Chin has pneumonia

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tcraighenry

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 1, 2011
Messages
728
Location
Portland, OR
My baby Cinnamon has pneumonia. We caught it extremely early (like she was her little bouncy self yesterday) but the vet put her on .28 mL of baytril by mouth. She had an injection last night and we gave the first dose by mouth this morning. She turned down a rose hip but took part of a raisin.

I've read all the horror stories and am freaking out. I ordered a ton of stuff from Whimsy and have raisins/rose hips/banana flavored critical care. I also made a vet appointment for her at an exotics specialist tomorrow and am going to request a different antibiotic. In the mean time we're stuck with the baytril

This is what I ordered:

A bag of hay cubes
Chinchilada
Supplement
Goji Berries
Asthma/Allergy friendly dust

What else can I do? What do I need to watch for? When do I need to give her critical care? I'm terrified my baby will stop eating and go into stasis.
 
Baytril is still the drug of choice for pneumonia but it does have side effects, the chin will more than likely stop eating so you will need to hand feed, 10-15ml of critical care per feeding 4-5 times a day. This may go on even after the drug is stopped, the longest I have had to hand feed was 3 weeks.
 
Thanks, I was reading as using it as a chaser as well. Which makes sense. We don't take antibiotics without food right? The gal at Whimsy suggested asking about trimeth sulfa? Have you had any luck with it?
 
Trimeth is great for other types of infections, has very low instance of side effects but its not good for upper respiratory problems in chinchillas, baytril or some of the other big guns antibiotics are the best, you just have to deal with the side effects which means hand feeding.
 
We'll pick up another couple bags tomorrow, not sure the one will last that long. Thank you!

As a side note, Vincenza is housed in a separate cage but I've read respiratory infections can be very contagious. Have you had it spread from cage to cage like that? I'm also really confused as to how this happened. She has a clean cage, we have a clean house, she's away from vents and we have the window she's close to closed all the time with blackout curtains. No fans...

The air conditioning was on a lot this summer, more so than normal due to unusually hot weather.
 
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I have three boys, all caged separately, last year one got a URI from who knows where, none have any health issues, and he gave it to one of the others, I treated all three with baytril and frankly it was a nightmare but they all came through so it was worth it in the end.
 
Thanks, I'll keep an eye on Vincenza. They're no contact since 'cenza can be kind of a jerk to other chinchillas (since she was a tiny baby) but your experience is worrying.
 
Just a quick note here, ditch the raisins and goji berries. They aren;t good for chins (too much sugar) and they can make things much worse by adding digestive issues to the pneumonia, especially since the chin is on antibiotics.
 
What would you recommend? I could barely get 1/4 of a syringe of the CC into her. She just spat it out. This is the first time she's ever had a raisin or goji berry. Normally she gets a rose hip like once a month if that.

I think I screwed up. I was trying to feed her and pressed the syringe and there must have been an air bubble in it so a lot went into her mouth at once. She's hiding, probably partially because of the force feeding but I'm really worried she aspirated.
 
You could try switching to Essentials for Life instead of Critical Care. One of my girls took to it a lot better when I had to syringe feed 5 years ago. She was on Baytril and Metacam for mastitis. Her user name on here is Tanya, but I'm sure there's contact info on her website as well.
 
I ordered Lifeline a while back but never had to use it. I've read great things about it on here though. My fingers are crossed for you! Pneumonia is a scary one!
 
Thank you! My husband is a better feeder than I am, lol. He's managed to get about 30 mL in her this morning so far. I'm hoping we can keep her on the CC and then make it more pleasant when our shipments arrive.
 
Also you can add some canned pure pumpkin(not the pie filling) to the critical care. That is perfectly acceptable when trying to get one to hand feed. None of mine would accept CC or EFL, I ended up fine grinding the pellets they were used to, added a little pumpkin and just for good measure added lifeline and fresh probiotics sprinkled in too. I tend to give extra probiotics because I know that my pellets don't have it.
 
Just a quick update: The vet thinks it's just an infection and not pneumonia. Also he thinks the antibiotic dose is too strong. So they gave us some hay, fed her and gave some SC fluids.
 
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