Hello, this isn't really Siylvat but her boyfriend (she's at work). I just wanted to post this to see what people here think of what just happened to our chinchilla Pikachu. Sorry for the rambling, I'm a little stressed and emotional right now as I didn't know what was wrong with him.
Today we decided to clean all our chinchilla's fleece liners, and so we needed somewhere to put them while the fleece went through the washer and dryer. We took out Arc and Pika (since they are brother's, cagemates, and the only of our 4 chinchillas that get along) and decided to try and take out Pichu as well since he doesn't fight as much with the others compared to Dash, our fourth chinchilla.
Anyways, as usual I made a little sleeping bag type of thing with our comforter and put them inside to sleep (I do this a few times a week, almost every other day, with Arc and Pika cause they will just curl up next to the bend in my knee and sleep all morning). They got along fairly well at first and just slept a bit but then they started to groom/hump each other so we tried to separate them as best as possible. We would also let them out of the blanket regularly to keep their ears from getting too red and them overheating.
After the liners were done we set the cages up with them under a blanket. Pika and Pichu got out and ran around for less than 5 minutes on the bed but then we put them in their cages. After about 5 minutes Pika started to turn oddly while lifting his front paws almost like he was choking or something. I immediately picked him up and held him in my hands to see what was wrong and his ears were pressed firmly to his body and he was extremely limp and leaning on one side. This has happened once before to us and it was Pika. About 1 year ago we took him out for playtime one night and he played for about an hour. Afterwards he did the same things and so we tried giving him a bite of a raisin (this was before we knew about the harmful effects of too many raisins so we had them on hand) and he perked right up like nothing was wrong. This time however we didn't have any raisins so we didn't know what to do. His strange behavior went on for about 15-20 minutes while we tried to look online for some kind of solution. We saw that he could have low blood sugar from overheating or overexertion, so we decided to keep him cool and watch him (we were going to try a vet but we don't know of any good chinchilla vets around here as we moved recently).
He has perked up now and seems 100% better but I'm still worried about him and wanted to post something here to see what people think. He's a 6 year old Hetero Beige and besides the one time he did this a year ago I've never seen it happen before. It is extremely scary because of all the things that he does while seizuring. He'll fall over, lift limbs as if he's trying to scratch at something he can't quite reach, and he droops his head. He was taking a tiny amount of oats but wouldn't drink (I thought maybe dehydration at first). He was also gritting his teeth at times and he switched between his left side and right side as far as his eyes twitching and his ear pressed flat.
I don't know if anyone can give any advice but Pika is in fact doing great now (I've had him in my lap the entire time I've typed this) and that makes me feel a whole lot better. Sorry for the rambling again thought, I just wanted to try and make sure I didn't forget anything and I'm still a little shook up. Thanks for any and all help/advice/input.
Today we decided to clean all our chinchilla's fleece liners, and so we needed somewhere to put them while the fleece went through the washer and dryer. We took out Arc and Pika (since they are brother's, cagemates, and the only of our 4 chinchillas that get along) and decided to try and take out Pichu as well since he doesn't fight as much with the others compared to Dash, our fourth chinchilla.
Anyways, as usual I made a little sleeping bag type of thing with our comforter and put them inside to sleep (I do this a few times a week, almost every other day, with Arc and Pika cause they will just curl up next to the bend in my knee and sleep all morning). They got along fairly well at first and just slept a bit but then they started to groom/hump each other so we tried to separate them as best as possible. We would also let them out of the blanket regularly to keep their ears from getting too red and them overheating.
After the liners were done we set the cages up with them under a blanket. Pika and Pichu got out and ran around for less than 5 minutes on the bed but then we put them in their cages. After about 5 minutes Pika started to turn oddly while lifting his front paws almost like he was choking or something. I immediately picked him up and held him in my hands to see what was wrong and his ears were pressed firmly to his body and he was extremely limp and leaning on one side. This has happened once before to us and it was Pika. About 1 year ago we took him out for playtime one night and he played for about an hour. Afterwards he did the same things and so we tried giving him a bite of a raisin (this was before we knew about the harmful effects of too many raisins so we had them on hand) and he perked right up like nothing was wrong. This time however we didn't have any raisins so we didn't know what to do. His strange behavior went on for about 15-20 minutes while we tried to look online for some kind of solution. We saw that he could have low blood sugar from overheating or overexertion, so we decided to keep him cool and watch him (we were going to try a vet but we don't know of any good chinchilla vets around here as we moved recently).
He has perked up now and seems 100% better but I'm still worried about him and wanted to post something here to see what people think. He's a 6 year old Hetero Beige and besides the one time he did this a year ago I've never seen it happen before. It is extremely scary because of all the things that he does while seizuring. He'll fall over, lift limbs as if he's trying to scratch at something he can't quite reach, and he droops his head. He was taking a tiny amount of oats but wouldn't drink (I thought maybe dehydration at first). He was also gritting his teeth at times and he switched between his left side and right side as far as his eyes twitching and his ear pressed flat.
I don't know if anyone can give any advice but Pika is in fact doing great now (I've had him in my lap the entire time I've typed this) and that makes me feel a whole lot better. Sorry for the rambling again thought, I just wanted to try and make sure I didn't forget anything and I'm still a little shook up. Thanks for any and all help/advice/input.
