What now? Still losing weight..

[SCchin]

Two days ago, he gained 2 g without CC. Ate about 1T pellets and hay. Then today, 4 g less, the lowest he has ever been. When I went to bed last night, he was eating hay, and he ate another 1T pellets. Still lost weight. So we got the CC out again. He is acting fine, just the thinnest he has ever been. Can't feel ribs, though. He was 650 g today before CC (add 12 g after CC), three weeks ago at filing he was 683 g. And the vet said he could be heavier.

Can chins really gain weight on 1-2T pellets/day and hay? This guy doesn't eat enough to. Since he ate too many treats before, is this his new weight, in the 650s? Or do we need a vet check on the teeth?

See Hay 101 in Diet and OK to lose 30 g here for background.

 

[SCchin]

What does it sound like when a chin chews? Our's sounds "squishy." Just wondering if his chewing is ok.

 

[ticklechin]

If his mouth still was bothering him bad, in my experience with many malo chins, he would not eat any pellets and he would only play with hay. Chins once they lose weight take forever to regain it, it can take months. When he is eating is he doing any mouth swiping? Does he gobble a favorite treat or does he methodically chew it? Is he chewing on sticks and the such? Is he bright and playful at play? It won't hurt him to have 10ml of CC a day to supplement his diet for now, feed it in the morning so by the night be will be hungry and it won't effect his evening eating. Weigh loss is always a problem with filing if the chin was not hand fed as soon as the start of the loss was detected prior to the filing, but that amount of 30gm does not alarm me on a filed chin.

 

[Brittany]

I'm curious (because we were just filed), would 1-2 drops of dyne per day for a week or two help to jump start the weight gain?

 

[ticklechin]

Dyne is really oil and sugar, I only use it in extreme cases as a dipping agent on the end of a syringe to get a hard feeder to eat. Weight gain at the chins own pace is the best weight gain rather than using fatty foods.

Here is the nutritional analysis of dyne.

Ingredients:
Soybean Oil, Sucrose, Non-Fat Dry Milk, Propylene Glycol, Egg White, Glycerine, Polysorbate 80, Pectin, Gum Arabic, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Vitamin A Palmitate, Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3), dl-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Niacin, d-Pantothenyl Alcohol, Riboflavin 5 Phosphate, Thiamine Hydrochloride, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vanilla extract, FD&C Yellow #5.

Guaranteed Analysis
Crude protein (min) 1.9 %
Crude Fat (min) 48.3%
Vitamin A (min) 1790 IU
Vitamin D3 (min) 186 IU
Vitamin E (min) 4.5 IU
Niacin (min) 1.92 mg
D-Pantothenyl Alcohol (min) 1.13 mg
Vitamin B6 (min) .18 mg
Riboflavin (min) 0.25 mg
Thiamine (min) 0.18 mg
Folic Acid (min) 0.04 mg
Moisture (max) 18%
Vitamin C 175 IU
Vitamin B 12 .71 mcg

 

[SCchin]

If his mouth still was bothering him bad, in my experience with many malo chins, he would not eat any pellets and he would only play with hay. Chins once they lose weight take forever to regain it, it can take months. When he is eating is he doing any mouth swiping? Does he gobble a favorite treat or does he methodically chew it? Is he chewing on sticks and the such? Is he bright and playful at play? It won't hurt him to have 10ml of CC a day to supplement his diet for now, feed it in the morning so by the night be will be hungry and it won't effect his evening eating. Weigh loss is always a problem with filing if the chin was not hand fed as soon as the start of the loss was detected prior to the filing, but that amount of 30gm does not alarm me on a filed chin.

I can't believe my whole message just got lost.... now to remember all that I wrote...

Raisins disappear quickly, but they did before filing. He does rub his jaw with his paws, don't know if you would call it swiping. He also loves it when I rub his chin and jaw, so it doesn't seem to hurt. I do wonder about his jaw maybe being sore because he is now eating pellets and chewing hay regularly, something he has never done. (The vet said his jaw was atrophied). If I wasn't weighing him I would think he was doing fine since he ate 1 T of pellets (more than that the day before) and chewing a good bit of hay (I can't tell how much he ingests because he does seem to actually eat the tender parts and chew and leave the tougher parts). That is why I commented if this may be his new weight?? He was eating oat flakes, treats out of his feed, and raisins before. But his fat little tummy is gone, it is flat now. He seems playful, he jumps all over the cage, and it is nearly impossible to catch him to get him out. We could get him out and let him run the stairs to see how much energy he has, he used to love to do that, I just don't appreciate him knawing on the baseboards.... he was quite a chewer, table legs, baseboards, door moldings, the base of the piano..... so I insisted he stay in the cage!

He is 7 g heavier this morning, so he hung onto 12 g of the CC. My daughter insists on fattening him up in case he needs more filing done, she is scared he won't do well if he needs to be put out for the procedure. It would be a 2 1/2 hr. drive, if he is fine, then oh well... I sure wish the little guy could just tell us what is going on! What is funny is that he did NOT lose weight the first entire week, last week is when it started going down, then this week is when I noticed a 30 g loss.

The thing that got us thinking something was wrong before the filing is that he was quite a chewer, we called him the chip-a-shredder. He completely stopped, even the wood pieces in his cage were untouched. He still is not chewing wood at all.

 

[ticklechin]

The temporomandibular joint muscle is a problem with malo chins-the muscle can atrophy and chewing can "bring it back". I had a malo patient that wore a chin sling that forced his TMJ muscle to work harder to chew (I do not recommend this its just a example) so if this was my malo chin I would give him the 10ml of CC in the morning, and wait a couple of weeks and see how he progresses with eating, its good he is eating so that is a plus but at this point I think hold off on any further vet visits or procedures and see how he does. Chins are not built to gain weight-the low energy high fiber diet prevents it so it just takes time.

 

[momenteller]

Do you have him off the raisins and other treats altogether? I wouldn't give him any treats but sticks or other chew items for the time being. I think 1-2 tablespoons of pellets a day is pretty average, at least it is over here! I don't have any experience with malo chins but I have done food switches for all three of my girls. One protested pretty badly and lost 40 grams. It took her a few months to regain that.

Do you have a playpen or other enclosed area so the chin can get out of cage time occasionally? We had a problem with chewed baseboards also but we bought a playpen which was a great investment! We also do playtime in the bathroom where it is easier to chin-proof and monitor what they're getting in to!

I don't remember how long you've had the little guy but sounds like you have had your hands full from the start. Once he is on a regular diet and you have a routine things will get easier and less stressful. Good luck!

 

[SCchin]

It is good to know that the weight loss isn't too bad, and that it does go up and down, and eventually they do gain it back. He has been eating hay and pellets pretty regularly, it seems he hold out for CC, we are moving it to every other day to see if he picks up the eating in between. If we do give the CC, he stops eating many pellets.

Ha, he wasn't any work until we were educated about those continually growing teeth.... for five years the cage was cleaned and he was fed and played with, nothing else! So it has been stressful having to keep an eye on him and trying to figure out what to do. I thought he was going to starve himself with the diet change.... that was scary!

I did notice that we have the apple/banana CC. I bet it tastes good to him..... hmmmm like treats..... Wondering if I should switch to regular flavor since the flavored one is so enticing.....

Thanks all, don't know what we would do without all of you!

 

[ticklechin]

Let him have his apple/banana CC, its good he likes it and makes handfeeding in a crisis easier. You can cut him off the CC and keep weighing him, he will drop some during the weaning process but he should stabilize after a few days. They can become addicted to CC so wean him off and see how it goes.