Shampoo a Chinchilla?? ..Is my Vet crazy or worse or... ??

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Aneesa's Muse

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Okay.. I am new ..nOoB as they get, I guess ..but shampoo a Chinchilla? Really? Is there ever a reason to shampoo a Chinchilla? Please elaborate ..cuz I am quickly losing faith in my Veterinarian for his most recent "oops.. my ego tripped me again... " scenario.

(Actually, I will probably never take my Chin'kids back to him, but he is great with my other exotics... go figure!)


I'll elaborate on the situation a little more, too... The shop just got a new Chinchilla in ..from some breeder.. and it has a 5" patch of bald skin, several red, flakey, irritated looking areas ..including a leg ............and they take it to the Vet (which just so happens to be my personal Vet, as well). It's not ringworm, according to him ...but he sends the Chin back with a bottle of medicated shampoo! WTH.. .? The shop calls me, explains/describes the Chin to me and I told them to isolate it and let it have a dust bath ..until I can ask here. :thumbsup:
 
It may be a regional thing as CA chins suggests shampooing chins prior to showing them in their book :( . Sadly many up that way seem to listen to what they say no matter how wacko it is.
 
I would not shampoo that chinchilla. It sounds like it has a fungus if the area is red and flaky. I think the vet has a screw loose. I would get a second opinion. I don't know about using shampoo per se but I have heard of bathing when they are really really bad. This chinchilla has something else going on though besides bad hygiene.
 
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Well.. I don't read the "pet books" very often ..and this is why! :yuck:

So... without the regional factor.. is there ever a good reason to shampoo a Chinchilla?

I am baffled by this...
 
I agree, it sounds like fungus. And if he just said it's not, I wouldn't take his word for it. I would ask for a skin scraping.

I would not shampoo a chinchilla. If it is fungus, there are other ways of treating it.
 
Okay.. thanks, you guys... err, gals :D

I didn't want to just trust my gut without asking, but I have to agree ..my Vet is not as Chinchilla savvy as he, and his ego, would like all to think he is.

They are returning the Chin to the breeder it came from, so hopefully they will know what to do with a fungus... keyword being HOPE :p
 
There ARE good reasons to shampoo a chin...however I don't think this is one of them. I would do as suggested and get a skin scraping to rule out fungus (which IS what it sounds like) and go from there.

As far as shampooing goes, I've heard of chins getting into stuff (for instance sticky matter) and that shampooing was the only way to get it out. You have to be VERY thorough though with the drying of the chinchilla afterwards and I'd imagine that the shampoo would need to be a very mild variety.
 
Is there another vet you could take your chin to for a second opinion? One that routinely sees chinnies and has more experience with them?
 
If the chin has that much fur missing and the skin is red and flakey, the vet needs to do a skin scrapping for fungus. That is the only way to know for sure if that is what the problem is or not.

Yes, there are rare times when an actual soap and water bath is needed for a chin. I don't suggest it to people unless it is extenuating circumstances. If it is done it must be a really mild/gentle baby shampoo and you have to make sure the chin is REALLY dry before putting them back in their cage, which is not easy to do considering how dense their fur is.

I have only done this once when I got in two rescues who were kept in a cage that was completely rusted and I mean ever inch of this cage was coated with rust. The chins fur was actually orange (no joke) from it being embedded with the rusty powder that came off the cage. A vet told me I needed to give them a bath to remove it thoroughly. I was very worried about them cleaning themselves and ingesting it. The water was brown and it smelled like rusty metal when they got wet. It was a one time thing and you could tell they felt so much better after. They got regular dust baths after that and the staining on their fur eventually grew out.
 
Sounds like fungus to me, and there's no way that vet would know for sure without doing a scraping. Sounds to me like he's lazy as well as uninformed. I would not suggest shampooing a chinchilla for a bald spot, but as you have returned the chinnie to the breeder, hopefully they will know that.

As stated by others, shampooing a chin is something that is not gone into lightly as their fur is so dense it's very difficult to get them completely dry which can, in fact, make fungus worse, or give them a chill, leading to more issues than it's worth. Even Tinactin in their dustbath is better than this.
 
