Hairballs?

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.

How often do your chins have hairballs and how long have you been in chinchillas?

  • Total voters
    14
Hairballs as in matted fur on the body? With proper dust bathing, matted fur doesn't usually happen and isn't a big problem. If a mat does occur, just comb it out firmly yet gently, and it will slip off. Other than that, I've never really heard of a chin with hairballs in it's throat like a cat. They don't lick themselves as much as cats to clean themselves.
 
Hair balls, internally? Or hair matting?

Chins don't get hair balls internally :)

Sugar used to matt occasionally, even with dusting--her fur was thin. I'd just gently work it out without cutting.
 
I don't think chinchillas can get hairballs like cats do. I guess chinchillas don't really get large amounts of hair stuck to their tongues/mouths and ingest it like cats. Also, I think chinchillas are prey animals, so maybe leaving hairballs might give their predators more of a upper hand in a sense.

Sesame grooms herself quite often and I know my boyfriend and I have wondered why they don't get hairballs. What about the fur-chewers? Where does all that fur go?
 
I have never had an issue, and I have both fostered and owned/own several furchewing rescues/pet store chins.
 
I have heard people use papaya? for extreme fur chewing cases, and even a vet recommending petromalt or something, but I don't think I have actually heard of a chin getting a hair ball. Anyone?
 
Never heard of that happening. Even in some fur chewers that we've had come through, they've never had hairballs or anything even slightly similar...

I've heard of papaya being used as well...but what I don't get... why? I mean they can't get hairballs (as far as I know), so why treat them for something they can't get?
 
I think y'all are correct, chins don't get hairballs. It's because, if I remember right, chins can't throw-up (like horses) :sick:

So, any fur they ingest has to go through and out the other end. That's why the papaya is a good treat, it helps breakdown the hair in their intestines.

I don't know what stops them from being able to throw-up, but I'm pretty sure that it's true.

Funky, huh?!
 
Hi, I have the Joy of Chinchillas book by CA Chins (very good it is too) and it does mention some confirmed cases of hairballs in Chinchillas. They suggest using papaya as a preventative.
In my personal experience of UK forums, in 7 years I have heard of one confirmed case. So I think it is possible but extremely rare. I can't remember if the Chin involved was a fur chewer - that may be a vital factor in th development of hairballs.
 
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Chins can and do get hair balls. No they cannot throw up but no, the mass does not necessarily pass through. It can and has caused blockages. This is in spite of Alice Kline's lack of finding and all the so sure of themselves people who categorically proclaim it can't, doesn't and will not happen.

The interesting question is why. But we can't discuss something that doesn't exist, now can we?
 
NOLA Chins said:
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Chins can and do get hair balls. No they cannot throw up but no, the mass does not necessarily pass through. It can and has caused blockages. This is in spite of Alice Kline's lack of finding and all the so sure of themselves people who categorically proclaim it can't, doesn't and will not happen.

The interesting question is why. But we can't discuss something that doesn't exist, now can we?
Click to expand...

With the absence of evidence, doesn't that make it just a theory? Because there is no hard evidence of hairballs in chinchillas (that I have seen) people have been left to come up with their own decision of whether or not they believe so.
 
Have had chins for 8 years. Have yet to have one with a hairball, or a blockage at that *knock on wood*.
 
As I posted on another thread, I had the pleasure of listening to a presentation done by Alice Kline. She was an expert at all things dealing with chinchilla health (in many peoples opinions, THE expert). Over the many years that she had a large herd of chinchillas, and did a great deal of research, she did thousands of necropsies on chinchillas. She said she never once found a hairball.

I'll take her word for it! Noone else has done the amount of research that she did.

Becky
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top