Chins die sooner?

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Cola89

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I was looking at members own website (memorial page) and also having seen memorials on here chins are only living for like 3 to 5 years.....I have always been told they can live to be 15 years


Is it safe to say more chins die younger than older?
 
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I think chinchillas who are not cared for correctly definitely have shorter life spans, and a lot of that might be due to improper care in pet store settings.
 
It could also be that those chinchillas are rescues, or suffer from an injury or sickness that turns fatal.
 
i had a member name on here but i took it off cause i didnt want anyone to think i was calling them out i was just using an example. alot of the times i do think it probably is illness
 
or poor breeding.

They can live past 15, in the Uk a Chin called Sugar lived to be 25 and there is one us chin known to have reached 27!!

I think, from what I have read that often genetic cases of Mal will show up at around the 3-5 age.
 
that could explain why they seem to mostly die around that age. Late chin parent reactions and then its to late :(
 
A lot of things can lead to shorter lives, it is not uncommon for pet chins to have shorter lives than ranch chins. Despite what people think that must say something about the way ranchers care for chins.
 
My first chinchilla (Pet store chinchilla, I got him from a previous owner, though) is seven and still going strong. I believe that it is the environment they are in and how their bloodline looks. However, some of them die from injury or illness that can't really be avoided, sometimes.
 
Yeah, not knowing where the chins are from, I can't say whether it has anything to do with it, but if you're just breeding anything like pet store chins or chins that you don't know their background, chances are more likely that they won't live as long. Because a responsible breeder will remove chins from breeding if they learn that there's any malo developed from that line.

If someone gives tons of treats, they probably won't live as long either.
 
I bought my first (& last) chin from a local mom-n-pop pet store. They couldn't tell me how old he was and they guessed between 1 and 2 years old. He weighed 580 grams when I got him. We had him for a little over 4 years when we had to put him down due to his "genetic" malo. I'm hoping that my 2 new babies (from a good breader) last forever!
 
sorry im not to smart about malo but i thought there was stuff you could do about it? is that not the case?
 
To my knowledge, you can treat the symptoms/effects, like filing down the teeth or spurs... but you can never actually get rid of the condition.
 
Riven said:
A lot of things can lead to shorter lives, it is not uncommon for pet chins to have shorter lives than ranch chins. Despite what people think that must say something about the way ranchers care for chins.
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It makes sense that pet chins, which often have multi-level cages filled with ledges, would be more likely to have an accident related death than say a ranch chin with nothing whatsoever in an 18" x 18" wire cage. Not surprising at all to read that a pet chinchilla's poor diet caused its death either, pet stores sell crap to pet owners. It would be interesting however to know the statistics of non-accident related deaths of pet and ranch chins and compare them. I have heard several times about half or even entire herds being wiped out due to unknown illnesses or known illnesses. We just don't hear as much about it as we do pet chins because memorials are not often written for those chinchillas are they?
 
I totally agree with Jean Marie. Pet chins are more likely to have accidental deaths, but who knows how many chins die from ranchers? We don't know. They don't have memorials, etc. A lot of it has to do with pet stores.
 
As for malo, if it's tooth elongation due to the incisors not meeting correctly in the front so they don't wear down correctly, you can get the teeth trimmed.

If the roots of the teeth elongate into the skull (into the sinus cavities or eye sockets or jaw) there is nothing to be done about that. If you don't put the chin down, they just die a slow and very painful death.
 
Some malo is caused by environmental factors, but for the most part, malo is a genetic issue that will pop up regardless.
 
alli713 said:
As for malo, if it's tooth elongation due to the incisors not meeting correctly in the front so they don't wear down correctly, you can get the teeth trimmed.

If the roots of the teeth elongate into the skull (into the sinus cavities or eye sockets or jaw) there is nothing to be done about that. If you don't put the chin down, they just die a slow and very painful death.
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Yes, this is what I believe to be correct, also what my vet told me. My chin had malocclusion of his lower molars' roots elongate towards his jawline, and the only way to know this is thru a head xray. My chins' first sign of any symptom was his throwing away his pellets (which he NEVER did before) and me finding alot of ground up pellets by his food bowl.
 
I don't think you can get an accurate count from ranchers, because of how they run their herds. Most ranchers cull as their chins get up in age to replace with better animals of their own breeding or ones they bought. Once those older guys and gals leave their hands, it changes any kind of study you could do.

I know I have a girl here from a ranch, she's now 13 and healthy as a horse. I also have a boy here who is 16 and from a ranch, also healthy as heck. They have ALWAYS been fed with the same type of mentality as the ranches I bought them from. Pellets, fresh water, and hay. Even the hay is a deviation from the norm though, because the rancher didn't feed any hay or hay cubes ever; but they receive no raisins, no flavor of the month treat, no "super special guaranteed to make their fur thicker, their whiskers longer, and their bellies whiter" supplements that have not been tested or proven. Their treats are the very occasional bite sized shredded wheat and wood and that's it.
 
I have had 2 chinchillas die, both young. But I also have a pet-store chin who came to me pregnant and with a nutrition-related tooth spur who is 5 now and has not had a health problem since the spur. Of my girls who died young, 1 was her daughter, who had a congenital heart defect that gave out suddenly, probably caused by improper breeding (Inca was probably impregnated by her brother, and she wasn't from good stock anyway). The other got stressed on our cross-country drive, and developed stasis that I couldn't pull her out of despite force-feeding, drugs, and SQ fluids.

From what I've seen and experienced, many early deaths seem to be because of 1. poor genetics (some malo, heart issues), 2. poor care (often from misinformation, but sometimes from carelessness), or 3. GI complications to another, probably less fatal problem (infection, stress, etc). I don't think you can say that "cared for properly, a chin should live to be 15" because there will always be uncontrollable factors. But there are 2 major causes of death we can try to avoid - genetics, and poor care. And we can do our best to be prepared and informed so we can try to alleviate some of the GI problems that are so fatal.
 
My guy is going to be 9 in May so should I be worried he isn't going to make it much longer?
 
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