Dry, flaky ears

Hi! My name is Jeff and I am new here (just got a chinchilla boy, 6 months old, a few days ago).

I was giving him a nice little scratch under his chin the other day and realized that his ears are kind of dry and flaky. I looked it up and it says moisturizers and hand creams can be used to rub onto their ears to reduce the flakiness. However, the only hand cream I have at home at the moment is the Glosymed handcream and I don't want to try anything until I get advice from other chinchilla owners!

If anyone could tell me which type to use (or if tiny amounts of Glysomed is fine), I would appreciate it!

Use bag balm or poke a vitamin E capsule and spread that lightly on the ears. They will not hurt him if he happens to get a little into his mouth after grooming.

Welcome to CnH and congrats on the new addition.

How often does he get a dust bath? Their skin and ears get too dry if they're bathed too often...

Thanks guys!

Newt said:

How often does he get a dust bath? Their skin and ears get too dry if they're bathed too often...

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Umm he gets a dust bath around every 3~4 days cause I noticed that his ears were a bit dry when I first got him already.

I've been trying to apply Bag Balm to his ears but he keeps running around and flipping his head around when I touch his ears. Any advice on how to apply it??

Thanks guys for the help!

You can burrito wrap him in a towel to apply the bag balm, but remember a little goes a long way. You can search youtube for a video on how to burrito him. Good luck!

I love Jojoba oil for dry ears and also for cleaning off the dust and greasy stuff that tends to build up on chin ears. (Cooking oil could be used, as well...but that really is very greasy and doesn't seem to soak in as much as jojoba or avocado oil or something like that...) I put it on a cotton ball or cotton pad and rub it over the surface of the ears to get them nice and clean - the oil dissolves all the crud on the ears and the cotton pad allows me to wipe it away.

I've never used the bag balm on ears before. I'll have to give that a try sometime to see how it works. What I have noticed is that most of the time the ears aren't really dry or flaky or anything, it's just that there is some build up on the ears of dust, skin cells, etc.

I cleaned my boys ears for the first time and couldnt believe all of the dead skin cells that came off! I used olive oil and rubbed it into their ears until I could wipe away the layers. There was such a big difference, their ears were so smooth like a bat's wing (or what I imagine one would feel like).

Afterwards I let them dust like crazy and cool down after the ordeal.