Wow, I have never heard of shampooing them. I have laways heard NOT to, because of how dense their fur is, and they could easily get pneumonia. What I did to ward off any fungus when I was breeding/had chinchillas, was put antifungal foot powder in with their dust bath. This seemed to keep their coat nice and healthy, and keep away any fungus. I just mixed it in well with their bath, and it worked well. However, I would also suggest like the others said, to have scrapings of the skin done to ensure it is a fungus.
 
I wonder what medication was put in the shampoo...not that I think it was a good idea to bathe the chin that way, but maybe he didn't mean shampoo...maybe there it was more of an ointment (sp?!?) rub....or so I hope:thinking:


but no to shampoo...usually a wet cloth will work for situations that need cleaning, but to really get in there would be a rare need to have...
 
Thanks everyone.

The bottle of shampoo was actual shampoo and not ointment. The instructions were very clear.. "shampoo x amount of times and have a follow up.. blah blah blah" ...and the chin is going back to the breeder.

It was not my Chin.. but a local shop got the new Chin in and since they know squat and I am on their call list for rescues and rehabs, etc. ..one of the employees called me cuz they know I have the 3 Chin'kids here.

Anyhoo... they hid the shampoo from the idiots ..and the breeder/vendor will get the Chin back. Hopefully, they will find a different breeder/vendor until that one can produce a health certificate to prove that there isn't a fungus running rampant in her stock.

Ideally, the shop will stop selling live animals and we'll all be better for it! :hair:
 
I had to shampoo my chin once because he got into caramel (my husband was eating caramel and apples and left it out. the chinchilla escaped and got into it and then found his dust. :yuck:) I had no other option but to wash him and then I had to blow dry him on the cool setting and comb him out. This is not something I will ever do free willingly because it wasn't fun for me or the chinnie.
 
Years ago I got in several rescues, close to 20 chinchillas had been living in 2 smaller cages. We got the lady to give up all but 2 males, males were deliberatly left.

We ended up bringing home 12 males(another person had the females) and they were in such gross and dirty shape they needed a shampoo. We used a baby shampoo and then spent a long time drying them with a low hair dryer. It was definitely a process...

For fungus some antifungal powder in the dust bath should clear it up, will take a bit of time of course but will work.
 
Our chincilla was given a Sulfur bath today, I wonder if that's considered close to shampooing as well. I had concerns but the vet said it was fine (same concerns as everyone else, since all I hear is that you do not bath or get a chincilla wet). Was this a drastic reaction to missing fur (we did a hair test but results have not come back yet). Is this too tramatic for the chin?
 
Next time get powdered sulfur and mix it with the dust. Works the same but doesn't soak them.

You can mix it at a 1 to 5 ratio, but most ranchers mix it 1c. to a 50lb bag of dust.
 
About 10 years ago, when I had my 2nd chinchilla (1st one dead...) we went to the vet because he had dry ears and at the clinic, we noticed a really weird spot. Skin was dried, flaky and stuff. The vet gave us a shampoo for him. And for a week, we 'washed' him with that shampoo. Ten years ago, you could probably count the chin owners on one hand in my area. He survived, in fact he's still with me! Wasn't fungus though, never knew what it was...
 
There actually are good reasons to shampoo a chin, although I agree with everyone else, that this is not one of them.

I have bathed rescues who came in soaked in urine and reeking so bad that my neighbors actually thought something had died next door. I bathed Charlie when he came in...he had bladder stones and could not urinate properly, so when he did pee it was more of a painful explosion and his belly was soaked. Only other reasons I've bathed an animal were for post-op reasons. Starlight, after her amputation, was just dragging the legless area on the bottom of her cage (on fleece liners), which caused the area to become pretty infected. I washed her incision gently, and used slightly warm compresses on her. The bath actually helped quite a bit, and the incision opened a tiny bit to allow the infectious material to escape.

So yes, good reasons for doing so, but drying a wet chinchilla is not very fun, so I definately DON'T recommend bathing one without a very good reason.

Sidenote: I wanted to get a tattoo of chinchilla footprints, so I was trying various methods of acquiring those footprints. One idea that actually worked kind of well was dipping Rayna's feet in purple paint, then letting her hop around the bathtub. So I was holding her over the sink and rinsing her feet when she squirmed away from me and landed in the sink. She got wet with purple water, then proceeded to bounce around my apartment, bouncing off of my white walls and leaving little purple smears everywhere. She actually got a full bath once I caught her; her stomach was tinged purple for about two months. LOL, I still laugh about it to this day, actually!
 
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