Hello,
I have not posted for some time and have never really posted chinchilla issues I have had very much here as my vet has been great for the past 7 years with them. I was referred to him through an animal hospital at a time when I brought a girl in ( who is still here!) for a spay and removal of partial developed babies that had stopped developing but just stayed in.
Anyways, I am a hobby breeder, and I also take in select rescues ( I say it like that because I have a certain room for each and have a rule about how many I will take at one time).
Three years ago, I bought two female chinchillas. They were sisters. They got along great, never had problems. My husband and I went out to eat one morning, came back less than an hour later, and one of the sisters, was hovering in the corner, her ears torn off and chewed, her skull exposed in a small spot with the surronding area cracked and the skin chewed off, and also suffrered a very severe puncture wound right above her cone where she urinates. Besides this, the backs of her ears were torn through, on the neck. Her sister, had not a bite mark on her, no hair pulled out. She attacked her sister and the one that got attacked ( Anna was her name) did not fight back at all. They were 7 months of age when this happened.
Of course she was rushed off to a vet. At the time, I worked at a private run pet store and the owner is also a vet. I called him right away since this was a Sunday morning, told him I was coming in, and he brought in a lot of medications. I will make this much shorter by saying after having her in a medical tank for ONLY 2 months, she grew everything back... even the hair where her skin had been initially ripped off and her skull crushed. The end of her healing was the head injury.
Of course, I had payed a lot of money for her in particular... she was a ebony mosaic she had all three colors, a great pattern, and after she was done healing, of course her fur NEVER came in like it was before, but it grew back, always shorter, but softer, and the color changed. She grew a tuft of white like a star on her black and grey head.
Her ears were mangled. Because of all the tissue damage, the scarring was bad. Her left ear was the worst. Both ears had been eaten and chewed ( I say eaten because at the time we came home, they were in an enclosed tank, there was not ONE SINGLE bloody shaving, no skin, no fur, but her sister had red clots drying on her teeth and around her fur on her mouth was Anna's blood)
She was on injectible Baytril for over 30 days, along with Buprenorpine and methadone in small doses in the beginning for pain. Despite what people think, chinchillas metabolize these two specific synthetic opiate pain medications differently than we do, and it works wonderful on them with minimal to no side effects, at least in my experience. Of course I also went through how many bottles of critical care, lifeline, neosporin, and washing my hands in a dip of Betadyne each time contact was made. This allowed her to heal to her maximum extent.
Her sister who attacked her, I had brought back to the breeder, along with pictures, not because of wanting a refund or thinking it was her fault, but to let her know because we were close. It was only THEN revealed to me that the sisters mother, had done the same exact thing to her closest cousin, around the same age. However, put with only males she was ok. I was not comfortable with this for my own breeding practices, because any personality traits like that I strive to cull out of any animal I would help to create. I told her so, and made it clear she would never be bred OR have a cagemate again because of the chances of another chinchilla dying.
The breeder got a little angry, because we were in heavy disagreement about this chinchilla. In the end, I gave her back, my idea, because if I am totally honest I want to care for my animals the best I can and to me this particular chinchilla posed a threat to the health of others.
It turns out the lady bred her.. after a year of miscarriages, she had a big baby that she killed a week later. I believe it to be in the genes.
After Anna healed, she became not agressive like I expected, but more gentle and passive than before. I have many personalities like that here because I specifically breed for that, and even after this traumatic event, she was able to live out her life VERY VERY bonded to a male and had a beautiful huge baby.
However, Because of her ear injury and the scar tissue, in the left ear you could not see the canal. You could not pry it open, nothing, So you could not even see the entrance to the beginning of the middle canal. However, her ears were always dry after she regrew hair and skin, and there was not a problem, or so I thought.
A week and a half ago, I picked her up like I do all the time every morning, she is the first to come out and talk and play and get scritches on her neck she loved it after her hair grew back, I noticed her cry out in suprise tone, and she tilted her head to the left. I then felt body temperature liquid on my hand. At about the same time, I smelled what smells EXACTLY like a bottle of Thai Fish Sauce. For those who are not familiar with that smell, it was the smell of literal rotting or dead fish or animal. Decay.
I immediatly got gauze out, and tilted her head and put light pressure on her ear, and what came out was a mixture of this light red and yellow liquid and specs of what I believe to be pus, solid, in them. I called the vet, and was waiting at the door by 7: 30. They wanted me to leave, but I was also , maybe not for the best, VERY ATTACHED to anna, after caring for her so close , it was like she knew. She kissed me with her nose... she was not your usual chin after all of it... she peed on my husband and would bite him but when I came she would come up to the door and walk out, and act like a different animal... I loved her, so when they told me to go home and they would call, I opted to sit in the waiting room and read the Cat Fancy Magazines they had.
