Awkward male anatomy question...

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
My Mick St. John who is going on 3 years is old is yet to show off his chin balls. I've seen them clearly present in both Wesley and Leonard but I have yet to see any on Mick. I have asked about this and have been told it's perfectly normal. Some guys got 'em and some guys don't I guess
 
Hi all,

This thread has made me realize that my chinchilla's anatomy may be out of the norm, and I am starting to be concerned. I got him only recently as an adoption from a coworker's sister that was having a baby and couldn't really take care of him anymore. After being a member of this site and learning everything that I have here, I now realize that she may not have been the ideal caretaker for him, and I'm worried that it could have affected his health.

Fidget's testicles grow abnormally large. Often.

Here are the pictures I could snap.

Are they too large? Should I take him to the vet?
 

Attachments

  • testicles1.jpg
    testicles1.jpg
    95.8 KB · Views: 52
  • testicles2.jpg
    testicles2.jpg
    87.1 KB · Views: 55
  • fidget.jpg
    fidget.jpg
    67 KB · Views: 34
monarch, that's perfectly normal. I think the most common reproductive problem (the only one I've seen) is a hair ring. Even if their testes didn't descend and you never see their sacs enlarge, I wouldn't be alarmed, they would possibly have cryptorchidism like dogs do. This usually doesn't cause many health problems, just makes it a slightly more difficult task to neuter them.

caiti said:
Alicyn--I know it is rather strange anatomy. I remembered reading it in several papers, but the one I cited it in my presentation for reproduction class was: Spotorno,
Angel 
et
al
(2004)
Chinchilla
 laniger. 
Mammalian
 Species/American
 Society 
of 
Mammalogists.
758,
1‐9
There's a link to the article on the article section in this forum actually (I could have saved some time if I looked there first!!)
I may be wrong, and these papers may be wrong (I deleted all my bookmarks to the other papers after I turned in my presentation since I had so many and only needed one to cite a fact from) but my teacher has yet to correct me if they are. Don't know if he would have in front of people anyways.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the info!!! How interesting...now I really want to dissect a male chinchilla (hopefully that doesn't offend anyone).
I had already assumed they had BUGS (bulbourethral glands) and vesicular glands, but had no idea about the testes. How strange!
And for those that are interested, the vesicular glands are what produce the gel for the copulation plug. We cut one open on a frozen/thawed pig male repro tract and the gel just oozed out! It was soooo cool and weird at the same time!

Now I'm off to see if anyone actually has pictures of the male repro tract in chins.
 
i was going to say, I had a male one who had very noticeable testicles that were very visible outside of his body, but others not so much...
 
Found some decent drawings in this article. Already posted it in the article forum so here is the link
http://www.chins-n-hedgies.com/forums/showthread.php?p=219952#post219952

Very interesting to find that the epididymis starts from the cranial pole of the testes then goes caudally (most mammals it starts caudally and goes cranially). They also have an os penis (bone in their penis) which is usually only found in carnivores. Unfortunately, upon my scanning of the article, I didn't see anything about the whole inguinal canal thing. I still find that to be the strangest of them all.
 
i think male chinnies are like humans, every "package" is different. i have all boys (including human children) and not one are alike!
 
Sycamore Chins said:
Unfortunately, upon my scanning of the article, I didn't see anything about the whole inguinal canal thing. I still find that to be the strangest of them all.
Click to expand...
My understanding, from discussing castration of chins with my vet is that this is one of the issues which complicates the surgery. It makes the surgery longer for a start & the inguinal canal has to be closed very carefully to prevent herniation etc.
 
Alicyn--this was on the second page of the article you attached:

The testes are located within the pelvic girdle, in their respective inguinal apertures, the cauda epididymides occupying the scrotum proper.
Click to expand...
 
Claire D said:
My understanding, from discussing castration of chins with my vet is that this is one of the issues which complicates the surgery. It makes the surgery longer for a start & the inguinal canal has to be closed very carefully to prevent herniation etc.
Click to expand...

Fascinating - now I really want to dissect a male chinchilla.

"inguinal aperture" - interesting...it certainly wouldn't be much of a 'canal' if had a whole testis in it. Most mammals have a superficial and deep ring of the inguinal canal which roughly equates to the canal being a little tube through the muscles and connective tissue. I wonder if they just have a more elaborate 'tube'...

It's quite unfortunate the small animal people in my class had to dissect cows and horses - it would have been much more useful to dissect some rodents!
 
Sycamore Chins said:
Fascinating - now I really want to dissect a male chinchilla.

"inguinal aperture" - interesting...it certainly wouldn't be much of a 'canal' if had a whole testis in it. Most mammals have a superficial and deep ring of the inguinal canal which roughly equates to the canal being a little tube through the muscles and connective tissue. I wonder if they just have a more elaborate 'tube'...

It's quite unfortunate the small animal people in my class had to dissect cows and horses - it would have been much more useful to dissect some rodents!
Click to expand...

I've read they have an open inguinal canal--though I have no idea what that means. I'm certainly not in vet school and don't really know much about this stuff. I've seen small and large animal innards and I have to say, while it's nice to be able to cut open an entire rodent--seeing a cow's reproductive tract makes it a bit clearer what I'm looking at than if it was 1/50 the size.
 
caiti said:
I've read they have an open inguinal canal--though I have no idea what that means. I'm certainly not in vet school and don't really know much about this stuff. I've seen small and large animal innards and I have to say, while it's nice to be able to cut open an entire rodent--seeing a cow's reproductive tract makes it a bit clearer what I'm looking at than if it was 1/50 the size.
Click to expand...

Haha! Not if they're entirely different! No, it does help, and it is ridiculously fascinating to cut open anything (to me). I had a chance to dissect a male chinchilla about a year ago, but had no idea what I was doing so really just wasted a specimen (it was a pretty bad specimen though). I wish I could have saved it until now, when I know what everything is, what to look for, and how to properly dissect things.
 
I find it extremely funny that people use LPCB, but someone a while ago was asking about hair rings and was scolded for not saying "penis" but "thing." I have nevet heard that term before it just cracks me up. Sorry to crash the thread :D
 
Chintastic! said:
I find it extremely funny that people use LPCB, but someone a while ago was asking about hair rings and was scolded for not saying "penis" but "thing." I have nevet heard that term before it just cracks me up. Sorry to crash the thread :D
Click to expand...

They didn't call the Penis a thing they called it a weewee..... which does sound very tacky and immature coming from an adult IMPO
 
starleomach said:
They didn't call the Penis a thing they called it a weewee..... which does sound very tacky and immature coming from an adult IMPO
Click to expand...

Oh sorry- I am still laughing at LPCB- it just cracks me up. Wasnt the guy like only 18 or something?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top