SOS! any vet here?

[Geekking]

I have two chinchillas but one of them passed away yesterday because of the heat stroke. Other one is agonizing and don't know what to do. There is no vet. specialized on this animal in my country (Turkey) therefore, they can't do anything. Just gave her serum from hypodermic. But it didn't help her I thought you could help me with saying what to do. She is looking good from outside but not eating, drinking just sitting in her cage. The serious thing is she is giving salivary sometimes. I read on net if chinchillas heat will increase their color of ears will get red but there is no sign like that on my chinchilla. The place where I bought told me to put ice pats inside of her cage until she turns normal health. But not sure it helps her at the moment or not. She is shiviring and giving pituitary/salivary. Please tell me what can I or a vet can do for her. I'll be waiting your answer. Thanks for your help and support. Greetings from Turkey.

[dianah]

i am not a vet - i don't think we have a vet on the forum - however, i have taken care of very sick chinchillas.

the important thing is to keep the temperature in the room down. what is the room temperature? i would imagine it's quite humid where you are as well so the lower the better, you really want it to be 18-19 degrees celsius. you can put a cooling stone in - a granite slab or a tile would do, you can put this in the freezer for a bit first just don't put it in the cage frozen. you can also freeze some vegetable tins (beans are good, something fairly dense), make sure you wrap it in a towel/fleece before you put it in the cage. remember a fan will not help - do you have air conditioning?

next you need to get her to eat and drink. if she does not, her gi tract will stop and she will die. get a syringe from your vet (or pharmacy?) - i find that 2.5 ml or even 1ml syringes are good - bigger ones tend to squirt out too much in one go. you could grind or mash up her nuggets, mix with water and give it to her from a syringe. force feed her if you have to - make sure you put the syringe in from the side of her mouth so you're squirting into her mouth and not her throat. ideally you want to get some hay in her as well. try things like rolled oats (mae tends to eat those even if she's not eating anything else) - give it to her one by one.

you need to give her fluids. again, you need a syringe - 1ml would probably be best. you can mix some 100% apple juice - very small amount - with water, it tastes nice so you may not even force feed her this.

there is a product called oxbow critical care for herbivores which would be ideal if you can get it. then you'd only need to feed this rather than crushing pellets etc. they do a 'fine grind' version - i use this for mae as the normal version doesn't syringe very well.

what colour is your chinchilla? sometimes red ears are not so obvious.

hope she gets better soon. basically, you need to keep her cool, make her eat and drink. good luck!

[jmdebb]

sorry for you loss..

if the ears aren't read are you sure it's from heat???/ 

i know one night my angel's ears got red real quick, i was suprised cuz i never saw it before and i got super nervous, what i did was open the freezer door, and just held her kind of in it, but not in it, towards the front of it, if that makes sense, and luckily it worked.  i held here there probably about 5 minutes, her ears werent' super red, but red  and warm. 

do you have any vets, even if not specialized, some times there are great vets that aren't exoctic specialist, i would looks for one that maybe that can at least do routine care of them, its better than nothing, any maybe you already did, i don't know, just a suggestion.

but you  have to get water in food in her,

i hope she gets better quick.

[dianah]

do you have any vets, even if not specialized, some times there are great vets that aren't exoctic specialist, i would looks for one that maybe that can at least do routine care of them, its better than nothing, any maybe you already did, i don't know, just a suggestion.

this is a great idea. i live on the isle of man and we don't have specialist exotics vet (not enough exotic pets!), however, there are two vets at my surgery who are very good with chinchillas and i always make a point of seeing one of them. it'd be worth giving a few surgeries a ring and see if they have experience. some vets see more chins than others and some have more interest in them than others. definitely worth a try!

[chinclub]

How is the chinchilla doing now?  Can she walk in a straight line? Use her "hands" as well as before?  Sometimes a chinchilla can survive a temperature spike but be left with brain damage.  This could account for the strange drooling she is doing now.  Do you have a small stuffed animal toy you could put in her cage.  This will give her something to bond to as she misses her friend.  Other than that you already got some great advice above.

We had a power outage during summer years ago and the temperature spiked in our first chinchilla building. (Now we have a generator for protection)  We lost a few chinchillas on the top row from the heat.  The next day we noticed the other girl on the top row was holding her head funny.  It looked like an ear infection.  She couldn't seem to walk in a straight line or hold her head straight.  After much testing it turned out to be brain damage from the heat.  She lived for 8 more years after that.  She  never was normal but adapted to her disability.  After a few days she was eating, drinking, and running around her cage just like old times.

[sandrajoan22]

I'm so sorry for your loss! If she isn't over heating, maybe your chin is just really upset at the loss of the other one? Sort of in shock, or depressed? I hope she feels better!