My chinchilla has an on going tooth growth problem which required his back teeth to be trimmed a couple of months back...afterwards he was fine and went back to normal but a two days ago he stopped eating very suddenly, i took him back to the vets and they put him under anastetic to trim his teeth again. they found some spikes and trimmed them back, the vet said he should be eating again if not imedietly, as soon as the next day...but he wont touch his food, it has been over 24 hours since the trim and he can't even bite into a raison, im not sure what the problem is and we can't aford any more treatment. we're giving him liquid food through a siringe at the moment but he doesnt seem to like having it. I know there isn't much i can do...but he is still very playful and seems happy, has anyone else had simmilar problems. I dont mind feeding him liquid food for now but im worried his teeth may be causing him pain. can anyone give any advise, thankyou.
My chinchilla suddenly stopped eating!
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He does have one watery eye which he has had ever scince he had a nasil infectin a year ago, the weteriness never realy went away...I have thought it may be his teeth growing towards his eyes but there is no way to treat that kind of problem realy..I can't realy aford to be paying for alot of vet tratment for him either. I am worried because if he does have somthing like that which needs to be dealt with and it's to expensive he'll have to be put down. I realy don't want to put him to sleep though because he seems to be very happy, he is only three years old. when I let him run round the living room he enjoys playing and has a good run round for half an hour. I have felt under his eyes but I can't feal any bumps which should have apeared by now if he has upgrowing teeth since he has already stopped eating. he doesn't look in pain accept when he eats but I have known people who have just hand fed there chinchillas their whole lives..I wonder if this would be a better idea for him.
That is why I was asking. If the severity of the malocclusion is doing that to your chin, unfortunately one of the best things you can do is put them down. Get xrays first! Don't just assume. Talk to your vet and see what they can do. The only known cure for that, that I know of, is to pull the teeth and hand feed the chin for the rest of it's life. From my understanding, it's not a good life for chin or the owner.
I'd suggest reading this: http://www.paw-talk.net/forums/f19/malocclusion-in-the-chinchilla-17468.html and decide from there. Let us know what you find out!
I'd suggest reading this: http://www.paw-talk.net/forums/f19/malocclusion-in-the-chinchilla-17468.html and decide from there. Let us know what you find out!
Your prbably right, I don't want to keep him suffering if he is in pain so I will have to have a good think about his quality of life. I was looking at some sites though which say having the teeth pulled can cure the problem, I wondered whether how the success rate on this might be. Im pondering on having an x-ray done but some sites say that after having a tooth trim proformed it can take weeks before the chinchilla will gain their apitite back again. I will have to have a good think on the best cause of action..even if it does mean he will have to be put to sleep..Thankyou for all the infomation, ill try to write in telling what i decide.
Have you tried critical care? It's made for chins. I know camphorchins.com sells it. It may help in feeding him until he can get better if it is only because his teeth were trimmed.
It cures the problems because there is no longer any root to grow towards the sinuses or eye socket. Remember, chins eat constantly and you have to be willing to feed him every day for the rest of his life by hand. It is a lot to take on. I'm not trying to discourage you from it, but maybe trying to find someone who has done this and asking them can help you.
Best of luck to you!
It cures the problems because there is no longer any root to grow towards the sinuses or eye socket. Remember, chins eat constantly and you have to be willing to feed him every day for the rest of his life by hand. It is a lot to take on. I'm not trying to discourage you from it, but maybe trying to find someone who has done this and asking them can help you.
Best of luck to you!
I am willing to take on that responsibility, I realy want to try anything within reach before putting him down. At the moment I am feeding him a home made mix of ground up chinchilla nugets with water..although I can only get him to take 15ml a day at the moment but im trying to give him a little more each time i feed him. I would like to have the teeth removed if he doesn't recover soon but do you think that I would have to have him x-rayed before hand anyway, it's 50£ to have him x-rayed and we allready spent 100£ on treatment to have a check up and tooth trim. I'd like to try and avoid any unecessary extra costs.
