Even the vets are confused....

[Buddy]

Bubbles is off her meds, there's no more bloat, but still crumbs when she eats, she still relies on her syringe food. She still chews, she even drinks from her water bottle some times.

Could it be a urine infection? or an infection of the bladder or something? A uri? I'm baffled, and so is the vet. He said they're are plenty of other chinchillas he has seen that are a lot worse that still have no problems with eating... But Bubbles just wont.
Unless she is eating, and she just leaves crumbs...
I don't want to take her off the syringe food just incase that'll end up with her starving to death

The vet said her chest was clear, it's gone on too long. I don't think she's suffering, she seems content and happy. But no one truley knows if she's in pain because chins are so good at hiding it.

The xrays turned out fine, no malo, nothing really bad.

Maybe she's just so fixated on syringe food, shed doesn't feel the need to eat pellets anymore? I think her teeth are giving her a little bit of a problem tho, but it's not stopping her from doing anything she wants.

I don't know what else I can do, but I don't want her to suffer any more

 

[ticklechin]

Is the chin on pain meds?

 

[CodysChinchillas]

If you think it's something with her teeth, you may want to look into it more. I lost my little boy to malocclusion about 2 years ago. I wouldn't want anyone to go through the bills, and pain just to have your chin pass away. Good luck to you and Bubbles.

 

[ticklechin]

The OP has been dealing with this for awhile and the chin has been looked at, search the past posts of the OP to see the situation.

 

[EMSChins]

Maybe you should post pictures of "the crumbs" you say that she leaves when she eats?

Sometimes chins do leave crumbs and half eaten pellets in their bowl and the area surrounding it - they are not like dogs and lick up up every last morsel of food that they can find. They pick through and decide what they want to eat and toss the rest.

If they cannot find anything physically or medically wrong, perhaps this is normal for her and you did not notice it before because you weren't really looking for it. Sometimes it is possible that after a health scare, we become hypervigilant and start to read into every little thing that we really never noticed before.

Just a thought???

 

[Claire D]

Do you have photos of the xrays?

 

[smhluvsmh]

Two of my girls leave crumbs and half eaten pellets all the time with no other signs of illness at all like EMSCHINS suggested. They do the same with hay and sticks. Take a taste, might finish it, might toss it. JMO, but she is more than likely addicted to hand feeding since this has been going on for some time and may have become a lazy chewer?!? We will continue to send healing, strength and comfort to Bubbles!

 

[Claire D]

He said they're are plenty of other chinchillas he has seen that are a lot worse that still have no problems with eating... But Bubbles just wont.

Just like humans, some chins have a lower pain threshold than others - your chin may be in pain and not wanting to eat properly.
Is she losing weight and do you have copies of the xrays or photos that you can post up?

 

[Chinchilla63]

When Rocky was on Baytril she didn't want to eat. X-rays showed everything normal but a ton of gas in her abdomen.. She HATED critical care and the syringe. It was stressing her out even more. I switched to alfalfa hay, and used the finely powdered hay that's in the bottom of the bag and mixed it with the herbal supplement I got from Forever Feisty rescue. She loved it! I put it in a separate little dish and put it right under her nose, so she could eat without any real effort. I'm mixing the alfalfa hay with Timothy now, but she's underweight to begin with so I'm going to continue the alfalfa.
Also- my vet stopped the Baytril, she'd been on it 10 days, put her on Propulsid (keeps the gut moving), Pepcid (antacid) pain med and infant anti-gas drops. sheis eating pellets again and is much more active. Still sneezing, though...hope it's going to clear up.
Don't know if any of that helps. I'd definitely look into pain meds. Good luck!

 

[Buddy]

I don't have pictures of her xrays. I did see them however. my vet showed me how there are lines that go straight from one place of a chinchillas head, and everything should be lined up in that line. Bubbles is line isn't bad at all. Her teeth are growing upwards slightly, but it's nothing big at the minute, and it shouldn't be causing any pain, or damage. He showed me other chinchilla's xrays that he sees and they are a lot worse than hers...

I'll get a picture of her crumbs. She also chews on the sticks I give her but leave most of the bark. She pulls it apart and leaves the mess...

She was bloated, but I think her last meds have sorted. She's on no meds at the minute, and I have no money whats so ever until the middle of this month to take her to the vets again. She seems okay. She ate 200 pellets 2 nights ago, I gave her one sitting of syringe (she had about 40mls of syringe food that day) and 200 pellets... She hasn't lost weight, she feels a lot fatter. I could literally feel her bones a few months back.

Now she knows she doesn't get as many sittings of syringe food, but gets the same ammount.. I've changed the times so that she doesn't know when she's getting it so that it'll encourage her to eat pellets. She'll go to it after she's had 2/3 sittings of food as she knows there's no more to come. I put 200 pellets in her dish last night, and there's about 50 left...
She plays like normal. She seems to want to chew a lot more now than when she was really ill. Like before she got ill...

I'm just not sure what could be the problem anymore :S

 

[Buddy]

Tiny poos!
After reducing her syringe feed, I decided that yesterday I wouldn't syringe feed her at all. I got up this morning, her bowl was empty, hay had gone. Poos were almost unexistent though...
So, turns out she's not swollowing her food?
I have no idea what else I can do? Will I just be syringe feeding her for the rest of her life?

 

[Cuddlebug]

I doubt that she is emptying the bowl and going through hay without swallowing something. If you are still force feeding her and there are no poops, she may be going into stasis. No poos is never a good sign. She may need some gut stimulants and a lot of hard work to get her eating on her own and pooping like she should.

 

[Buddy]

When she gets syringe fed her poos are nice big. It's just if I leave her to eat by herself her poos are a lot smaller than they should be...
She's just gotten over stasis and bloat, well in march.. shes had gut stimulants, probiotics, everything. But still she wont eat by herself..

 

[melbur10]

Trust me, it took my sage 6 months to fully go back to normal and only started eating on her own at about 3 months, it takes time.
I would be using simethicone still as a procaution her guts still going to be semi gassy, hand feed no hand feed pellets no pellets hay no hay with that much change I would give simethicone all the way through untill she's 100%.
After going through stasis my girl now eats pellets down to the nubby part she holds and throws that back in her dish... She eats hay but it's off and on and she's picky with it some times.
On the other hand my girl midnight just had dental done (she stopped eating lost massive amounts of weight but I caught it early enough that her poops only got small and slow never static) her tooth had a point that had cut so badly into her cheak that it required a stich, thankfully no infection flared. She's taking her time with getting back to eating normaly on her own but she's now maintaining her weight with only 40-50ml of hand feed per day and what she eats on her own. Each chin is different and a key tool in determining when to cut back feedings is being able to weigh her, get a scale 'feeling her by hand' won't tell you any thing, if she's able to maintain her own weight then she's eating her poops might be a bit smaller for a day or two but given the circumstances that's normal.
I'm not some one to count pellets, for me it's all about thier weight and if they can maintain it, and what I can visually see them eating.