About two hours later, the doctor came out. He looked serious. Usually he smiles. He took me in the room he had been examing her in, and it smelled like the stuff in her ear, the entire room. He took a metal took out, and explained to me that because of the scar tissue that had to form at the base of her ear because it was ripped off, it puffed up to the point that this tool was the ONLY way he could get a look at her ear, and there were three problems. One of them obviously was the infection. The problem was, is that since no air can get to the canal, middle or inner part, it is always moist. This also stopped anyone from knowing about the infection in the first place because it was so closed and the skin was so thick. ( Amputation of her ears was talked about when she had been attacked, but it was not recommended)
But the real problem was when he opened her ears with the tool, he showed me, and after I got my bearings on from the most pungent smell ever when he opened her ears, I seen that where the outer ear is SUPPOSED to bridge onto the beginning of the canal, it looked like a huge valley had been carved out of it. It was FULL of rotting skin.
He said she probably had that "valley" in her ears since the attack and that there really was not much to do he couldnt believed she lived in the first place.
It was very very hard for me because I had tried so hard, and she was a very hardy girl, she LOVED babies, life, and she knew I think that she had been given more time than she was going to originally get.
Listlessly, he began telling me about antibiotics and other things but at the same time explained to me that the infection was probably too far into her ear and the attack she had suffered, I had given her an extra two years of life after, life that she enjoyed, but he told me about other things they would have to do.
In the end, it would have been an issue of me doing it to selfishley keep her and she WOULD be in pain most of the time this time, or to let her go and accept that she had two years she wouldnt otherwise have had. So she was quietly put to rest 5 days ago.
The day after she was put down, her cagemate, Stuart, I picked him up, and smelled the dreaded smell. It was MUCH MUCH milder, not as pungent, but it was there. I looked in his ears, and here was the beginning of oozing. My heart was just racing, litteraly. I didnt even call the vet I just took him in.
Whatever bacteria is causing this ear thing, when it drains during the night and I am not there to wipe it off, it can take only 4 hours and it almost "burns" sores into their outer ear flesh that it dries on. It is super salty, and I want to know wht the heck kind of bacteria could make this rotting fish smell and maybe have a high salt content or turns into a salt like substance when it dries? Because when It dries on the outside of the fur by his ears and on the skin, it turns white, just like salt, dries like it, and it is litteraly like putting salt on a wound, it is making the top skin layer irritated and bloody a little.
Of course, as said, he was rushed off to the vet. Now the vet knows the situation, and I also kept Anna frozen, because in the back of my head, EVEN THOUGH HE TOLD ME MOST LIKLEY IT WAS NOT CONTAGIOUS, I thought to myself I am not going to let my herd get killed off by this. ( the rest of the cghinchillas are no where near where him and anna resided in their cage)
But he also told me the severity level of this is not as severe, because I caught it "early" this time, his ears otherwise arew completely healthy, unharmed, he has no fever, othger injuries.
So he sent me home with an orally taken Baytril suspension. I am supposed to give .3ml every 12 hours, and he also gave a bottle of this liquid called "Bacterial Gemish". It has a dropper in it, and it smells BAD. the directions are put 2 drops twice a day in his ears. They said the tech there gave the first treatment, and the gemish is to go as close to the canal as it can, and his ears were still full of drainage, hadnt been wiped, and there was STILL the SAME neosporin that 2was ready to fall out if you touched it, in his ears, so they didnt put the drops in his ears. I flushed them out first, and then gave him the drops in the ear. They seemed to irritate the wounds that were there from the initial sores, so I put some vitamin E and non pain reliever neosporin on those areas.
I am supposed to call today for a culture, and something called a cytology possibly. So, does anyone know what these are, and if anyone knows anything I could be giving him besides this please let me know. I hope this will help people realize that even your doctor, that you see for years, can be wrong about even whether something is contagious or not, so always make sure if you have chins to have medical cages and seperate containment for them.....
Sorry this was so long but I felt the situation warrants an explanation of HOW he got this because I am afraid it is some superbacteria from her long term infection, and it got in there cos chinnies cuddle when they sleep, and I am sure that drainage that came out of her ears definetly came in contact with him... they shared a cage.
Anyways, thanks for reading this.