Honestly, for the chinchillas sake, I would put him down rather than pulling his teeth. Its no life for a chinchilla, and you would have to be with him all day feeding him throughout. They dont just eat one meal a day. And think of the pain he would be in from the surgery. I have a chinchilla with malo right now that I have to put down next week because after having his teeth filed 5 or so times in the last 1.5 years, his roots are affecting him too much. Instead of putting him through a huge surgery, and having to hand feed him.. I know he would much rather cross the bridge and be free of pain forever. Its the hardest choice we have to make, but we do it becuase we love them.
Im so sorry you have to go through this as well, i dont wish this on anyone. But it sounds like your little guy is in pain, and the watery eye and sinus infection could be linked to malocclusion.
I strongly urge you to try everything you can but extraction. But it is always your choice no matter what. You know what you can really handle.
Trimming the teeth continuously sometimes does help the roots, but you have to be willing to put your chinnie thorugh surgery after surgery, and sometimes that doesnt even help. Its a losing battle usually
Sorry...
Im so sorry you have to go through this as well, i dont wish this on anyone. But it sounds like your little guy is in pain, and the watery eye and sinus infection could be linked to malocclusion.
I strongly urge you to try everything you can but extraction. But it is always your choice no matter what. You know what you can really handle.
Trimming the teeth continuously sometimes does help the roots, but you have to be willing to put your chinnie thorugh surgery after surgery, and sometimes that doesnt even help. Its a losing battle usually
Sorry...
Sorry about your chinchilla, Nik...I realy hope that he's not in to much pain, I wish you the best, and your right..somtimes it is kinder to put them to sleep and set them free.
I understand it would not be very fair to pull my chinchillas teeth but at the same time I don't think it would be cruel, he is a happpy chinchilla and I don't think 'all together' an hour of feeding a day would change that. All the same I have decided not to go ahead with pulling his teeth. I dont think it would be fair on anyone else to deal with if anything happned to me. He hasn't gone back onto his solids yet but I have increased the amount I am liquid feeding him a day to about 55ml, he doesn't like it much but he is getting used to it. I'm not covinced that it is this malo thing scince his eyes only become realy watery when I put hay in his bed or when i've just cleaned him out and the sawdust is flying around a bit. I have heard of chinchillas with asthma like symptoms and keeping them away from things which are dusty helps. He has wool in his bed instead of hay to help but there isn't much I can do about the sawdust and his sand..I do nitice a differance from when I first clean him out to later on in the week, I tried putting hay in his bed not long back but it resulted in his eyes gluing together.
maybe im just in denile but I realy want to avoid putting him down, ive been watching him over the last week and I have noticed even though he has yet to take an intrest in his food he does seem to be showing some signs of improvment, like biting on his bars to come out and spending more time out of bed. Ill just keep watching him for now.
I have taken on bord what you both have said and apreciate your advise, I wish you the best of luck with Greyson, Nik..and im sure he has had a wonderful life, best wishes.
I understand it would not be very fair to pull my chinchillas teeth but at the same time I don't think it would be cruel, he is a happpy chinchilla and I don't think 'all together' an hour of feeding a day would change that. All the same I have decided not to go ahead with pulling his teeth. I dont think it would be fair on anyone else to deal with if anything happned to me. He hasn't gone back onto his solids yet but I have increased the amount I am liquid feeding him a day to about 55ml, he doesn't like it much but he is getting used to it. I'm not covinced that it is this malo thing scince his eyes only become realy watery when I put hay in his bed or when i've just cleaned him out and the sawdust is flying around a bit. I have heard of chinchillas with asthma like symptoms and keeping them away from things which are dusty helps. He has wool in his bed instead of hay to help but there isn't much I can do about the sawdust and his sand..I do nitice a differance from when I first clean him out to later on in the week, I tried putting hay in his bed not long back but it resulted in his eyes gluing together.
maybe im just in denile but I realy want to avoid putting him down, ive been watching him over the last week and I have noticed even though he has yet to take an intrest in his food he does seem to be showing some signs of improvment, like biting on his bars to come out and spending more time out of bed. Ill just keep watching him for now.
