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Maggie:-)

Maggie:-)

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 16, 2012
Messages
166
Hi my chinchilla maggie went to the vet for the first time today,so i just have a couple questions. I got her 6 weeks ago from petsmart where they said she was 3 or 4 months old. So i brought her to the vet today because she has been having soft stools off and on. The vet believes the soft stool is from not getting enough fiber because she pretty much refuses to eat her hay. She would rather just eat her pellets. So she told me to only feed her a small amount of pellets everyday and lots of timothy hay. Does this sound right to you guys?! Also she is testing her stool and i will get the results tomorow.
I give her timothy hay alfalfa and orchard grass all loose hay and also the compressed cube timothy hair. Is this mixture okay? I had read that a mixture is good for there teeth...
She weighs 1 pound 25 ounces... Is this a good weight?! Or do you think she will get bigger? I dont think petsmart knows what they are talking about when they say she is 3 or 4 months old. The vet thinks she is about 6 months old.
Anyone with any info please respond. Thank you.
 
Can water that has been thru reverse osmosis be bought in a store?!
 
Maggie:-) said:
Can water that has been thru reverse osmosis be bought in a store?!
Click to expand...


Absolutely. You shouldn't have any problems finding it at a grocery store. You could also purchase a PUR 3 stage filter for your kitchen faucet to filter her water through as well. Either would work. The filter tends to be more cost effective in the long run, however.
 
Okay thank you. Would dasani be okay? It says online that it is.
I have another question too lol . I bought a "grape cluster" toy at petsmart in the bird section. Now that i brought it home im wondering if its really safe. Any thoughts?
 
Im not a vet, but it seems to be a logical conclusion. Iv had the problem with my boys in the past. Was advised to take the pellets out for a day or two and let them have a ton of hay only. For my problem, that helped and they went back to normal.

Western Timothy Hay is their main hay to give them generaly, because most pellet foods for chins are an alfalfa type. So the Timothy helps complament that.

As for combining the three types of hay, im honestly not sure. I would guess that maybe the alfalfa is not needed, giving the pellets. Hopefully someone with more knowledge in that area can help. Orchard im not sure on either. I always used Timothy type hay only, untill a little while back when my boys stopped eating a lot of hay. It was suggested to me to type mixing some orchard in with it. (which seemed to work)


Telling an age of a chin is diffacult to say the least. Telling an exact is nearly impossible unless you no the birth date (in my experence at least). Example being my first baby boy. When i took him to the vet, he estimated around 9 days old. Some breeders at the time i tlaked to estmated maybe 2 days old. Ill refrain from getting into all that, but they can varry a good bit.
 
Yeah she was eating mazurri and her stool was real bad. Now that shes on oxbow it seems to be better!
 
With a recent food change it may take a while for her system to even out. I would also try do do more hay and less food.
 
I just got a call from the vet she is positive for giardia. I need to give her med twice a day frlm a syringe. Well my question is is there anyway to sanitize her whole cage? I scrubbed everything and poured boiling water over everythjng,is that good enough? Please dont tell me i have to thro away all her wood shelves....
And will washing her fleece stuff in the washer kill it?
 
I'm not a vet, but I'll tell you my experiences and you can talk to your vet about it.

Giardia appears to be found in all chinchillas naturally in low amounts, at least all of the ones WSU has necropsied and done full panels on over the years, and all of the ones I have taken various places to be necropsied. When a chinchilla is down in health or stressed out it can cause an over population in the intestines and turn into a much bigger issue.

In other words, Giardia often isn't the problem, but a symptom. There are cases of drinking contaminated water making it much worse - and your chin could have gotten it in contact with other animals.

Over the years I've noticed chins eat what they need and will favor odd things if they are low in a certain mineral.

Your chin preferring pellets over hay may mean it is deficient in a mineral that can only be found in the pellet and is filling up on it trying to get enough to get it's system back on track. That same mineral imbalance could be causing the outbreak of giardia or could be another symptom of the same thing that has caused the giardia....

I'd try giving the chin different types of wood to chew on - there are lots of vendors in the vendor section, and rosehips which good to help combat the immune dump your chin is in. Natural items like that will not interfere with the drugs and both the rosehips and wood are great for natural fiber intake.

You can throw your shelves in the dishwasher sterilize cycle with bleach, it'll wipe out most everything. Just sun dry them afterwards.

Good luck!
 
I can put bleach on the wood?!
Ididnt think it would be safe because he will chew on it after?
 
Sunlight kills bleach. If you have the ability to sun dry the wood you can wash it with a bleach and water solution. I'd do 1C in the dishwasher...
 
Ok thank you very much for the info. I will be glad when this is all over because now im worried about everything. She gets let out in our hallway which is carpeted... Does that mean when i let her out she could get it again from being on the carpet? How long does this virus stay alive on surfaces?
The medicine went well she drank it willingly.
 
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