Amputated leg: skin coloration

Some of you may know that I rescued a chinchilla in March who had an amputated rear leg. It is amputated at the knee. The skin at the end of the remaining leg is brown. Underneath of the skin feels squishy, like jello.

Does anyone know what causes the brown skin? Any suggestions for chinchillas missing a limb?

I do have to clean her left ear since she cannot clean it herself.


Yes her fur is wet. She had pee on it so I wiped it off.





I have most of everything covered in fleece so her nub doesn't touch a lot of hard things. For the record, she does not run in the wheel. If she did I'd get a bigger non-plastic one. She just likes to sit in it.

It doesn't look unhealthy. Sometimes chins have spots of that color on their skin. This coloration would be similar to a human having a freckle. I bet it has very little to do with the little nub touching anything that irritates it.

When you wipe it down does a lot of brownish stuff come off or is it pretty clean?

I hate when they amputate at the knee. They leave that stump and you always run the risk of the bone coming through when the chin is active on it. It would make so much more sense to take it off higher up. The limb is gone anyway - it's not like they are taking a second one.

It looks okay to me, just the pigment for this chin maybe? I would keep an eye on that stump thoughl, especially since it is amputated in that particular spot. I had a girl here who had that and her bone ended up coming through, so it bears watching.

Most of the time they go up very close to the hip. It looks like a big freckle to me, too.

AZChins said:

When you wipe it down does a lot of brownish stuff come off or is it pretty clean?

Click to expand...

Nothing comes off - it is clean. I was wondering if it can be some form of a callus. Maybe her skin is adapting to the pressure. Last night was the first time I touched it and it felt like there was something under the skin; like fluid or maybe it was just thick stretchy skin.

Here is a video of Chilli dusting and running for a few seconds so everyone can see how good she gets around

http://img85.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mvi1030.mp4

Definitely could be forming a nice callous. That isn't a bad thing...callouses help to protect the skin by toughing up that outer layer.

She's a cute little duster.

There's no obvious callus on that stump. Just pigment. Considering how far down it is I'd say it looks pretty darn good.

I like how she's poking her head down looking for a buddy to say hello too! LOL!