I have not posted for some time and have never really posted chinchilla issues I have had very much here as my vet has been great for the past 7 years with them. I was referred to him through an animal hospital at a time when I brought a girl in ( who is still here!) for a spay and removal of partial developed babies that had stopped developing but just stayed in.
Anyways, I am a hobby breeder, and I also take in select rescues ( I say it like that because I have a certain room for each and have a rule about how many I will take at one time).
Three years ago, I bought two female chinchillas. They were sisters. They got along great, never had problems. My husband and I went out to eat one morning, came back less than an hour later, and one of the sisters, was hovering in the corner, her ears torn off and chewed, her skull exposed in a small spot with the surronding area cracked and the skin chewed off, and also suffrered a very severe puncture wound right above her cone where she urinates. Besides this, the backs of her ears were torn through, on the neck. Her sister, had not a bite mark on her, no hair pulled out. She attacked her sister and the one that got attacked ( Anna was her name) did not fight back at all. They were 7 months of age when this happened.
Of course she was rushed off to a vet. At the time, I worked at a private run pet store and the owner is also a vet. I called him right away since this was a Sunday morning, told him I was coming in, and he brought in a lot of medications. I will make this much shorter by saying after having her in a medical tank for ONLY 2 months, she grew everything back... even the hair where her skin had been initially ripped off and her skull crushed. The end of her healing was the head injury.
Of course, I had payed a lot of money for her in particular... she was a ebony mosaic she had all three colors, a great pattern, and after she was done healing, of course her fur NEVER came in like it was before, but it grew back, always shorter, but softer, and the color changed. She grew a tuft of white like a star on her black and grey head.
Her ears were mangled. Because of all the tissue damage, the scarring was bad. Her left ear was the worst. Both ears had been eaten and chewed ( I say eaten because at the time we came home, they were in an enclosed tank, there was not ONE SINGLE bloody shaving, no skin, no fur, but her sister had red clots drying on her teeth and around her fur on her mouth was Anna's blood)
She was on injectible Baytril for over 30 days, along with Buprenorpine and methadone in small doses in the beginning for pain. Despite what people think, chinchillas metabolize these two specific synthetic opiate pain medications differently than we do, and it works wonderful on them with minimal to no side effects, at least in my experience. Of course I also went through how many bottles of critical care, lifeline, neosporin, and washing my hands in a dip of Betadyne each time contact was made. This allowed her to heal to her maximum extent.
Her sister who attacked her, I had brought back to the breeder, along with pictures, not because of wanting a refund or thinking it was her fault, but to let her know because we were close. It was only THEN revealed to me that the sisters mother, had done the same exact thing to her closest cousin, around the same age. However, put with only males she was ok. I was not comfortable with this for my own breeding practices, because any personality traits like that I strive to cull out of any animal I would help to create. I told her so, and made it clear she would never be bred OR have a cagemate again because of the chances of another chinchilla dying.
The breeder got a little angry, because we were in heavy disagreement about this chinchilla. In the end, I gave her back, my idea, because if I am totally honest I want to care for my animals the best I can and to me this particular chinchilla posed a threat to the health of others.
It turns out the lady bred her.. after a year of miscarriages, she had a big baby that she killed a week later. I believe it to be in the genes.
After Anna healed, she became not agressive like I expected, but more gentle and passive than before. I have many personalities like that here because I specifically breed for that, and even after this traumatic event, she was able to live out her life VERY VERY bonded to a male and had a beautiful huge baby.
However, Because of her ear injury and the scar tissue, in the left ear you could not see the canal. You could not pry it open, nothing, So you could not even see the entrance to the beginning of the middle canal. However, her ears were always dry after she regrew hair and skin, and there was not a problem, or so I thought.
A week and a half ago, I picked her up like I do all the time every morning, she is the first to come out and talk and play and get scritches on her neck she loved it after her hair grew back, I noticed her cry out in suprise tone, and she tilted her head to the left. I then felt body temperature liquid on my hand. At about the same time, I smelled what smells EXACTLY like a bottle of Thai Fish Sauce. For those who are not familiar with that smell, it was the smell of literal rotting or dead fish or animal. Decay.
I immediatly got gauze out, and tilted her head and put light pressure on her ear, and what came out was a mixture of this light red and yellow liquid and specs of what I believe to be pus, solid, in them. I called the vet, and was waiting at the door by 7: 30. They wanted me to leave, but I was also , maybe not for the best, VERY ATTACHED to anna, after caring for her so close , it was like she knew. She kissed me with her nose... she was not your usual chin after all of it... she peed on my husband and would bite him but when I came she would come up to the door and walk out, and act like a different animal... I loved her, so when they told me to go home and they would call, I opted to sit in the waiting room and read the Cat Fancy Magazines they had.