I have taken on bord what you both have said and apreciate your advise, I wish you the best of luck with Greyson, Nik..and im sure he has had a wonderful life, best wishes.
Have you tried any ointment for the eyes? I got some a while back but it seemed to make my greys eyes worse. But I'd yours really has eye issues it may help??
I really hope your little guy starts eating. How long has it been since he was put under for the filing? Sometimes it takes them a while to recover, he could still be in some discomfort too. Are you giving him any pain meds? Or antibiotics after the filing? Greyson was always put on both.
At least he is getting more active as long as the chinnie has a happy and quality life, I feel that we should give them every chance we can.
I really hope your little guy starts eating. How long has it been since he was put under for the filing? Sometimes it takes them a while to recover, he could still be in some discomfort too. Are you giving him any pain meds? Or antibiotics after the filing? Greyson was always put on both.
At least he is getting more active
as long as the chinnie has a happy and quality life, I feel that we should give them every chance we can. I should get an X-ray for him but we realy can't aford it at the moment..we already spent £100 on him for what we had done...we can only just spare anough for his tooth trim when he needs it, prehaps when we have a bit of extra change spared up we can do it. If he starts to look in pain or anything I'll have to move it up the list a bit. he is on to medicines at the moment, pretty sure the're the ones you listed. It has been over a week I think and he has shown no intrest in food, even when I give him a raison he will take it try to nibble on it to no prevail and then put it down, yet he will make much more of an attempt to chew the walls even though he leavs no damage at the moment..I can't tell if he can't chew his food or just doesn't want to. I tried giving him some dried banana from the musuli packet last night but he couldn't bite into it..so I broke a tiny crumb of that he could have swallowed whole, he put it to his mouth but didn't even make an atempt to bite it, he just dropped it. They say it can take upto six weeks for some chinchillas to gain their apitites back but im not sure what his problem is.
Just writing to update all readers on how Collin is doing...After saving up our money for some time our vets gave us a referral to an exotic vet who worked in a practice just over an hours drive away from us. We had our selves down to have him exrayed, they told us that anything they found whilst he was under anasthetic they would do their best to deal with at the time.
We took him there today and were seen by an expert in chinchillas. She was very nice and even took us behind the scenes to show us inside Collins mouth whilst he was sleeping. It turned out that he had a very large spike sticking into his cheek on the inside of his mouth she only noticed on the x-ray and by there being a large ulcer on the inside of his cheek. She was quite sure that this is what was stopping him eating, the must have missed it when they put him under for a dental at our local vets. The vet today has trimmed his teeth back as far as they will go in order to atempt to realine his teeth in the right possition. Apparently (although somtimes this just wont work at all) after timming the teeth right back repeatedly once every four weeks, it will usually cure the problem...(this often takes only twice)...they also found his roots had grown into his jaw but they told me this often stops growing at that length and that in Collins case they didn't think they were going to grow any longer.
In the end although they are more expensive I feel that if I had taken Collin there to begin with he would have probably have had the problen fixed by now.
It cost us £80 for the x-ray and with the trim and all the medicen included it cost us around £185 which wasn't to bad considering that we were given a price estimate of anywhere between £150-£250. He is now on a large doses of pain killer and meticam to help heal his mouth and tooth growth.
Anyone with simmilar problems I truly sugest taking your chinchilla strate to an exotic vet, this will probably save you and your chinchilla a lot of stress in the long run and probably save you a lot of cost aswell.
We took him there today and were seen by an expert in chinchillas. She was very nice and even took us behind the scenes to show us inside Collins mouth whilst he was sleeping. It turned out that he had a very large spike sticking into his cheek on the inside of his mouth she only noticed on the x-ray and by there being a large ulcer on the inside of his cheek. She was quite sure that this is what was stopping him eating, the must have missed it when they put him under for a dental at our local vets. The vet today has trimmed his teeth back as far as they will go in order to atempt to realine his teeth in the right possition. Apparently (although somtimes this just wont work at all) after timming the teeth right back repeatedly once every four weeks, it will usually cure the problem...(this often takes only twice)...they also found his roots had grown into his jaw but they told me this often stops growing at that length and that in Collins case they didn't think they were going to grow any longer.
