Poo keeps getting softer

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GahhItsLee

Lee
Joined
Mar 16, 2010
Messages
425
Location
Upstate New York
Ok well i know the soft poo is from the feed since its high protein (mazuri) but he LOVES the food and he doesn't have diarrhea the poo is just soft enough to stick to stuff and its very very annoying
Anything i can do to fight this or should i just accept it? I dont plan on switching foods since he absolutely loves this stuff
 
What you are describing IS diarrhea. In a chinchilla soft, squishy poo that sticks to stuff is diarrhea. Liquid diarrhea in a chin would be deadly and in need of immediate vet attention.

For now, pull all pellets, give nothing but hay. No treats. Get some activated charcoal capsules, open one and roll a slightly dampened bite sized shredded wheat in it and offer that twice a day. If you don't want to mess with that, get some Kaolin Pectin and offer that instead, though both seem to work equally well as far as I can tell.

If after 3-4 days the poop does not return to normal, you need to get a stool sample run at the vet to make sure there are no parasites kicking around in there.
 
GahhItsLee said:
Ok well i know the soft poo is from the feed since its high protein (mazuri) but he LOVES the food and he doesn't have diarrhea the poo is just soft enough to stick to stuff and its very very annoying
Anything i can do to fight this or should i just accept it? I dont plan on switching foods since he absolutely loves this stuff
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As Tunes has pointed out, he does have diarrhea. You should not just "accept it." The diarrhea needs to be addressed and you need to change his food to something that doesn't cause problems.

Why would you keep him on a food if it's causing a problem? It doesn't matter if he loves that stuff. How do you know that he won't love other food?

GahhItsLee said:
So softer poo is diarrhea? His poo still looks the same it just sticks to stuff.
Im just trying to make sure i described it right.
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If his poo is sticky and sticking to stuff, it's diarrhea.
 
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True i thought that soft poo was an owner problem not anything that would harm or be negative towards the chin himself. I thought that the soft poo problem was simply its harder to clean up.
Ok so i guess its time to switch over to oxbow.
Where can i get kaolin pectin?
 
GahhItsLee said:
Ok well i know the soft poo is from the feed since its high protein (mazuri) but he LOVES the food and he doesn't have diarrhea the poo is just soft enough to stick to stuff and its very very annoying
Anything i can do to fight this or should i just accept it? I dont plan on switching foods since he absolutely loves this stuff
Click to expand...

Please tell me with your omnipitant chinchilla knowledge how you know that this is from feed? Yes, Mazuri is known to cause loose poo (although I haven't had this issue).
What kind of treats do you give and how often? What kind of water do you provide?
The only time I had loose poo problems was when I realized that Lola would always steal Pixie's treats, so she was getting twice as much. Now that I rely more on apple wood as treats, the issue hasn't come up again.
 
I give him apple wood and the occasional (once a day or so) cheerio or piece of shredded wheat (the size varies as all i could find were giant pieces)
And as far as water goes ive been giving him bottled water but i plan on getting a brita or pur filter which ever one is better i forget but i have the thread book marked
Also I said i knew it was the food because I've heard so many times that mazuri causes soft poo so i figured he just went on mazuri he now has soft poo theres a connection to be made there
 
Gotcha. I'm not saying it is or isn't feed, just want you to look at the whole picture. That's why I'm not a fan of a huge variety of treats. Just more to rule out when an issue arises.
 
Yea i just pretty much figure its probably the food... I took it all out of his cage and left a message in the oxbow thread about an order so i guess its an all hay diet and ill try to find that kaolin stuff but i have no idea where to find it nor do i have any idea of what it is.
 
I know when I switched one of my guys (Carlos) from crappy pet shop food to Alderpark pellets his poo became really really soft even though I did a gradual change. I literally had to use an old credit card to scrape his poop off the wooden shelves and then I had to scrub them clean. In his case, the soft poop presented on about the third day and took about four days to go back to normal. Is this a recent switch or has he always been on this food? Did you do a gradual change or was it a cold turkey change?

Also, just wanted to mention that although some people have had an issue with Mazuri = soft poops, I never once had that problem and my chins were on that for several years before I switched to Alderpark pellets. I was under the impression that Mazuri corrected the problem of 'soft poo' a few years ago when they added acidopholus to their pellets?

While I'm at it, I am wondering if anyone else has ever had issues with soft poop and Shredded Wheat? Just last week or so I gave some Shredded Wheat for the first time to all seven boys and two of them had soft poop the next morning so I won't be giving it to them again. I thought it would be a nice change from the oat supplement I give them each evening but I guess I won't be able to do that.
 
I did a cold turkey food change around 10 days ago.
I did it cold turkey because he was eating kaytee food that had more treats than food.
So what does everyone think I should do about this?
Im willing to buy the oxbow and feed that from now on.
Its whatever is best for him carol your post made me feel almost like i should stick it out for abit and see if it gets better but i dont feel thats the right plan of action
 
I was under the impression that Mazuri corrected the problem of 'soft poo' a few years ago when they added acidopholus to their pellets?
Click to expand...

School of thought on that at the time was that they didn't fix the problem, they covered it up. The didn't change the formula to correct the diarrhea, they just added acidophilus to deal with it.

You can get Kaolin Pectin at some of the larger pet store chains like Petsmart or Petco. I usually get a bottle of it on-line and just keep it handy in case I ever need to use it here.
 
Ok thank you tunes
Ill make the trips tomorrow as soon as i can (The pet stores here are closed right now)
And i guess ill be buying the oxbow as soon as possible
 
I'm not telling you to stick it out Lee. I was relating an experience I had with one of my chins when I switched feeds and was just talking about Mazuri in general and how I personally haven't had any soft poop issues in the past. Maybe your chin IS having problems with Mazuri so yes it might be a good idea to change to Oxbow or do like has been suggested and get some activated charcoal from the heath food store. It just seems that if the soft poop was caused by the pellets, that it would have happened before day ten but I'm really only going by my one experience with feed change and the soft poop happened about three days after the switch and there were both types of pellets in his bowl: crappy junk pellets and Alderpark pellets.

Oh now I also remember something else too. I also gave Carlos some herbal supplement and I think that might have been too rich for his little system and I did cut that out until his poop firmed up. Definitely cut out any treats/supplement if you're giving him any until his poop firms up.
 
Ok well my question is now how long should he eat only hay?

To add to my confusion
I just checked his cage and he now has normal poo but lastnight it was at its softest... I just checked all his normal hang out spots and i found fresh hard normal poo... Im so ridiculously confused
 
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Sorry for the double post but im soooooo confused.
Now im confused as to what to do all together since im finding hard poops.
Should i proceed and do the treatment for diarrhea? Should i keep him on his food for a few days and just watch to see what happens?
Confusing chinnys confuse me
 
If it was a new, cold switch, that may have caused the soft poo. Did you pull the food and feed only hay and that was when you noticed the poos firming up or is the food still in there?
 
If he's dropping normal poop now then there's no rush to change his feed. It is possible that bringing those two new chins into the house has stressed him out a bit b/c he can probably smell them.
 
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