About two hours later, the doctor came out. He looked serious. Usually he smiles. He took me in the room he had been examing her in, and it smelled like the stuff in her ear, the entire room. He took a metal took out, and explained to me that because of the scar tissue that had to form at the base of her ear because it was ripped off, it puffed up to the point that this tool was the ONLY way he could get a look at her ear, and there were three problems. One of them obviously was the infection. The problem was, is that since no air can get to the canal, middle or inner part, it is always moist. This also stopped anyone from knowing about the infection in the first place because it was so closed and the skin was so thick. ( Amputation of her ears was talked about when she had been attacked, but it was not recommended)
But the real problem was when he opened her ears with the tool, he showed me, and after I got my bearings on from the most pungent smell ever when he opened her ears, I seen that where the outer ear is SUPPOSED to bridge onto the beginning of the canal, it looked like a huge valley had been carved out of it. It was FULL of rotting skin.
He said she probably had that "valley" in her ears since the attack and that there really was not much to do he couldnt believed she lived in the first place.
It was very very hard for me because I had tried so hard, and she was a very hardy girl, she LOVED babies, life, and she knew I think that she had been given more time than she was going to originally get.
Listlessly, he began telling me about antibiotics and other things but at the same time explained to me that the infection was probably too far into her ear and the attack she had suffered, I had given her an extra two years of life after, life that she enjoyed, but he told me about other things they would have to do.
In the end, it would have been an issue of me doing it to selfishley keep her and she WOULD be in pain most of the time this time, or to let her go and accept that she had two years she wouldnt otherwise have had. So she was quietly put to rest 5 days ago.
The day after she was put down, her cagemate, Stuart, I picked him up, and smelled the dreaded smell. It was MUCH MUCH milder, not as pungent, but it was there. I looked in his ears, and here was the beginning of oozing. My heart was just racing, litteraly. I didnt even call the vet I just took him in.
Whatever bacteria is causing this ear thing, when it drains during the night and I am not there to wipe it off, it can take only 4 hours and it almost "burns" sores into their outer ear flesh that it dries on. It is super salty, and I want to know wht the heck kind of bacteria could make this rotting fish smell and maybe have a high salt content or turns into a salt like substance when it dries? Because when It dries on the outside of the fur by his ears and on the skin, it turns white, just like salt, dries like it, and it is litteraly like putting salt on a wound, it is making the top skin layer irritated and bloody a little.
Of course, as said, he was rushed off to the vet. Now the vet knows the situation, and I also kept Anna frozen, because in the back of my head, EVEN THOUGH HE TOLD ME MOST LIKLEY IT WAS NOT CONTAGIOUS, I thought to myself I am not going to let my herd get killed off by this. ( the rest of the cghinchillas are no where near where him and anna resided in their cage)
But he also told me the severity level of this is not as severe, because I caught it "early" this time, his ears otherwise arew completely healthy, unharmed, he has no fever, othger injuries.
So he sent me home with an orally taken Baytril suspension. I am supposed to give .3ml every 12 hours, and he also gave a bottle of this liquid called "Bacterial Gemish". It has a dropper in it, and it smells BAD. the directions are put 2 drops twice a day in his ears. They said the tech there gave the first treatment, and the gemish is to go as close to the canal as it can, and his ears were still full of drainage, hadnt been wiped, and there was STILL the SAME neosporin that 2was ready to fall out if you touched it, in his ears, so they didnt put the drops in his ears. I flushed them out first, and then gave him the drops in the ear. They seemed to irritate the wounds that were there from the initial sores, so I put some vitamin E and non pain reliever neosporin on those areas.
I am supposed to call today for a culture, and something called a cytology possibly. So, does anyone know what these are, and if anyone knows anything I could be giving him besides this please let me know. I hope this will help people realize that even your doctor, that you see for years, can be wrong about even whether something is contagious or not, so always make sure if you have chins to have medical cages and seperate containment for them.....
Sorry this was so long but I felt the situation warrants an explanation of HOW he got this because I am afraid it is some superbacteria from her long term infection, and it got in there cos chinnies cuddle when they sleep, and I am sure that drainage that came out of her ears definetly came in contact with him... they shared a cage.
Anyways, thanks for reading this.
