, but his bottom teeth are closer to a white-yellow. It's no wonder he didn't chew on anything Leif offered him with the state of his teeth! Hopefully it is just because they had that really ****ty stone for him to chew on, and he got used to not chewing on anything...I'd hate for him to have a serious, permanent teeth problem.
One other thing I noticed with his mouth area:: his top lip is split in two. Where the lips normally meet together to make that cute little line that people are used to drawing on cat mouths, it is split up to his nose. So he has two completely separate top lips. Not a serious problem, except that his front top teeth are likely to show occasionally. I don't know if this is because his teeth are overgrown or not, but it definitely isn't something new.
His top teeth are about .5 to 1 cm long, and his bottom teeth are about half the size.
His belly, as Ash said, is severely matted. He smells like pee, which is obviously not his fault, and near his penis is stained pretty yellow. Like Ash said, I noticed that his paws are missing fur, and half of his tail is totally stripped. Going all the way down the tail, not like the half closer to his butt or something--you should be able to see it a bit in the pics I attach.
I'm really upset about his state. He was very good for me when I held him and looked at his teeth--I am thinking he may like women better than men, since he didn't kack at me at all, even though I picked him up, checked his penis for a hair ring, and bothered his mouth. But even the five year old boy I babysit for would know that Fritz should be taken to the vet, and he has only seen a chinchilla once--Pico, who I brought out for him to pet. I have half a mind to email the girl's father. What happened to Fritz was obviously severe neglect, and he should be prosecuted.
BUT he is going to a great home and he is going to be okay, so that is keeping me sane right now.
Pictures attached. I'm sorry, I was too upset to get pictures of me handing him off to Ash, or a picture of me and Fritz at least. I'm sure you understand. I did get a picture of him in his cat carrier while we were driving. The close up picture of his penis is very white, sorry about that. But that's the state of it currently. You can see a lot of his mats in that picture.
To me, the discharge from his penis screams infection. Should I go ahead and start him on an antibiotic tomorrow? Also, which would you choose SMZ, or Baytril (I have both here)? If his infection is that bad I am afraid the SMZ won't be strong enough, but at the same time, I am worried about over stressing him with the hand feeding high probability with Baytril. Or should I just leave it along until I can get him to the vet on Friday? What would you do?