In the end although they are more expensive I feel that if I had taken Collin there to begin with he would have probably have had the problen fixed by now.
It cost us £80 for the x-ray and with the trim and all the medicen included it cost us around £185 which wasn't to bad considering that we were given a price estimate of anywhere between £150-£250. He is now on a large doses of pain killer and meticam to help heal his mouth and tooth growth.
Anyone with simmilar problems I truly sugest taking your chinchilla strate to an exotic vet, this will probably save you and your chinchilla a lot of stress in the long run and probably save you a lot of cost aswell.
Well this is the last message I will be leaving on this thread due to the unfortunete events that happened over the last 24 hours which led to him being put to sleep
He had been doing fine until last night...he had gone back onto hard food again after having his teeth cut back and was back to his jolly self again, bounding around like he's supossed to. But last night after he had been playing around for about half an hour he went back into his cage and laid very low, I gave him a bit of hard food which he ate..but when he walked he had his bum held up high. I was refreshing hid food nuggets when I sore him suddenly jump and flinch, then he laid back down again. We took him out of the cage..he was realy floppy and limp, we thought that maybe he had wind or somthing so we sat messaging his tummy for a while, he seemed pretty content until he suddenly broke into a mager fit!
We held him still trying to stop him as he tried to arch his head right back into his tail. We held him like that for about 40 minutes finding each time he stopped the slightest change of possition would cause him to fit again.
eventually he closed his eyes and fell to sleep for an hour. After that he started opening his eyes and blinking. It took about another hour before he regained all his body but use of his legs seemed poor.
By that time it was 5am so I went to bed leaving him with my sister to sleep on the setee.
By morning he showed no signs of improvment and could only drag himself around on his tummy and even then he would stumble over on his side, we had him at the vets for half nine in the morning where we were told that it was unlikely he would regain himself, we believe that he had somthing of a stroke or seizure. He kept tensing up at the vets as though he was going to go back into a fit again, and the vets sugested that in that state she would advise putting him to sleep. Thus is what we did.
He is now at peace and I feel good that in the last two weeks of his life, he was well. We don't know what caused it. Whether he ate somthing bad whilst he was out, tooth related or even the medicien he has been on, at least he has had a good lifexxx
He had been doing fine until last night...he had gone back onto hard food again after having his teeth cut back and was back to his jolly self again, bounding around like he's supossed to. But last night after he had been playing around for about half an hour he went back into his cage and laid very low, I gave him a bit of hard food which he ate..but when he walked he had his bum held up high. I was refreshing hid food nuggets when I sore him suddenly jump and flinch, then he laid back down again. We took him out of the cage..he was realy floppy and limp, we thought that maybe he had wind or somthing so we sat messaging his tummy for a while, he seemed pretty content until he suddenly broke into a mager fit!
We held him still trying to stop him as he tried to arch his head right back into his tail. We held him like that for about 40 minutes finding each time he stopped the slightest change of possition would cause him to fit again.
eventually he closed his eyes and fell to sleep for an hour. After that he started opening his eyes and blinking. It took about another hour before he regained all his body but use of his legs seemed poor.
By that time it was 5am so I went to bed leaving him with my sister to sleep on the setee.
By morning he showed no signs of improvment and could only drag himself around on his tummy and even then he would stumble over on his side, we had him at the vets for half nine in the morning where we were told that it was unlikely he would regain himself, we believe that he had somthing of a stroke or seizure. He kept tensing up at the vets as though he was going to go back into a fit again, and the vets sugested that in that state she would advise putting him to sleep. Thus is what we did.
He is now at peace and I feel good that in the last two weeks of his life, he was well. We don't know what caused it. Whether he ate somthing bad whilst he was out, tooth related or even the medicien he has been on, at least he has had a good lifexxx
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There might be pain in the teeth. That's why your dog lost his appetite.
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